Brontoforumus Archive

Discussion Boards => Thaddeus Boyd's Panel of Death => Topic started by: Thad on March 30, 2008, 10:45:50 PM

Title: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 30, 2008, 10:45:50 PM
NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/media/29comics.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin)/Nrama (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/03/28/siegel-heirs-awarded-action-comics-1-copyright/)/uncivilsociety.org (http://uncivilsociety.org/2008/03/a-siegel-superman-copyright-de.html): federal judge restores a portion of the Superman rights to the Siegel family.

I am ambivalent about this.

While I am a strong advocate of creators' rights and it is absolutely tragic what a bum deal Siegel and Shuster got, I'm also a strong opponent of indefinite copyright extensions and think Superman should be in the public domain by now.  If this ruling holds on appeal, then it will stand as an excellent precedent, and a very important symbolic gesture acknowledging the decades of publishers taking advantage of artists, in many industries but perhaps in comics most of all.  But on the other hand, giving royalties to Siegel's heirs doesn't undo those wrongs, and it's absolutely ridiculous that there's still a copyright on Superman after 70 years.

I guess what I'm saying is, I want the courts to uphold this ruling, but I want the legislature to give us a copyright system that makes sense and make it a moot point.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on March 31, 2008, 05:25:40 AM
Blame Walt Disney and Sonny Bono.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law for TROLLING
Post by: Guild on March 31, 2008, 03:51:25 PM
Judges should all be robots with no emotion.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 31, 2008, 03:55:12 PM
Uh-huh.

Any intention of elaborating, or should I just default back to ignoring you?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law for TROLLING
Post by: Guild on March 31, 2008, 04:01:14 PM
I was actually half serious (which I usually am*).

I like the premise of Gort, the galactic judge/jury/executioner robot, sent to earth to judge our race for breaking very basic galactic laws against weapons of mass destruction. The galaxy-wide rule was something like 'no weapon can be made that is capable of killing more people than it takes to operate the weapon.'

Actually after a few seconds of research it turns out I made the specifics of that law up in my nostalgia, but the idea is similar.

The judge in this case got a big wet liberal tear in his eye and decided to screw the fans of Superman out of much desired public domain material because something happened in the past. It's fine to be an apologist, but I disagree with being an appropriations apologist.

*though I can see why a person who's only ever half serious would infuriate your poor analytical brain :D
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 01, 2008, 11:36:32 AM
The judge in this case got a big wet liberal tear in his eye and decided to screw the fans of Superman out of much desired public domain material because something happened in the past.

Er, no he didn't.  You've either completely misunderstood or you're toying with me.  Or both.

The case wasn't a decision on whether the Superman rights would become public domain or default to the Siegel estate.  It was a decision on whether DC would keep them all or the Siegel estate would get some of them back.  Public domain wasn't even part of the conversation.

I brought public domain up because I believe Superman should be public domain by now, which would make the ownership issue moot.  However, that's not a matter for the judiciary.  The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 redefined copyright terms to last 70 years past the creator's death or 95 years past corporate publication, and the Supreme Court has already ruled the Act constitutional, so there's not a goddamn thing a federal judge can do about it.

The public domain issue is related to this case -- again, because if copyright law were sane there wouldn't be a suit here -- but it's far outside the judge's jurisdiction.

I'm still not sure whether you're trying to have a real conversation here and just not following, or whether you're doing this on purpose to try and get me to waste my time replying to you.  If you want me to continue paying attention to your posts on this particular subforum, I would advise you read the posts here more carefully, check out the articles they link, and post more than a couple sentences to summarize your argument.  (You only devoted two sentences to what you were actually talking about, and all they did was reveal that you don't understand what we're talking about and also don't know what "apologist" means.  The rest of your post was a tangent.)  That and the use of phrases like "big wet liberal tear" sort of implies you're just trying to get a rise out of me.  (Yeah, because LIBERALS are responsible for extending copyright indefinitely.  That's exactly what liberals want, to consolidate power in the hands of a few and prevent the public from gaining any more control than it already has.  Why, that's just common sense; it's the very textbook definition of "liberal".)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 07, 2008, 10:27:32 PM
Two more from Jeff Trexler @ Nrama: summary of the ruling (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/04/02/the-miraculous-return-of-jerry-siegel/), thoughts on possible settlement (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/04/07/what-next-for-superman/#more-7722).

I've been reading up a lot on the background information of this case, and it's pretty interesting stuff.

Apparently in the 1970's, US copyright law was changed for just such situations as this, to allow creators the right to revoke copyright transfers.  The catch is that they have to wait 56 years, which of course is completely asinine.  It also strikes to the heart of my "this should be public domain rather than going to his family" complaint -- 56 years is long enough that most creators are going to be DEAD before that time elapses.  10 years seems a lot more reasonable to me.

And what of Shuster in this case?  Well, he went blind and died in a rest home, leaving no immediate family, but his nephew is apparently getting into the game now.  He missed the 56-year window, but gets another opportunity at 71 years, meaning in 2013 the OTHER half of the rights to Action Comics #1 is going to be revoked.

More to come, no question; this dispute has been raging since the 1940's and isn't going to go away.  It could take literally decades to determine what "derivative works" are covered and what the Siegel (and eventually Shuster) estate is entitled to in the way of royalties.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 15, 2008, 04:51:41 PM
Have been noticing a lot of yakking lately on the Orphan Works bill.  Jeff Trexler @ Nrama (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/04/15/orphan-works-overkill/) again explores the issue from both sides.

I looked up Lessig's comments on the issue (http://lessig.org/blog/2007/02/copyright_policy_orphan_works.html), since I tend to agree with his stance on copyright.  IANAL (though I have to say, I'm increasingly tempted to go into copyright law), but at a glance it seems like a reasonable compromise -- keeps the current "if you can prove it's yours, you have a copyright on it" policy for 14 years after creation, but THEN forces anyone who wants to keep a copyright to file some paperwork with a (non-government) registrar.  That sounds to me like it does a good job of protecting individuals' rights while strengthening the public domain.

Of course, it doesn't do a goddamn thing about corporations' advantage in the copyright market, and obviously a corporation will have an easier time registering its interests than an individual will.  I still want to see copyrights that expire within, say, 30 years of creation, and on a broader level I'd love to see Nader's idea of a 28th Amendment consisting entirely of the text "A corporation is not a person" implemented.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on April 18, 2008, 09:55:12 PM
a 28th Amendment consisting entirely of the text "A corporation is not a person" implemented.

oh god please this
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on April 18, 2008, 11:28:31 PM
Suppose I buy a TV that has been negligently designed, and it overheats and explodes and takes out both my eyes.  Who do I sue?  If a corporation is not a person, I can't sue Sony.  Shall I dig through piles and piles of paperwork and records, if records are even kept of such things, to find exactly which engineers introduced the flaw, which engineers failed to notice and correct it, which executives approved it, etc etc etc, introducing countless people all of whom must be sued individually, and with nearly no chance of success due to the near impossibility of tracing any specific negligence to a specific person with the minimum 51% certainty that a civil suit requires?  Or would it be better for me to be able to just sue Sony and be done with it?

Perhaps corporations should be prohibited from owning intellectual property, maybe limiting them to licensing it from the creators.  It's incredibly complicated, and I don't pretend to know a lot about copyright.  But legal personhood is a very broad thing, and centuries of jurisprudence and lawmaking have hinged on corporations as legal persons for the purposes of liability and ownership.  To make this change would be an impossibly huge and utterly infeasible task, because you'd pretty much have to restructure the majority of law from the ground up to account for it, and you'd still have problems like the one described.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 19, 2008, 12:07:13 AM
Suppose I buy a TV that has been negligently designed, and it overheats and explodes and takes out both my eyes.  Who do I sue?  If a corporation is not a person, I can't sue Sony.

Your entire premise is flawed.  "Only a person can hold legal liability" is a false statement.  Nobody claims the government is a person, and yet you can sue the government.

An entity made up of individuals can hold legal liability without being entitled to Constitutional freedoms such as privacy.

That said, the context in which I brought this up is perhaps a little glib.  I don't suppose I'm inherently opposed to the notion of corporate ownership, though I DO believe it needs to be weakened.

Treating a corporation as a person is an inherently unfair proposition, because a corporation inherently has more POWER than a single person.  I hesitate to play constructionist, but the Constitution was CLEARLY designed to protect the rights of individuals, not of faceless abstract entities.

The notion that a corporation can drop hundreds of millions of dollars buying a candidate's way into Congress or the White House, and call it "free speech", is abhorrent.  The mere definition of money as speech is a "some are more equal than others" proposition, and when you add corporate personhood, you effectively state that corporations are entitled to more free speech than actual human beings.

You've turned the issue on its head.  You are suggesting that corporate personhood protects individuals from the abuses of corporations.  In reality, it does the opposite.  It doesn't grant the little guy a right to stand up to an unfeeling, powerful abstraction -- the little guy already has that right.  It grants the unfeeling, powerful abstraction the right to claim that IT is in fact being oppressed by the little guy.

And in a dispute between two persons, one of whom has the resources of an actual person and the other of whom has the resources of a corporation -- well, it's pretty clear who the likely victor is.  Especially if it's the same "person" who wrote the law and paid various politicians to sponsor and pass it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on April 19, 2008, 09:24:40 AM
I:wuv:ANAL, but isn't the very definition of a corporation that it serves as a person legally?  You'd have to sort of redefine the word to make it work, or else ban the notion of "Corporation" altogether and only allow LLCs or whatever.

Semantics, yes, but corporate law is nothing but semantics.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 19, 2008, 03:24:53 PM
No.  A corporation is defined as an entity that has a set of rights, privileges, and liabilities that are distinct from those of its constituent members.  Having the same rights as an individual person is not inherent in that definition.

Corporate personhood dates back to the late 19th century, and was a court decision rather than a legislative one.  Changing the law would eliminate 150 years' or so worth of precedent, but that's what Constitutional Amendments are FOR: granting rights to the populace that have, under earlier precedent, been denied.

The opposing argument is that removing corporate personhood LIMITS rights -- but it doesn't limit actual humans' rights, it limits corporations' rights.  Which, given the way the country is presently run, exist in DIRECT OPPOSITION to the people's rights.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on May 01, 2008, 04:35:37 PM
Quote
RIAA loses key music decision

Mathew Ingram, today at 12:28 PM EDT

One of the long-running lawsuits that the Recording Industry Association of America has against illegal file-sharing of digital music tracks is the Atlantic v. Howell case, which involves a husband and wife and the music that they kept on their computer. The RIAA's argument last year -- an argument that was initially accepted by the court -- was that even though the agency couldn't prove that anyone actually downloaded copies of the music from the Howell's PC (other than a company working for the RIAA), the simple fact that their files were kept in a "shared" folder available to the Kazaa P2P software was enough to breach the law.

That decision was struck down this week, however: Judge Wake of the District Court of Arizona ruled that while section 106 (3) of the U.S. Copyright Act gives the owner of copyrighted works the exclusive right to "distribute copies" of those works, the law doesn't define the term “distribute,” and so the courts have had to do so. The general rule, Judge Wake said in his decision, was that “infringement of [the distribution right] requires an actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords.” The decision (PDF link) goes on to quote copyright experts William Patry ("without actual distribution of copies of the [work], there is no violation of the distribution right”) and William Goldstein (“an actual transfer must take place; a mere offer for sale will not infringe the right”).

The court also rejected the RIAA's motion on another point: the agency argued that the Howells were guilty of primary copyright infringement for sharing the music through Kazaa -- but the court decision said that even if someone had downloaded a copy of the music from them, because of the way that a peer-to-peer network functions, that would still only be a case of secondary copyright infringement, since the downloader would not be taking the Howells' file, but merely making a copy of their copy.

The decision ends with this statement: "The court is not unsympathetic to the difficulty that Internet file-sharing systems pose to owners of registered copyrights. Even so, it is not the position of this court to respond to new technological innovations by expanding the protections received by copyright holders beyond those found in the Copyright Act." The decision doesn't mean the Howell case is over, however -- it now proceeds to a regular trial. The RIAA had been pushing for what's called "summary judgment," which is a much faster process.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on May 01, 2008, 09:16:52 PM
tl;dr

sauce?

a/s/l?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on May 01, 2008, 09:46:54 PM
The essential:

Quote
The decision ends with this statement: "The court is not unsympathetic to the difficulty that Internet file-sharing systems pose to owners of registered copyrights. Even so, it is not the position of this court to respond to new technological innovations by expanding the protections received by copyright holders beyond those found in the Copyright Act."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 06, 2008, 12:03:00 AM
Quote
"The court is not unsympathetic to the difficulty that Internet file-sharing systems pose to owners of registered copyrights. Even so, it is not the position of this court to respond to new technological innovations by expanding the protections received by copyright holders beyond those found in the Copyright Act."

"That's Congress's job."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on May 06, 2008, 01:40:47 AM
I view the RIAA as a bunch of old senior people screaming at the kids on their lawn and having no idea where they are or what they're doing.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Kazz on May 06, 2008, 04:40:00 AM
I respect the RIAA's position, as far as the rights of copyright holders not to have their material shared without their permission (specifically, the ability of a product's creator to control how it is distributed).  I don't respect a single fucking thing the RIAA has done to defend its position.  Once you single out some oblivious individual out of the millions guilty of the "crime" you're against and turn their lives directly into shit, you lose all my sympathy and fuck you sideways.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 06, 2008, 11:56:43 AM
I respect the RIAA's position, as far as the rights of copyright holders not to have their material shared without their permission (specifically, the ability of a product's creator to control how it is distributed).

See the mistake you just made there?  I'm sure it was just a slip of the tongue, but it's a nontrivial one, and takes us back to where I started this thread.

Part of the problem here is that publishers, not creators, hold all the cards here.  And part of the problem is that they see that power slipping away.  Time was, you wanted to make a career as a musician, comic book writer or artist, whatever, you had to go through them.  And that's not the case anymore.

The RIAA's response has been to attempt to stop the inevitable, to try to close the barn door after the horse has already left.  As the judge said, you can't just extend copyright law because new technology has been created (and as I sardonically added, Congress has repeatedly done exactly that).

The RIAA is the villain in this story not for trying to protect its copyright, but for suing fourteen-year-olds and trying to make it illegal to copy CD's to your iPod.

Oh, and for the past several decades of treating the actual creators who make the music like shit.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on May 06, 2008, 12:07:09 PM
The RIAA is the villain in this story not for trying to protect its copyright, but for suing fourteen-year-olds and trying to make it illegal to copy CD's to your iPod.

Isn't that what he said?

Sans the next bit?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 06, 2008, 12:15:48 PM
It is; I was agreeing with his point but correcting his misuse of the term "creator".
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on May 06, 2008, 01:51:22 PM
Oh, and for the past several decades of treating the actual creators who make the music like shit.

:objection: Nonsense! They were given all the cocaine they wanted! Whether they wanted it or not!
Title: Re: What the fuck?
Post by: Saturn on May 29, 2008, 05:40:12 PM
Revision3 sends FBI after Media Defender (http://torrentfreak.com/revision3-sends-fbi-after-mediadefender-080529/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 01, 2008, 11:56:42 AM
Moved to correct thread.

There's been more over the past few days; PC World's blog (http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007038.html) seems to have the best account.

My view on this is uncompromising: MediaDefender should be DESTROYED over this.  The company should be sued for every thin dime it has.

It doesn't matter that the DoS was "unintentional".  The bottom line is that they were using someone else's tracker to spread their files, and when they were locked out, retaliated by knocking the server down.

I don't care that the DoS program was deployed by accident.  The fact is, someone made it.  That they turned it on a legitimate, legal filesharing tracker IS worse than if they had turned it on pirates, but even if it were used against lawbreakers it would still be unacceptable mob justice.

Perhaps the best summary, from the Wired blog (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/mediadefender-d.html):

Quote
Louderback said if MediaDefender was "concerned that we were tracking copyrighted material, they should have called us."

I have had enough of corporate vigilantes deciding it's all right to mete out their own personal brand of justice.  Revision3 should take them for everything they have.  Make an example of them.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 01, 2008, 06:47:07 PM
Those fuckers should burn.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 13, 2008, 10:27:14 AM
GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/06/13/game-consumers-win-federal-court039s-quotfirst-salequot-ruling): judge rules it legal to sell used promo CD's.

Sanity prevails again.  We're on the right track here.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on June 22, 2008, 09:56:14 PM
 MPAA says no PROOF needed in P2P Copyright infringement suits  (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mpaa-says-no-pr.html)

isn't you know, HAVING PROOF THAT SOMEONE DID SOMETHING kind of required to do anything involving damages?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 22, 2008, 10:12:48 PM
See, I'll bet you think it can't possibly get more absurd than that.

Oh how wrong you are.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 22, 2008, 10:20:04 PM
isn't you know, HAVING PROOF THAT SOMEONE DID SOMETHING kind of required to do anything involving damages?

Nope. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 23, 2008, 07:28:19 AM
Hey, Thad, quit breaking my copyrights.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on June 23, 2008, 10:05:42 AM
I demand that you take down that post.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 23, 2008, 02:55:16 PM
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.
I demand that you take down that post.


Ahahah! I can sell these at 30 cents each in Chinatown.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on June 23, 2008, 04:11:30 PM
But... you shouldn't be able to do that!  Didn't you see how badly I griefed Constantine?

Clearly the only way to stop your illegal activities is to utterly destroy Constantine.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 23, 2008, 04:19:04 PM
Brentai © Constantine 2008
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 23, 2008, 08:09:35 PM
©
©
©
©
©
©
©
©
©
©
©

???

Profit!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 05, 2008, 09:36:52 PM
...So okay.  I have a Mac Mini which I store my music on, and when I want to play it on my Linux box, I play it from my iPod.

Now, since almost my entire music collection is ripped from CD's, that's not a problem for playing most of it.  But I DO have one album I downloaded from the iTunes Music Store a couple years back.  (I got a gift certificate for sitting through an Apple sales pitch.  I don't buy albums from RIAA affiliates, but since the money had already been spent, I used it to download Straight Outta Lynwood.)

So tonight, as I saw one of my legally-purchased music tracks come up on shuffle and then fail to play on my Linux box because of the DRM, I decided to hit up Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay_(DRM)) and see if anyone had come up with a tool to crack the latest version of FairPlay.

I wound up trying a tool called Requiem, and it worked just great, with a simple drag-and-drop interface.  Now I can listen to my legally-purchased Weird Al album on my primary OS!

While I assume most of you aren't in the habit of playing songs off your iPod on OS's that don't support iTunes, I highly recommend using this tool for backups and such -- my grandmother's been through something like four different reinstalls in the last few years and, even with backups, it's been a real pain in the ass for her to re-register her music every time.  (You have to strip the DRM BEFORE the backup, as it only works on machines that are already authorized to play the tracks.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on July 22, 2008, 08:24:01 PM
 EFF Opposes MPAA's Selectable Output Control FCC Petition  (http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/eff-opposes-mpaas-selectable-output-control-fcc-pe)

MPAA Wants to be able to control which parts of your home theater actually work.

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 22, 2008, 09:58:58 PM
And Guild explains why it's okay and the free market will save us in 3...2...
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on July 22, 2008, 10:18:06 PM
The Pirate's Dilemma talks a bit about the relationship between youth/pop culture and corporate/commercial interest.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6483543718966313073

EDIT: Fucking automatic embed.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Kazz on July 23, 2008, 10:42:54 AM
tinyurl is the only way around it
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 14, 2008, 12:05:45 PM
Information Week (http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210004154): appellate court rules that open-source licenses are legally binding.

Quote
"The clear language of the Artistic License creates conditions to protect the economic rights at issue in the granting of a public license. These conditions govern the rights to modify and distribute the computer programs and files included in the downloadable software package," the court said.

The appeals court also ruled that Jacobsen could sue for monetary damages, even though his product is free. "The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration," the court said.

"There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licenses that range far beyond traditional license royalties. For example, program creators may generate market share for their programs by providing certain components free of charge. Similarly, a programmer or company may increase its national or international reputation by incubating open source projects," the court ruled.

Score one for the good guys.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 25, 2008, 02:42:34 PM
A small amount of good news? (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080821.wdancebaby0821/BNStory/Technology/home?cid=al_gam_mostview)

EDIT BY THAD: Here is the lede:

Quote
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge is allowing a Pennsylvania woman to sue Universal Music Corp. for forcing YouTube to take down a video clip of her baby dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy."

(FURTHER EDIT BY THAD: I wonder if the AP will issue a takedown notice for quoting their article, without considering fair use.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 25, 2008, 04:17:46 PM
:lol:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 28, 2008, 11:26:53 PM
Cnet (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10028214-93.html): Court dismisses Io's suit against Veoh; says that Veoh is not responsible for the videos posted on it.

The comparisons to Viacom's suit against Google are what you'd expect; the people who support Google say this is a good precedent, while the people who support Viacom are pointing out why the Veoh suit is different.  Namely: Io didn't issue any takedown notices, it just jumped straight into a lawsuit; also, Viacom is claiming YouTube's entire business model is built around piracy (which was relevant in the Napster case), while Veoh has substantial network backing.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on August 29, 2008, 12:55:57 PM
"Another important difference between Io and Viacom is that Io didn't prove Veoh's business model was dependent on piracy. In its ongoing lawsuit with YouTube, Viacom argues that YouTube is built on illegal content."

I wish bullshit like that would get a case thrown out.


Tangentially related video, on fair use, cobbled together from Disney clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

(Sorry if this was already linked here.  Chances are it was; it's a little old.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 23, 2008, 02:26:20 PM
GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/09/23/digital-rights-groups-go-court-over-secret-anti-piracy-treaty): multiple big national governments are trying to hash out an anti-piracy treaty -- in secret.  EFF and Public Knowledge are suing under the FOIA.  According to Hal Halpin of the ECA, Intel, Yahoo, and Verizon are on our side, pushing for more openness in the process and against any DMCA provisions.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 25, 2008, 11:59:34 AM
Information Week (http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210603946): a federal judge has thrown out a $222K verdict for song-sharing.

Quote
U.S. District of Minnesota Chief Judge Michael Davis ordered a new trial for Jammie Thomas, saying the jury's punishment was "unprecedented and oppressive." Davis said that the term "distribution" does not apply to simply making music available. It requires actual dissemination, he said.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on September 25, 2008, 12:43:20 PM
So basically it's not distribution because they never bothered to prove that anybody actually downloaded it.

But suppose they did.  What then?  You're left trying to argue that she put those files up for legal copy only and it's not her fault that people were using that to make unauthorized copies.  And, well, that's a line of bull you can only swallow if you're following every literal letter of the law.

Obviously I agree with overturning such a truly disproportionate ruling (cruel and unusual, yo), but I don't like the arguable logic that the decision comes with.  Now the RIAA gets to use the fallacious but legally effective corollary: if they can prove that filesharing is distribution, then suddenly that fine is now totally justified.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on September 27, 2008, 09:38:47 PM
Quote from: http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4045
In one negative holding for RIAA opponents, Judge Davis ruled that MediaSentry’s downloading of music from Thomas’s computer is sufficient for distribution.

Quote
    Thomas, herself, provided the copyrighted works for copying and placed them on a network specifically designed for easy, unauthorized copying. These actions would constitute more substantial participation in the infringement than the actions of the defendants in the Eighth Circuit cases who merely assisted in copying works provided by the investigators.

This is actually a huge negative for Thomas because it’s a clear signal that on retrial, with proper jury instructions, RIAA can prove distribution.

Peerguardian2 blocking Media Defender grows a bit more relevant.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 01, 2008, 12:01:16 AM
LA Times: Hollywood studios sue to stop distribution of DVD-copying software (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-realnet1-2008oct01,0,3710188.story).

Specifically, it's for copying DVD's to a computer.

It's pretty much the same shenanigans the RIAA recently tried to pull by laughably suggesting it's illegal to copy CD's you own to your own computer.  I would assume the main difference here is that there's no CD rental industry; DVD ripping software makes it trivial to rent a DVD, copy it to your computer, and then have a permanent copy of the movie for the price of a rental.

Still, it has substantial noninfringing use, and I'm hoping the courts will recognize that.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 01, 2008, 05:12:01 PM
Doctorow has more on same (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/30/mpaa-spokeslawyers-i.html).  He adds something that I didn't notice in the other article: RealDVD STILL slaps DRM on DVD's it rips.  The MPAA is suing because the program strips out their DRM and PUTS SOMEBODY ELSE'S ON IT.

Crazier still, and the main point Doctorow notes in his post, is that the MPAA's lawyers ASK NOT TO BE NAMED.

Quote
Wait wait wait wait: what? These unnamed lawyers are on a press-call with the media, as spokespeople for their company, and they "asked that their names not be published?" And journalists complied?

Truly, this is a new low in chickenshittery that has me scraping my jaw off my chest. These lawyers aren't deep-throat whistle-blowers sneaking information out of their employers' filing cabinets: they're the official spokespeople for the firm. And they get anonymity?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 08, 2008, 03:53:00 PM
Ars (http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars/4) via GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/10/08/ars-technica-finds-no-basis-oft-cited-costs-piracy): the statistics that the RIAA, MPAA, and ESA always trot out for money and jobs lost to piracy appear to be completely made-up.

I mean, I always naturally assumed they were exaggerated, but I assumed there was at least some bullshit formula used to come up with them, like the RIAA's $2000 per pirated song or whatever -- it may be vastly inflated, but at least it's a mechanism for calculating a total.  Ars Technica says it can't find a primary source for the "750,000 lost jobs and $250 billion" figures anywhere, and there's no telling where the hell they even came from.

And yet, Congress has been writing laws, and the FBI has been enforcing them, based on those numbers for the past 15 years.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 08, 2008, 03:59:03 PM
The real question is: Will anyone with the power to do anything actually see this and... do anything?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Classic on October 08, 2008, 04:10:07 PM
I guess they're arguing that bribing senators to pass draconian protection laws is a natural outcome of piracy? And then they fire 750,000 people just to piss on the working man.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 08, 2008, 06:52:01 PM
The real question is: Will anyone with the power to do anything actually see this and... do anything?

...you're trying to get me to go to law school, aren't you.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 08, 2008, 07:11:20 PM
Well, all of my OTHER friends online seem to be lawyers or are on their way.*

*This was in no way deliberately my choice.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on October 08, 2008, 08:09:41 PM
THAD, YOU HAVE TO DEFEND ME ON THESE DOMESTIC ABUSE CHARGES.

OH, AND CAN YOU TAKE A LOOK AT MY COMPUTER?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Romosome on October 08, 2008, 08:15:10 PM
Doctorow has more on same (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/30/mpaa-spokeslawyers-i.html).  He adds something that I didn't notice in the other article: RealDVD STILL slaps DRM on DVD's it rips.  The MPAA is suing because the program strips out their DRM and PUTS SOMEBODY ELSE'S ON IT.

Crazier still, and the main point Doctorow notes in his post, is that the MPAA's lawyers ASK NOT TO BE NAMED.

Quote
Wait wait wait wait: what? These unnamed lawyers are on a press-call with the media, as spokespeople for their company, and they "asked that their names not be published?" And journalists complied?

Truly, this is a new low in chickenshittery that has me scraping my jaw off my chest. These lawyers aren't deep-throat whistle-blowers sneaking information out of their employers' filing cabinets: they're the official spokespeople for the firm. And they get anonymity?

The MPAA loves being anonymous just because it says so.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on October 09, 2008, 12:19:42 AM
I'm sort of surprised nobody's called the RIAA on their bullshit, but I guess it doesn't work that way. Maybe when you keep as many lawyers in a job as the RIAA does, it's hard to find a law firm who's quick to complain.

Remember when they sued a Russian company for the entire monthly GDP of Russia?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 09, 2008, 04:08:07 AM
LOL, I know a bunch of Russians... Good luck collecting on THAT
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on October 14, 2008, 08:19:38 AM
 Bush signs PRO-IP act into law, the same one that passed DUE TO THAT 250 BILLION FIGURE THAT WAS COMPLETELY MADE UP  (http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE49C7EI20081013)

 :khaaan:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on October 14, 2008, 11:44:01 AM
Refusing to legalize cannabis costs the American economy 800 billion dollars a year and has cost over three thousand American lives over the past decade. See, I can invent facts too!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 14, 2008, 12:43:17 PM
Apparently the strength of this bill is that it's universally broad and full of loopholes.  Hoo-ray.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 14, 2008, 01:20:02 PM
Like the DMCA.

It's pretty much up to the courts to decide which parts of it are obvious bullshit.  On the plus side, they've gotten much better at that.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on October 18, 2008, 03:38:09 AM
Quote from: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/17/selling-used-cds-is.html
Recent legislation in Florida, Utah, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island has made it more difficult to sell used CDs in those states than it is to get a driver’s license. In Florida, for example, anyone attempting to sell used CDs to a retailer must present identification and be fingerprinted, and any retailer looking to sell those same CDs must apply for a permit and submit a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Human Services.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 18, 2008, 09:26:41 AM
...yeah, I don't have anything but  :scanners:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on October 19, 2008, 11:12:07 AM
Quote from: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/nz-law-to-punish-on-suspicion-of-piracy-476406
In the first move of its kind against online copyright infringement, New Zealand's government has introduced a law that could force ISPs to disconnect customers they only suspect of distributing copyright material.

The Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 is due to become law next February and echoes a similar proposal that failed to win acceptance in the EU earlier this year.

Quote from: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4725572a28.html
Recording Industry Association chief executive Campbell Smith has said it would be "impractical and ridiculous" for copyright owners to prove the guilt of infringers in court before demanding they be cut off from the Internet.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 19, 2008, 02:49:21 PM
Jesus Christ, we're going down like dominoes.

Is there no country on the planet with testicles or a leader with even a fractional understanding of these issues? I mean, sure the whole thing can come tumbling down for the most part, but there ought to be SOME exceptions.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Dooly on October 19, 2008, 10:07:48 PM
I think ThePirateBay is still alive only because Sweden's view on the whole piracy thing is "we have more important stuff to worry about."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 14, 2008, 12:40:20 PM
videogaming247 (http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/10/capps-we-really-need-to-make-strides-against-the-secondhand-market/): Epic boss proposes doing an end-run around first sale doctrine by making games impossible to finish without registering.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 14, 2008, 12:51:31 PM
At least now they're being pretty honest about their efforts to punish legitimate users.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on November 14, 2008, 01:29:44 PM
videogaming247 (http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/11/10/capps-we-really-need-to-make-strides-against-the-secondhand-market/): Epic boss proposes doing an end-run around first sale doctrine by making games impossible to finish without registering.

The limits of Copyright control of after-market products is pretty well-established.  Capps is blowing smoke out his ass unless he's willing to get Congress involved, and he would basically be fucking the entire rental market for pretty much everything.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on November 14, 2008, 01:34:38 PM
Well-established, and constantly under attack by the EAs and the Valves of the world.

This is not a big step from current online activation, which is telling of how vile that shit is.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on November 14, 2008, 01:45:16 PM
They are able to make the case for online activation for their games because it is arguably the most effective way available to fight piracy/digital copying, which is an illegal activity that would otherwise be spectacularly easy to carry out, since their games are playable solely as computer files. 

Gears of War, as a console game, requires the physical disk to play, so the rampant piracy and distribution that justifies what Valve argues for is nowhere near as feasible.  This is completely distinguishable.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on November 14, 2008, 01:55:32 PM
... except that online activation is completely ineffectual at preventing piracy.  It is, in fact, effective exclusively at preventing legal second-hand purchase.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 14, 2008, 02:14:23 PM
We're not talking about used PC games here.  That hasn't been a real industry since the mid-80s, for obvious reasons.

They're talking about doing the Steam thing for console games, which pretty much fucks over your chances of buying or selling used, or renting.  Not that I'm exactly going to weep for the massacre of Blockbuster and Gamestop but it should be noted that I do most of my console gaming that way, considering how horribly uneconomical buying everything you want to play brand new is (which is, oh the irony, one of the reasons why piracy is so common for PC games.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 14, 2008, 02:18:20 PM
The limits of Copyright control of after-market products is pretty well-established.  Capps is blowing smoke out his ass unless he's willing to get Congress involved, and he would basically be fucking the entire rental market for pretty much everything.

Well, you're the lawyer, not me, but I think history shows plenty of cases where publishers introduce odious, anti-consumer copy protection which a reasonable person would know fully well is illegal and wait for the lawsuits to roll in before they stop.  The Sony rootkit is the most obvious example.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Alex on November 14, 2008, 04:04:37 PM
I'm with Brentai here (on lol PC gaming, not shedding tears over GameStop and brand new games).  As it stands, with brand new games at $60 is terribly uneconomical considering the industry really could care less about anything other than whether or not you buy their games.

I think that if they really REALLY wanted to see their hardwork pay off while at least giving the used game industry a light slap in the face, new games would be at $40 or less.  That way, they would be making the price of things attractive enough to convince people to actually buy them (most reasonable human beings who aren't made of money would definitely prefer to buy 3 games for $120 rather than 2 games at $120) and giving the used game industry a light slap in the face (hopefully).

Who knows though, I could be talking without having any idea of what's going on for realz.  :hurr:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 14, 2008, 05:23:33 PM
The used games industry doesn't need a light slap in the face.  They've done nothing wrong (other than being generally overpriced, which is certainly not hurting the producers).  Saying you need to curtail second-hand purchases is like saying you need to take care of the fact that you're making cars that run for more than a year without needing to be replaced.  When I buy a physical copy of Gears of War 2, I reserve the right to give that CD to anybody else I want, to sell it, to toss it out into the street for whoever to grab it, or to stick it up my ass.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Alex on November 14, 2008, 05:36:58 PM
The slap in the face was more from the consumer end for being overpriced buttheads.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 14, 2008, 05:52:58 PM
Meh.  I could do without karma taking the form of a pissing match between corporate powers.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 14, 2008, 08:27:31 PM
I don't really have a problem with the publishers starting a price war.  Seems to me that's how things are SUPPOSED to work -- honest competition.  (The problem, of course, is if they start running places like Blockbuster and GameStop out of business, but that's a pretty tricky thing to do to an industry that's pure profit.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Classic on November 14, 2008, 10:44:26 PM
an industry that's pure profit

Say what now? I have no idea what you mean by that, because I don't know what technical definition you're using and the "commonsense" definition would mean you're Reaganomics-insane.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 15, 2008, 12:17:18 AM
When you resell a used game, you pocket every penny.

I suppose "pure profit" an exaggeration since GameStop DOES in fact have to buy the games it then resells, it just buys them for next to nothing and then sells them for many times that price.

All right, and then there's the upkeep of the store and rental of the property and employee salaries and what have you.  But my point is that that's GameStop's money and they don't have to share it with anyone outside their company.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Classic on November 15, 2008, 12:38:44 AM
But by that logic no pawn shop should ever go under!

Whatever, I get the argument now. I'm clearly still pissed about everything and imagining that people are saying insane things when they're really not. Somehow it got in my head that you were claiming the resale and rental scene was some kind of sure-fire money machine.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on November 15, 2008, 12:59:47 AM
I would like to see GameStop get kicked in the ass, but not used games on the whole. Gamestop's wild success has made them fucking pricks. The problem, I see, is that you can't hammer Gamestop without hurting used games.

I'm not really sure how to phrase it beyond "They're pricks", but I can give an example of what I mean, from an Interview with the Penny Arcade guys about their game (http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/exclusive-inter.html)

Quote from: Wired Magazine
Gabe: Robert said we could talk about that deal with GameStop.

We had a meeting with GameStop to talk about selling a boxed version of the game. Once we had a bunch of episodes together, we would collect them and put them in a box, you know? And GameStop said, oh, that's fantastic. We'd love to do it, we'd love to carry the game... but it's not going to be available anywhere else, is it?

And Robert said, well, we're going to digitally distribute it first.

They got really upset. And they said, no, you can't do that. We can't have it in our store if it's coming out digitally first. And he said, well, I'm sorry, that's the way it works. We're publishing our game and we can say where it goes. And so the deal that they tried to strike with Robert was okay, well, listen: If you cut us in on the profits from online distribution, and XBLA, and everything it comes out on, then we'll think about carrying it in the store. Just, what assholes.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 15, 2008, 01:25:58 AM
Theoretically makes sense, since they wouldn't want to have to stock and retail something that's freely available for electronic distribution with no markup.  Bullshit in practice, though.  I can guarantee you they've got copies of Fallout 3 and Left 4 Dead stocked up the wazoo and aren't losing money on the deal.

The dynamic probably changes with the fact the the PA game is being distributed through XBLA, though.  GameStop keeps a low stock of PC games for a reason, and they're pretty much the exception to the rule: AAA titles that they're going to sell a couple of despite the fact that they can be downloaded, or MMORPGs which are odd in that they're more likely than offline games to require purchase of a hard copy.  Console games, on the other hand, almost always require purchase of a hard copy... except for PAA.  Which is, sorry, not an extremely high-profile title and is specifically targeted to a niche of internet-savvy consumers.  GameStop is therefore left trying to sell a box, and there's no indication that it's going to be a particularly nice box.

That said, I have no problem believing that they're being undue pricks about it, because that's just what that company does.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on November 15, 2008, 01:30:43 AM
It may be a low volume seller, but that doesn't really give them the right to demand a cut of every other single way the game is being sold.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 15, 2008, 08:04:04 AM
Correct... they could have just said 'no thanks'. Instead they continue to grope futilely for an opportunity to suckle a teat that has already been withdrawn.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 15, 2008, 10:21:26 AM
Well, they're a company.  Best case scenario, they get free money.  Worst case scenario, PA says no and they end up looking like assholes, which they're used to.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 15, 2008, 12:15:40 PM
See, it's a misnomer to think that that's the only way to operate a business.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Guild on November 15, 2008, 12:24:03 PM
See, it's a misnomer to think that that's the only way to operate a business.

I think in this case you mean misconception.

If a kazoo shop tried to expand into real estate, sure, that would be silly. Brentai's saying that, in this case, the company's grasping at every opportunity within their spectrum is actually expected. I'll take it one step further and say it's healthy.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 15, 2008, 12:26:17 PM
Not exactly healthy, no.  Shit publicity like this does not do a company good.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Guild on November 15, 2008, 12:53:22 PM
Stock brokers put less, er, stock in public opinion than you might think. A douche move might even draw the right attention and push some stock.


What?

It's a possibility.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Norondor on November 15, 2008, 12:53:58 PM
Doesn't hurt them in the slightest, as a result of the Games Workshop Effect.

A captive audience of hobbyists can't be driven away by anything.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on November 15, 2008, 01:09:29 PM
Quote from: Wired Magazine
They got really upset. And they said, no, you can't do that. We can't have it in our store if it's coming out digitally first.

Their fear. It is palpable.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 15, 2008, 01:14:51 PM
You guys completely misunderstood.

Being a "Good" can be good for business too. "Evil" is just easier* (especially when an organization is concerned rather than an individual) and is therefore more prevalent.

Fuck, this shit isn't that hard, dammit. Anyone can benfit from this outlook. Businesses, trade groups, community organizations, and yes, political parties; all of these - really, any group of people working together.

Just ask your President-Elect. He got the fucking message at least.

*no 'Dark Side is quicker and more seductive' jokes, for the love of God.

Quote from: Wired Magazine
They got really upset. And they said, no, you can't do that. We can't have it in our store if it's coming out digitally first.

Their fear. It is palpable.

It's kind of like catching the smell of your own death in the cool breeze of dawn.

EDIT: Quotation marks added for the forum members still running with training wheels.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on November 15, 2008, 05:22:32 PM
I have nothing really meaningful to add to the conversation, but I was in a Gamestop the other day, and I saw two copies of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 going for $89.99 Used.

Quote from: ME, TWO SECONDS AGO
$89.99 Used.

Quote from: ME, TWO SECONDS AGO
$89.99 Used.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 15, 2008, 05:24:13 PM
Quote from: McDohl, TWO SECONDS AGO
$89.99 MILES PER HOURRRRRRRRRR
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on November 15, 2008, 05:25:11 PM
Quote from: McDohl, TWO SECONDS AGO
$89.99 MILES PER HOURRRRRRRRRR
It runs on price gouging, Marty!

EDIT: There's something I want to shout, but I can't quite think of what it is...
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 15, 2008, 05:27:11 PM
Something killed that joke.  I am not sure exactly what interrupted the flow there, but I would understand if you wanted to shout angrily at it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Alex on November 15, 2008, 05:30:56 PM
Just burn it for the Dreamcast, man.  That's what I did.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on November 15, 2008, 06:04:23 PM
Isn't that on XBLA for like $10?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on November 15, 2008, 06:15:33 PM
Doesn't hurt them in the slightest, as a result of the Games Workshop Effect.

A captive audience of hobbyists can't be driven away by anything.

of course tiny plastic men are harder to pirate.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 15, 2008, 06:59:02 PM
Yeah, the used movie market in Toronto is like that.

Dr. Zhivago, new: $25

Dr. Zhivago, used (same edition): $30

Pick a movie, rinse, repeat. $7 new? $10 used. $15 new? $18-20 used.

 :scanners:

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on November 15, 2008, 08:45:37 PM
I take it you make regular trips to Pacific Mall to shop for movies then.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 15, 2008, 09:16:02 PM
I take it you make regular trips to Pacific Mall to shop for movies then.

Pacific Mall is TERRIBLE for movies unless you want AZN FARE or mainstream recently-released crap. I couldn't get something like The Blue Max, or even Lawrence of Arabia from Pacific Mall if my life depended on it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on November 16, 2008, 07:25:44 AM
Just burn it for the Dreamcast, man.  That's what I did.
Don't own a dreamcast anymore, and I totally lament not having one.  It was stolen out of my family's storage unit when I was in Florida for military vocational training in 2004.
Isn't that on XBLA for like $10?
Not as of yet.  Only fighter I've seen on XBLA is the Street Fighter II game.  And Puzzle Fighter, but that's not really a fighter.  That would be an EXCELLENT way for Capcom to totally shit on Gamestop's parade, though.  TA can bitch about the ability to resell the games you download, but, fuck, man, this is just fucking retarded.  90 bucks for a mediocre fighting game just simply because it's spastic, popular, and was released in small numbers.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 16, 2008, 09:19:49 AM
Yeah, that's a scam.  GameStop just wants to take you for ride.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on November 16, 2008, 11:19:09 AM
FUCK
IT'S IN MY HEAD

FUCK YOU BRENTAI. FUCK YOU.
:MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA::MENDOZAAAAA:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 16, 2008, 11:49:51 AM
Party on, party on.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: François on November 16, 2008, 01:14:35 PM
This is true love we're making!

oh wait
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on November 16, 2008, 04:34:02 PM
It's not xbla, it's on the Xbox originals.


Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on November 17, 2008, 03:51:41 PM
Hmm.  The only fighting game I see on Originals is Guilty Gear XX #Reload.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 17, 2008, 04:18:37 PM
Harvard Law professor taking RIAA defense case in order to try and have the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 thrown out as unconstitutional. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081117.wgfprof1117/BNStory/Technology/home)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 17, 2008, 08:46:02 PM
Quote
Dr. Nesson is best known for defending the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers and for consulting on the case against chemical companies that was depicted in the film A Civil Action.

FUCK YES.  This guy is the real deal.

Quote
Entertainment attorney Jay Cooper, who specializes in music and copyright issues at Los Angeles-based Greenberg Traurig, is convinced that Dr. Nesson will not persuade the federal court to strike down the copyright law. He said the statutory damages it awards enable recording companies to get compensation in cases where it is difficult to prove actual damages.

That...sounds a little tenuous, doesn't it?  "We have no idea what this guy actually cost us, so we're just going to say it's A MILLION DOLLARS."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 15, 2008, 12:49:22 PM
Per GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/12/15/harvard-law-school-vs-riaa-fight), court proceedings start today.

Quote
Alleging that Joel file-shared seven songs as a teenager, the RIAA is seeking more than one million dollars from Tenenbaum family. Odly [sic] enough, if the same music was purchased on iTunes, the total value would be all of $6.93.

Matt Sanchez, one of law students assisting Prof. Nesson, said:

Quote
The basic rules of evidence suggest that this invasion of privacy is both unnecessary and absurd. This hearing isn’t only about Joel’s parents.  It’s also about finally putting up a fight against the recording industry’s intimidation practices.

An except [sic] from a case document filed by the Harvard team explains their position:

Quote
    The [RIAA] is in the process of bringing to bear upon the defendant, Joel Tenenbaum, the full might of its lobbying influence and litigating power. Joel Tenenbaum was a teenager at the time of the alleged copyright infringements, in every way representative of his born-digital generation. The plaintiffs and the RIAA are seeking to punish him beyond any rational measure of the damage he allegedly caused.

     

    They do this, not for the purpose of recovering compensation for actual damage caused by Joel’s individual action, nor for the primary purpose of deterring him from further copyright infringement, but for the ulterior purpose of creating an urban legend so frightening to children using computers, and so frightening to parents and teachers of students using computers, that they will somehow reverse the tide of the digital future[.]
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on December 15, 2008, 08:12:26 PM
That, and charging a 144,300,000% mark-up to a captive market.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on December 15, 2008, 08:19:33 PM
Justified if 144,301 people successfully downloaded from him he reseeded 100% his files 144,300 times.

To put that into perspective, most people on average reseed their files to 100%... less than once.

144,300,000%

I think you put one too many zeros in there.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on December 15, 2008, 08:34:26 PM
P.S. Assuming for a moment that his seed ratio wasn't over ninety thousaaaaaaand, here's the SCOTUS position on what the RIAA should reasonably expect to wring from him in punitive damages:

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages
Most recently, in Philip Morris USA v. Williams (2007), the Court ruled that punitive damage awards cannot be imposed for the direct harm that the misconduct caused others, but may consider harm to others as a function of determining how reprehensible it was.

In other words: not responsible for any of the RIAA's problems.  Only responsible for compensating for the social perception of his crime.

He was filesharing.

Seven.

Songs.

Which isn't even illegal, in itself.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on December 16, 2008, 06:07:01 AM
As for reprehensible, he maybe potentially cost a multi-billion dollar business less than seven dollars, of which perhaps seventy cents would have gone to musicians who probably earn more than that from the kid in the form of free word-of-mouth advertising.

I have a feeling that I'm preaching to the choir here, though.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 19, 2008, 11:26:09 PM
WaPo (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121902930.html): good news and bad news.  The good news is the RIAA's going to quit suing people for filesharing.  The bad news is that they're going to try and get their Internet access cut off via their ISP's instead.

The problems here should be obvious.

Quote
Effectively, RIAA has turned itself into the sheriff, and your ISP into its deputy. Based on the same data gathering and user identification methods that have come under fire from the start, RIAA will now be able to get your Internet access limited or discontinued on its own if it for some reason flags you as an illegal filesharer. And I'm not the only one left feeling a little wary about that.

"This means more music fans are going to be harassed by the music industry," saysFred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"The problem is the lack of due process for those accused," von Lohmann continues. "In a world where hundreds of thousands, or millions, of copyright infringement allegations are automatically generated and delivered to ISPs, mistakes are going to be made. ... Anyone who has ever had to fight to correct an error on their credit reports will be able to imagine the trouble we're in for."

Not all RIAA takedown notices are valid.  And telecoms aren't exactly known for their commitment to customer privacy and due process.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on December 19, 2008, 11:31:38 PM
well, ISPs tend to be incredibly lazy too.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 20, 2008, 10:40:50 PM
Yes, and which requires more effort: investigating whether a claim has merit, or just switching somebody's service off?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on December 21, 2008, 09:37:39 AM
Service Providers tossing away their subscriptions for the RIAA? Unless they're being paid compensation, service providers are likely to be highly selective.

:painful: Just like how the lawsuits were highly selective.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on December 21, 2008, 10:07:19 AM
Well, there have been many cases of ISPs balking at outside orders against their subscribers, since that interferes with the control of their own business.

Tangent: So, if the kid Harvard professor wins the case and the lawsuits are deemed abusive, does anyone think there is a chance of a backlash (civil or even regulatory action) against the RIAA on behalf of anyone who already settled? I mean, I'm thinking it's unlikely, but it's not impossible.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on December 21, 2008, 12:28:04 PM
Net neutrality.

I don't think ISPs are going to need a lot of coaxing to start bumping off people accused of filesharing large quantities of data.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on December 21, 2008, 12:34:17 PM
Service Providers are making profits off large broadband packages, and have been known to look the other way about what their users are doing with such data transfers. In essence, bittorrent has been a blessing for justifying their larger and larger transfer rates.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on December 21, 2008, 12:58:59 PM
So basically the implicit ultimatum for casual pirates is going to be "Buy a more expensive package or get arrested"?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on December 21, 2008, 02:57:44 PM
Net neutrality.

Actually, that's a valid point. Any instance of an ISP agreeing to kick users for that would be as about as flagrant a violation of Net Neutrality as you could get. Which may or may not lead to a challenge.

By no means it it the only variable in such a challenge (or even a key one), but it feels better than ever now to see that Our Friend Ted is gone.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on December 21, 2008, 03:25:15 PM
So basically the implicit ultimatum for casual pirates is going to be "Buy a more expensive package or get arrested"?

My service provider upgraded my line, without my authorization or knowledge. After the higher bill came in, I quickly rectified the error. Now I'm having second thoughts, thinking that I'm not paying enough protection money.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 21, 2008, 07:41:25 PM
That, and it seems it would be effing trivial to make you pay a small fine to get your service back, and most people would do that rather than go to court.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Disposable Ninja on January 02, 2009, 10:14:08 AM
Some company called Worlds.com is suing NCSoft. (http://kotaku.com/5119944/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft-+-every-other-mmo-company-to-follow)

I would usually never say something like this, but there really ought to be a law against this sort of thing if there isn't already.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on January 02, 2009, 10:28:38 AM
IANAL but I think there's no case if you haven't made a reasonable effort to enforce intellectual property in the past (see: why McDonalds sues every fucker on the planet... because legally they HAVE to.)  Filing for a patent, sitting on the approval process for eight years while companies infringe on it unchecked, and then turning around blitzing an entire multibillion dollar industry does not work.

Nevermind.  Apparently it works flawlessly! (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080723-nintendo-cant-fight-off-patent-metroids-faces-injunction.html)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on January 02, 2009, 11:00:00 AM
Yeah, unfortunately you're thinking of trademarks, I believe.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on January 02, 2009, 02:17:31 PM
Some company called Worlds.com is suing NCSoft. (http://kotaku.com/5119944/worldscom-files-suit-against-ncsoft-+-every-other-mmo-company-to-follow)

I would usually never say something like this, but there really ought to be a law against this sort of thing if there isn't already.

Their patent is ridiculous and indefensible.  They're claiming to patent a problem, not a solution, and thus extend that patent to all solutions to that problem.  As well, with these sorts of patents you have to demonstrate that at the time the patent was filed, what you're patenting would have required innovation, rather than being plainly obvious to anyone who tried to solve it.  Which this isn't.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Catloaf on January 02, 2009, 03:34:55 PM
As well, with these sorts of patents you have to demonstrate that at the time the patent was filed, what you're patenting would have required innovation, rather than being plainly obvious to anyone who tried to solve it.  Which this isn't.

Really?  So.... In their argument, they would have to present a simpler, brute force method of doing the task at hand?

Also, can patents really be that goddamn vague?  What they have currently applies to virtually every single online game currently on the market as well as many socializing programs.  Hell, if it didn't include the 3d environment part, it would include any IM program where people have pictures assigned to names!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 02, 2009, 03:40:50 PM
I don't know, if this stuff gets bad enough we may finally begin to see a real debate regarding IP abuse and the disincentive to innovation. Granted, things will have to get much worse before any useful action is taken, but sometimes the only way out is a race to the bottom.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on January 02, 2009, 04:40:50 PM
You'll notice that it's actually an approved patent though.

...in case you weren't aware, the entire patent system in the U.S. is a pile of shit.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Disposable Ninja on January 02, 2009, 06:07:47 PM
Okay, it seems that Worlds.com is actually citing Lineage (1) as an infringement on the patent.

Lineage came out in 1998, two years before Worlds.com even filed the patent.

If the Judge does nothing less than beat these people to death with his gavel, I'm going to be something irate.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 02, 2009, 07:10:08 PM
You'll notice that it's actually an approved patent though.

...in case you weren't aware, the entire patent system in the U.S. is a pile of shit.

But it could be worse. (http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/07/02/australia.wheel/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Catloaf on January 02, 2009, 07:21:14 PM
 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 07, 2009, 06:37:46 AM
iTunes Music Store to ditch DRM. (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700886&cid=iwhome_art_Macin_mostpop)

Pretty fucking huge.  It's still unthinkable that the movie, TV, or game industries will do the same anytime soon, but you know they'll be watching this to see what happens.

I want to see it work, of course, but at the same time I'm still reluctant to give the RIAA any of my money.  Any good indy labels on there?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on January 07, 2009, 08:01:02 AM
Touch & Go (http://www.touchandgorecords.com/), Killrockstars (http://www.killrockstars.com/), a few others are on there.  Basic rule of thumb is if you like something, just check out their website or Wiki page.  That'll usually tell you what record label they're on.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ted Belmont on January 07, 2009, 10:32:23 AM
iTunes Music Store to ditch DRM. (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700886&cid=iwhome_art_Macin_mostpop)

...but you have to pay for it. (http://consumerist.com/5125362/apple-give-us-money-and-well-remove-drm-from-your-music)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Niku on January 07, 2009, 10:35:59 AM
The people who cried about the DRM on iTunes most fervently never actually bought any music, though!

We'll call it the "hypocrite tax".

(note: I am being flippant and do not need a three page treatise on why I am wrong)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on January 07, 2009, 03:44:12 PM
  FTC holding town meeting on DRM, wants comments (link goes to form)  (https://secure.commentworks.com/ftc-DRMtechnologies/)

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: yyler on January 07, 2009, 04:12:07 PM
I may get sued for copyright infringement!
How boring.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on January 07, 2009, 04:59:25 PM
  FTC holding town meeting on DRM, wants comments (link goes to form)  (https://secure.commentworks.com/ftc-DRMtechnologies/)



Thanks, I contributed my opinion, which was that they should read the rant online of a successful science fiction publishing company, as found on their main page for the free online library (http://www.baen.com/library/home.htm).

I assure you, the library's only there to get people hooked.  It works.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 07, 2009, 06:26:15 PM
iTunes Music Store to ditch DRM. (http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700886&cid=iwhome_art_Macin_mostpop)

...but you have to pay for it. (http://consumerist.com/5125362/apple-give-us-money-and-well-remove-drm-from-your-music)

Not if you use Requiem.

But yes, of course Apple and the RIAA have something to gain from this.

EDIT:

  FTC holding town meeting on DRM, wants comments (link goes to form)  (https://secure.commentworks.com/ftc-DRMtechnologies/)

Times out.  Apparently lots and lots of people have opinions on DRM!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 10, 2009, 02:21:51 PM
Via GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/09/congress-dmca-reformer-lands-key-subcommittee-chair), the new chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is Rick Boucher, who has attempted to curtail the DMCA in the past.  Good news for consumers.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on January 19, 2009, 10:07:01 PM
Another YouTube vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg0wiOHc9tI

HBO frowns upon your recorded shenanigans. (http://www.americablog.com/2009/01/hbo-owns-obamas-inaugural-concert-if.html)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 20, 2009, 05:00:54 PM
...but it's still there.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on January 20, 2009, 06:08:10 PM
Taken from a foriegn source. The video linked in the article (http://tinyurl.com/7c334b) is removed.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Romosome on January 23, 2009, 01:36:13 PM
RealDVD bends over for MPAA, MPAA tries to kill them and leave them in a ditch anyway (http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/1/23/122515/921)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 05, 2009, 06:59:10 PM
AP threatens to sue Shepard Fairey (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hcqhpLfgHpcIipb1rVGvAoa5BusAD9652OD01) for making a poster based on one of their photos.

Bors Blog (http://www.mattbors.com/2009/02/change-poster.html) has a nice rundown of the legal underpinnings.

Incidentally, I've mentioned before that my uncle's best-known work is also derivative works of famous photographs (http://whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/index.html).  If memory serves, he was a little apprehensive that a copyright owner might file frivolous suit against him, but apparently they had more sense than the AP and knew such a case would be meritless.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Arc on February 06, 2009, 01:20:06 AM
derivative works of famous photographs (http://whitelead.com/jrh/screenshots/index.html)

Urge to replay Postal... Rising.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: MadMAxJr on February 11, 2009, 10:51:47 AM
About halfway through this article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123419309890963869.html) [via Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/home-page)] that discusses the Kindle 2, there is this statement, concerning the text-to-speech function:

Quote
"They don't have the right to read a book out loud," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."

I don't even know how to respond to this, but I felt that some of you would have interesting input.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on February 11, 2009, 11:21:36 AM
The Author's Guild is going to sue my mom.   :sadpanda:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 12, 2009, 06:35:45 PM
It is a well-documented fact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sklyarov) that eBook providers hate it when blind people are able to access their content.

...I'm trying to wrap my head around what the beef is.  Nobody's going to choose a text-to-speech program over an audiobook, given the choice.  With the possible exception of A Brief History of Time, As Read By the Author.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 28, 2009, 10:04:08 PM
Doctorow (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/26/digital-rights-music): EULA's should just say "Don't violate copyright law."

(HT to the GP (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/02/26/cory-doctorow-has-brilliant-idea-fix-eula-mess).)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on April 04, 2009, 07:16:26 AM
Swedesh I-copyright law supposedly causes 40% drop in volume of nation's net traffic. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090403.wgtsweden0403/BNStory/Technology/home)

That's... if that's accurate, that's, uh... that's a lot.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on April 04, 2009, 08:41:41 AM
Wait, you mean they actually give a shit when something gets made illegal over there?  Crazy Swedes.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Transportation on April 04, 2009, 09:10:18 AM
This isn't that odd if this man is to be believed:
BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7978853.stm)
Quote
"Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic. But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again.

"One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that they can share files anonymously," he added.
Though I'm not really sure what that last part actually means.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on April 04, 2009, 09:32:43 AM
It's going to take a couple weeks before the entirety of Sweden learns about Tor.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Dooly on April 04, 2009, 11:18:17 AM
Does this mean they're finally going to put the clamps on The Pirate Bay?
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Zaratustra on April 17, 2009, 05:06:09 AM
Pirate Bay: Guilty. (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/pirateverdict.html)

Maybe they could sell their story to Hollywood to cover the costs. Oh, wait.
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Mongrel on April 17, 2009, 05:18:18 AM
I wonder how long it will take before all the useful sites on the internet migrate to countries even farther out of the reach of the western world.

Oh you thought this would go away? That's a good one! Next you'll be telling me about this War on Drugs!
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Brentai on April 17, 2009, 07:54:38 AM
As you may have noticed, I'm a huge advocate of piracy.  That said I don't hold any presumptions that it is at all legal or moral.

These guys do.

Well, thanks for calling a lot of undue attention to yourselves so the rest of us can operate in peace, I guess.
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Transportation on April 17, 2009, 08:46:52 AM
As you may have noticed, I'm a huge advocate of piracy.  That said I don't hold any presumptions that it is at all legal or moral.

These guys do.

Well, thanks for calling a lot of undue attention to yourselves so the rest of us can operate in peace, I guess.
The legality aside, the torrent argument always struck me as a silly loophole, I'm not really sure how you could say intellectual property is "moral".

It's neutral, at best. The concept of copyright is a recent development in human history and all it does it sponsor a specific set of professions. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but new technologies have made the concept difficult to enforce without draconian law enforcement. There are simply too many offenders. Any real enforcement would involve imprisonment and/or thousands of dollars in fines for millions of people. All over something as trivial as watching movies for free. The entertainment industry doesn't benefit society enough to justify that.

Obligatory mention of how patents protect things far more useful to society and have much shorter terms and that RIAA is basically a monopoly.
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Zaratustra on April 17, 2009, 08:48:23 AM
1) IP piracy is illegal;
2) IP piracy is unenforceable;
3) IP owners have a lot of money.
From 1, 2 and 3 follows
4) IP owners will spend millions and millions swinging the law like a gigantic crane that demolishes all around it until it finds a pirate or two.
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Mongrel on April 17, 2009, 08:54:09 AM
Pretty much.

IP holders just can't stand the idea that someone is getting their shit for free. They live in a world where everyone who downloads stuff for free would buy all of it legally if they had not other option.

I guess my point of view is that unless the adversarial relationship that currently dominates business-customer interactions is reformed soon, it may prove more damaging to capitalism in the longer term than the current economic downturn. It's incredibly poisonous, and no way to run a business.
Title: Re: Pirates!
Post by: Saturn on April 17, 2009, 09:56:57 AM
If the European courts are anything like American courts, this will be stuck in appeals for the foreseeable future.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on April 17, 2009, 01:35:48 PM
The Pirate Bay Trial: The Official Verdict - Guilty (http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on April 17, 2009, 01:37:41 PM
All I have to say is...

(http://torrentfreak.com/images/anakata.jpg)

that's a hell of a neckbeard.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 17, 2009, 06:06:13 PM
Obligatory mention of how patents protect things far more useful to society and have much shorter terms

I will agree, with the caveat that I believe software should be subject only to copyright and not to patent.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on May 28, 2009, 08:11:33 PM
Maybe this should be in News From The North, but I figured everyone would get a chuckle out of this one: Canadian Think Tank plagarizes US Lobby group's report on IP and copyright. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/think-tanks-approach-to-hollywood-copy-that/article1158376/)

:lol:  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on June 12, 2009, 04:03:05 PM
[T]he Pirate Party has gathered enough votes to be guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament. (http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-wins-and-enters-the-european-parliament-090607/) :victory:



France considering legalization/deployment of government-installed trojans. (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86373/french-cybercrime-expert-discusses-loppsi-2-legislation/)  :8V:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 18, 2009, 08:47:30 PM
Woman illegally downloads 24 songs, fined to tune of $1.9 million (http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.download.fine/index.html?eref=rss_us)

 :MENDOZAAAAA:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on June 18, 2009, 09:11:45 PM
Quote
The judge ordered a retrial in 2007 after there was an error in the wording of jury instructions.

The fines jumped considerably from the first trial, which granted just $220,000 to the recording companies.

That's... some pretty epic legal douchebaggery, there.  WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP SYMPATHIZING WITH THE THIEVES??? :wakka:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 18, 2009, 09:13:21 PM
See, here's the thing.  24 songs.  That's two albums.  What do you think you'd get if you stole 2 albums from a store?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on June 18, 2009, 09:14:20 PM
Depends.  Does Wal-Mart still have that "We don't persecute shoplifters under $20" policy?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Niku on June 18, 2009, 09:15:00 PM
BETTER MAKE IT ONE ALBUM IF SO
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ted Belmont on June 19, 2009, 07:28:02 AM
It's $30 now. At the store where I work, though, if they catch you attempting to steal anything, they stick you with vandalism and trespassing charges.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on June 19, 2009, 08:55:33 AM
Which is a charge that still won't put you anywhere near $1.9 million in damages.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on June 19, 2009, 11:05:47 AM
I find it interesting that the mother is still willing to go all the way with it such as a martyr.  She has probably been listening to the talking heads regarding how excessive punitive damages are unconstitutional. 

I don't think this one is over quite yet.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on June 19, 2009, 11:17:52 AM
By chance I looked up the Minnesota Crime and Punishment (http://www.crimeandpunishment.net/MN/chart.html) chart a while back.

Burglary with Dangerous Weapon or Explosives carries a fine of up to $35,000. Burglary Involving Misdemeanor, a fine of up to $3,000. Tresspassing, a fine of up to $700. Theft of Receiving Stolen Property ($250 or less), a fine of up to $700.

In other words, if this was treated as theft and not copyright infringement, she'd be looking at a fine of certainly no more than $15,400, and probably much less.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 19, 2009, 09:25:27 PM
I find it interesting that the mother is still willing to go all the way with it such as a martyr.  She has probably been listening to the talking heads regarding how excessive punitive damages are unconstitutional. 

I don't think this one is over quite yet.

Oh, there's no question.  Perversely, I think this is actually the BEST possible outcome of the case in the long term.

Because she DID break the law.  That's indisputable.  And she probably did it knowingly, though that's a lot harder to prove.  Her entire case hinges on the fact that the punishment is grossly disproportionate to the crime -- and they have proven her point about forty thousand times over.

ZDnet has more (http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4994) -- I'm not sure the author is right in his definition of "willful" (IANAL and he is, but CNet (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10269251-93.html) notes that the word has different definitions in different branches of law, and in copyright law it seems just to mean "intentional"), but other than that I think he's spot-on.

Quote
There’s no doubt, Ray [Beckerman of Recording Industry v. the People (http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/)] said, that this case can be the test case to question the constitutionality of the statutory damages in the law. But before we even get there,

Quote
There’s a very long body of law, that statutory damages have to bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages. Courts have repeatedly held that statutory damages can be more than acual damages but only by two or three time.

Then we get to the Constitution. In BMW v. Gorethe Supreme Court held that “grossly excessive” punitive damages awards violate due process. The court established three factors to analyze this:

  • Most importantly, the degree of reprehensibility
  • The ratio of punitive to actual damages
  • The relationship of the award to criminal sanctions


In that case, a jury found that BMW had sold as new a repainted car and awarded punitive damages of $2 million — 500 times the actual damages. The Court found that was grossly excessive.

That's pretty fucking good precedent.  And those bullet points?  As far as "degree of reprehensibility", I don't think sharing 24 songs even registers on that meter; ratio of punitive to actual damages is much higher than 500:1 (and may in fact be a divison by zero since I doubt they can prove any damages occurred at all); and as noted by JD, "relationship of the award to criminal sanctions" is that she would have been charged a fraction of this amount if she had actually literally stolen the albums at gunpoint.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 30, 2009, 07:30:04 PM
Pirate Bay sold to a group who will turn it into a for-pay site. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/free-file-sharing-at-pirate-bay-to-end-with-sale-to-gaming-firm/article1202655/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on June 30, 2009, 07:32:49 PM
Pirate Bay sold to a group who will turn it into a for-pay site. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/free-file-sharing-at-pirate-bay-to-end-with-sale-to-gaming-firm/article1202655/)

I don't think they've said for sure that it will be a pay site.  I've also heard that they will be using ads to support the share of free content, but I'm sure at this time it's all just rumors.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 30, 2009, 07:34:57 PM
Frankly, the world's next # 1 Pirate site really is going to have to move to Russia, China or somewhere else that doesn't give a hoot. Regardless of where this goes, I've been expecting SOMETHING would happen to the Bay for some time now.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on June 30, 2009, 07:42:04 PM
Like Napster and Morpheus before it, the most serious offenders have pretty much all moved on to their preferred subvariants and are more than happy to have the IP holders feel like they've done their job.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on June 30, 2009, 09:09:12 PM
from what i'm hearing, the sale is a roundabout way of getting around certain legal issues

 relevant link  (http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-closes-its-tracker-removes-torrents-090630/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 20, 2009, 05:23:46 PM
So, here's a fun one: as a result of international copyright confusion, Amazon has "recalled" a couple of its ebooks.  Except in this case, the recall is involuntary; people turn on their Kindles and suddenly find that the books they purchased are gone and their money refunded, without Amazon bothering to ask their permission.

And, pushing the very boundaries of irony itself, one of the books in question just so happens to be, yes, motherfucking 1984 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/18/amazon_removes_1984_from_kindle/).

...anyway.  Cue up the DRM apologists explaining to me why it's okay for a merchant to delete files off my storage without asking.  This oughta be good.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on July 20, 2009, 05:27:03 PM
Well, you were just leasing the book.  Even though every other part of the transaction said it was a purchase.  It was just a lease.


Digital is the future!

Related: RIAA says DRM is dead... for music (http://lifehacker.com/5318289/riaa-says-drm-is-dead)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 20, 2009, 05:38:07 PM
Incidentally, as mentioned in another thread I'm currently working on putting together an HTPC.  I was considering buying a Blu-Ray drive as you can find a few under $100 these days, but it turns out the format has shit support -- there are a few programs that'll play it under Windows, but fucking nothing for OSX or Linux.  There's software to RIP them on OSX and Linux, but not to play them directly.

As your average retarded monkey could probably tell you, it is of course entirely possible, indeed downright EASY, to download pirated Blu-Ray movies.  It's just, you know, a huge pain in the ass to play ones you've actually legally purchased.

So guess whether I decided to buy a player and start building a Blu-Ray collection or not.  Go on, guess.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on July 20, 2009, 07:12:06 PM
So glad having a PS3 makes that decisions moot.

I don't have a single blu-ray that isn't a game, though. :nyoro~n:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Niku on July 20, 2009, 09:01:17 PM
I don't have a single blu-ray that isn't a game, though. :nyoro~n:

Even having only watched the first episode so far, I can recommend it without hesitation. (http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Complete-BBC-Blu-ray/dp/B000MRAAJM/ref=pd_bxgy_d_img_c)

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on July 20, 2009, 09:04:42 PM
Yeah, people keep saying that.  So expensive, though.  Do I look that :richiam:?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Niku on July 20, 2009, 09:14:45 PM
STEAL IT FROM THE STORE
:advice:
COPS LOVE BABY POLAR BEARS
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 20, 2009, 10:53:30 PM
Which brings me to another point:

I have complained, repeatedly, over the years that DRM apologists erroneously refer to copyright infringement as "stealing".  Copying and redistributing a file that you don't have the right to redistribute is illegal, but it's not stealing.

You know what stealing is?  It's when you take something that somebody else owns and remove it from their property.

It fucking-well does not matter if you're the person who sold it to me or if you pay me back for it.  If you remove it from my property without my permission, it is theft.

A simple "Sorry, won't happen again" from Amazon is insufficient.  They should be sued for theft.

From what I hear, pro-DRM people believe that 80,000 times the sale value of a file is a suitable amount to claim for damages.








(Okay, I'm being glib.  This isn't stealing either, because no product was actually taken.  It's...what, vandalism?  Whatever offense accessing a person's computer without permission and deleting files falls under.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on July 20, 2009, 11:10:24 PM
Yeah, the stealing/theft/infringement issue is awkward, but I've usually given it a free pass because of how irritated I get when people go "HAHAHA PIRATES COME IN BOATS THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT," since there's written record of it being used like that in the 1830s and a pretty good chance that it dates back to the 17th or 18th century.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on July 20, 2009, 11:57:42 PM
I would like to know if the whole "Delete their shit now please" idea was actually Amazon or the copyright holders who were twisting Amazon's arm before I pass judgment.  Or before I decide who to pass judgment on at least.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on July 21, 2009, 05:33:58 AM
I'm just wondering why Amazon couldn't reimburse the publishers for the sold books, and then let the people keep what they bought. 
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on July 21, 2009, 06:54:45 AM
(Okay, I'm being glib.  This isn't stealing either, because no product was actually taken.  It's...what, vandalism?  Whatever offense accessing a person's computer without permission and deleting files falls under.)

Let's put it this way: What do you think Amazon would call it if somebody went into their system and started deleting files?

I would like to know if the whole "Delete their shit now please" idea was actually Amazon or the copyright holders who were twisting Amazon's arm before I pass judgment.  Or before I decide who to pass judgment on at least.

Publisher pressuring Amazon, Amazon too weak to stand up for consumer rights.  They totally afraid of losing publishers, but feel they can shed a few consumers if need be.

I'm just wondering why Amazon couldn't reimburse the publishers for the sold books, and then let the people keep what they bought. 

 :richiam:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 21, 2009, 07:31:54 AM
(Okay, I'm being glib.  This isn't stealing either, because no product was actually taken.  It's...what, vandalism?  Whatever offense accessing a person's computer without permission and deleting files falls under.)

Let's put it this way: What do you think Amazon would call it if somebody went into their system and started deleting files?


Cyber-terrorism, most likely.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on July 21, 2009, 08:25:25 AM
I'm baffled that copyright infringement still gets equated to physical theft. The ridiculous alternative is when pirates declare they wouldn't have bought it anyway so it's not a lost sale.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Fredward on July 21, 2009, 02:10:33 PM
Yeah, the stealing/theft/infringement issue is awkward, but I've usually given it a free pass because of how irritated I get when people go "HAHAHA PIRATES COME IN BOATS THIS IS COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT," since there's written record of it being used like that in the 1830s and a pretty good chance that it dates back to the 17th or 18th century.

PHUN PHACT: Gilbert & Sullivan's second hit operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, was originally conceived of after a rash of pirated productions of their first hit operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore.

 :mystery:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 21, 2009, 03:48:59 PM
FUN FACT: I always confuse those two operettas.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 21, 2009, 04:15:04 PM
Which brings me to another point:

I have complained, repeatedly, over the years that DRM apologists erroneously refer to copyright infringement as "stealing".  Copying and redistributing a file that you don't have the right to redistribute is illegal, but it's not stealing.


The criminal culpability of commiting an illegal act has exactly jack and shit to do with how the victim of your crime is harmed, or if there's even a victim at all, so if you're going Semantic Fu here based on an infringer not depriving someone of physical property, I am going to throw a hearty lol in your direction, friend.


Quote
From what I hear, pro-DRM people believe that 80,000 times the sale value of a file is a suitable amount to claim for damages.


I am pro-DRM and I do not think it is reasonable, no.

However, I do think it should be treated as per the market value of the copyrighted material, with appropriate criminal sentencing.  If you've got thousands of dollars worth of pirated media, you should be treated like somebody who stole a car.

But I am guessing we part ways on this.

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on July 21, 2009, 04:31:16 PM
I think DRM and piracy lawsuits are two different heads of the beast, so it's pointless to claim that pro-DRM people must advocate huge lawsuits.

I think DRM will not be as big of an issue, as companies are beginning to legitimately fear the backlash that comes from draconic DRM.  I cannot see anybody rationalizing the use of rootkits or system-disabling malware being installed without permission.  The producers will see how far the can push the boundries, as they will with any new technology, but I think the trend will curve more towards consumer rights as people learn more about what they face.

Maybe that's just me being overly optimistic.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 21, 2009, 04:34:07 PM
I think that's just you being overly optimistic.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on July 21, 2009, 04:51:57 PM
[The criminal culpability of commiting an illegal act has exactly jack and shit to do with how the victim of your crime is harmed, or if there's even a victim at all, so if you're going Semantic Fu here based on an infringer not depriving someone of physical property, I am going to throw a hearty lol in your direction, friend.

Well, when you're being accused of a specific crime that has the taking and deprivation of use as an element, it's a pretty significant distinction.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 21, 2009, 05:36:43 PM
FUN FACT: I always confuse those two operettas.

HMS Pinafore was sung by Sideshow Bob.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on July 21, 2009, 05:37:40 PM
However, I do think it should be treated as per the market value of the copyrighted material, with appropriate criminal sentencing.  If you've got thousands of dollars worth of pirated media, you should be treated like somebody who stole a car.

But at the end of the day when a car is stolen it is no longer in the hands of the person who had it.  They can no longer reap the benefits vis-a-vis having a car, whether for sale or personal use.  When a file is downloaded, the owner still has the content to sale or disperse as they see fit.


Also, the reason I (at least) hate DRM is that it is the companies way of saying "You do not own this product you just bought".  They deny me my right to enjoy the file as I see fit, while insisting on their right to stop me from using it should they dislike what I do with it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on July 21, 2009, 06:06:51 PM
Copyright, says Wikipedia, was originally created to give an author a limited right to return on the profits publishers made on selling his works. It's in part sympathy for the author, who often went poor even though his work was a best-seller, and partly to encourage the creation of new works by ensuring authors a right to part of any profit, as with other craft.

You could say it's ironic now that law intended to protect the little man from financial exploitation by publishers is now used by music publishers to financially exploit the little man.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 21, 2009, 06:07:44 PM
So it goes.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on July 21, 2009, 08:40:57 PM
The hard decision is how to handle copyright now that copying is something the average person has the technology to do, often only for personal use. The 1988 copyright laws aren't kitted out for that sort of casual breach of copyright.

Was going to say more about US copyright but it's 5:42am.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on July 21, 2009, 09:24:33 PM
FUN FACT: I always confuse those two operettas.

HMS Pinafore was sung by Sideshow Bob.
And Lt. Cmdr. Data.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Fredward on July 21, 2009, 09:51:27 PM
Whereas the Major-General's Song ("I am the very model of a modern Major-General...") is from Penzance. :mystery:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 22, 2009, 04:24:59 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoR8E9TOCJY
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 22, 2009, 04:29:09 AM
However, I do think it should be treated as per the market value of the copyrighted material, with appropriate criminal sentencing.  If you've got thousands of dollars worth of pirated media, you should be treated like somebody who stole a car.

But at the end of the day when a car is stolen it is no longer in the hands of the person who had it.  They can no longer reap the benefits vis-a-vis having a car, whether for sale or personal use.  When a file is downloaded, the owner still has the content to sale or disperse as they see fit.


Also, the reason I (at least) hate DRM is that it is the companies way of saying "You do not own this product you just bought".  They deny me my right to enjoy the file as I see fit, while insisting on their right to stop me from using it should they dislike what I do with it.

So you can just give the car back and avoid prosecution?

Also, they treat you like you do not own the song you just bought because you in fact do not own it, just like you don't suddenly own the entire Beatles back catalog the moment you buy a Greatest Hits album.

Quote
Well, when you're being accused of a specific crime that has the taking and deprivation of use as an element, it's a pretty significant distinction.

Please direct me to any theft/larceny statutes that explicitly involve deprivation of use.  I know at least Michigan and California do not.

EDIT: Arizona does, but "withholding" is not an essential element of the crime.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 22, 2009, 05:08:04 AM
Well, in all fairness, making a distinction about deprivation of use didn't matter in the past because this was implicit in any theft of physical objects.

The best pre-digital analogy for pure information theft are cases like that of an international spy, who copies documents (and therefore steals information) without stealing the originals*. But what really has little resemblance to modern copyright issues.

However, it is useful to bring that odd comparison up, because it deals with privileged information. The act of spying was considered such a dastardly crime, because the the spy was gaining access to privileged information - i.e. secrets. Secrets upon which lives depended in many cases.

Most of the root of the conflict surrounding DRM is whether or not the information is free or privileged. The consumer wants to believe that the information is free, as it has little to no value to the state or society and (for the most part) consists of artistic works, which are traditionally non-priviledged (in principle anyway) and are for the public good. The copyright holder on the other hand feels that the money they have invested and the risks they have assumed make their wares de facto privileged information, subject to their full control. In fact a scheme of 'renting' media, or pay-for-play is what they theoretically would have wanted all along (ironically regressing us back to the jukebox). The tragicomedy here is that instead of a civil dialogue about the modern value of infinitely reproducible information, the copyright holders have repeatedly tried to position their information as not just privileged information, but privileged information equal in sensitivity to those same state secrets, necessitating massive and brutal enforcement all out of proportion to any real damages.

So uh, my pointless bizarre ramble aside, I don't know who's 'right', but I always side with the little fellow because the big fellow can buy all the allies they want and I'm a no-good troll.

*Unless of course the spy was an idiot.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 22, 2009, 06:07:07 AM
Quote
Most of the root of the conflict surrounding DRM is whether or not the information is free or privileged. The consumer wants to believe that the information is free, as it has little to no value to the state or society and (for the most part) consists of artistic works, which are traditionally non-priviledged (in principle anyway) and are for the public good.

Do you think trade secrets should be privileged?  Like, for the ur-example, doesn't Coke have a right to make sure nobody else learns and can reproduce their recipe?

ps: the penalty for infringement has been 150 grand per act of infringement for decades.  The RIAA does not make these numbers out of whole cloth.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 22, 2009, 07:50:52 AM
Trade secrets is debateable, but generally I agree they should be privileged as they have no value when not secret. Whereas a song is not devalued by a greater number of listners (unless you're a pretentious indie band).

Well, just because I stated the views of the two sides, does not mean I agree with either.

I mean, I like to point out everyone's errors after all.  :8D:

My point was that there is a scale to things - but that both sides are trying to position this as a black-and-white issue (though I think the RIAA et al bear more responsibility on this front). In reality, the correct stance is that while recreational-artistic stuff like music and movies can be considered non-privileged information in principle, they should probably be considered very lightly privileged for the practical sake of creator remuneration.

To clarify, I feel that non-privileged information should be completely free, and made available institutionally, i.e. the same way libraries work. In the real world this would almost certainly never work if applied to ALL artistic products. More importantly, we hardly need to reinvent the wheel. The existing model isn't completely broken, it just needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the digital world, where stuff like DRM-free iTunes is perhaps not perfect but decently reasonable.

Regarding the fines: Just because the RIAA didn't make up those numbers themselves, does not mean they are applying them in the spirit that they were intended. Such fines were designed around a smaller number of copyrights, with a much higher individual value in mind, where such fines are proportional (or perhaps even insufficient) to the damage. Or, more succinctly: Corporate patents are typically sold for more than a song (pun intentional). Of course the copyright and patent system as a whole has been subject to serious abuse and 'gaming of the system' for over two decades now.

***

A little history here... not really related to my response above.

Up until the advent of recordable media, there were two models of payment. An artist who put on a show of some kind (musician, actor) was paid for their performance, which was inextricably tied to direct compensation - if you were listening to a song, the artist was right there singing it to you. The performance could be duplicated, but was not fungible. In the case of the artist who created a tangible work (painter, sculptor), payment and ownership was tied to physical possession. In this case the work could not be duplicated (it could be 'copied', but... semantics), but was far more fungible.

Recordable media rewrote the rules by allowing us to compensate for both cases, meaning art of all types is (in theory) unlimited, as fungible art can now be duplicated and duplicatable art is now fungible as well. In theory, this should make the artist redundant and devalue all art so as to make it worthless, but obviously that has not happened. Artists (and those who profit from artists) can still make a living (and then some). In fact recordable media largely drove the idea of artist-as-superstar. In an effect that predicted the later effects of the internet, the increased exposure granted by recordable media more than offset any idea that the artist was redundant.

The key parallel between regular consumer goods and artistic materials is that increased availability brings with it lower prices. Barring strange situations, that's basic economics. In the best cases, a producer is compensated for the lower prices by having a greatly expanded market, in the worst cases a producer continues to try and have their cake and eat it too and their business suffers for their stubbornness.

I think the RIAA & co have already suffered a massive self-inflicted hit when they refused to recognise Napster for what it was. Ever since then, a culture of entitlement and rebellion has developed that makes people more than happy to gleefully download as much material for free as they possibly can, so as to 'stick it to The Man' (and hey, full disclosure: I'm one of them). In the end this is terribly unhealthy for the market. I think that the correct price point for legal downloads is probably extremely low - fifty cents or even a quarter per song - so as to encourage massive downloading. Even at $1 per song, an album is still around $10. Well, free beats the hell out of that and the genie is out of the bottle so that's what you're competing with.

Mentally, you want to reach the point where people are doing what they do with free file-sharing: investigating artists they would never look at if they had to pay 'real money'. If I can download a whole DRM-free album for $5 or $2, listen to it once, pronounce it horrible, and delete it without giving it a second thought, then I think the industry will finally be able to compete - and win - against free.

I mean if you go all the way back, they very notion of playing a song without the artist is weird and unnatural, but we survived that transition and society worked out a generally beneficial scheme in the end. Leaving principles and theories of what 'should be' aside, I think that the 'spare change song' would be a solid plan with a fairly good chance of success and decent benefits for both sides.

But of course it would require everyone to be adult and honest about the whole situation.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on July 22, 2009, 08:33:33 AM
Quote
Well, when you're being accused of a specific crime that has the taking and deprivation of use as an element, it's a pretty significant distinction.

Please direct me to any theft/larceny statutes that explicitly involve deprivation of use.  I know at least Michigan and California do not.

... Common Law fucking Theft.  That's what the taking element is - exercising "dominion and control wholly inconsistent with the continued rights of the owner (http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/web/nyolivo.htm)".  It requires "complete physical control by the offender so that there is a complete severance from the possession of the owner".  Hell, one of the other elements is "the intent to deprive the owner permanently of his property".  This is first-year shit.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on July 22, 2009, 08:36:53 AM
So you can just give the car back and avoid prosecution?

Actually, in the UK you can. Theft requires you to permanently deprive someone of their property. If you borrow a car with intent to return it, it's the lesser crime of taking without consent.

Copyright in the US comes from the US Constitution, which defines copyright as a temporary exclusive right granted to authors of works, in order to encourage the publication of more works. The idea is that if you write something people will buy, you should be able to publish that without fear that someone else will publish it without paying you royalties.

It's a very artificial construct and modern technology makes it very easy to overcome. You now have a million people making personal copies without money changing hands, and unless copyright is made criminal rather than civil case, and policed as such, you need to lay a million tiny lawsuits to recover those losses.

You can't stop it with DRM because that in itself is an artifical barrier and computing history shows that antipiracy methods are usually cracked in less time than they take to build.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 22, 2009, 09:06:15 AM
Quote from: TA
... Common Law fucking Theft.  That's what the taking element is - exercising "dominion and control wholly inconsistent with the continued rights of the owner".  It requires "complete physical control by the offender so that there is a complete severance from the possession of the owner".  Hell, one of the other elements is "the intent to deprive the owner permanently of his property".  This is first-year shit.

Model Penal Code:

Quote
5. Section 155.05 of the Penal Law defines larceny:  "1. A person steals property and commits larceny when, with intent to deprive another of property or to appropriate the same to himself or to a third person, he wrongfully takes, obtains, or withholds such property from an owner thereof.  2. Larceny includes a wrongful taking, obtaining or withholding of another's property, with the intent prescribed in subdivision one of this section, committed in any of the following ways:  (a) By conduct heretofore defined or known as common law larceny by trespassory taking, common law larceny by trick, embezzlement, or obtaining property by false pretenses."

So,

1) a Trespassory taking of

2) another's property,

3) with the intent to appropriate the same to himself.

Maybe by second year, you'll learn what the word "or" means!


At any rate, I know what the definition of theft is and I know it only specifically applies to physical chattels.  I was illustrating a point: wrongs are not based on harm done, they are based on intent.  From a practical standpoint, the only reason to cry about infringement not actually being stealing because the law calls it something else is to justify it to yourself and take comfort in the fact that you didn't really steal that copy of Windows XP when you pirated it instead of paying the $300 market value.

So you can just give the car back and avoid prosecution?

Actually, in the UK you can. Theft requires you to permanently deprive someone of their property. If you borrow a car with intent to return it, it's the lesser crime of taking without consent.

I was not aware that in England, being prosecuted meant avoiding prosecution!

Quote
You can't stop it with DRM because that in itself is an artifical barrier and computing history shows that antipiracy methods are usually cracked in less time than they take to build.

Which is why we have these things called laws.  DRM is a means to stem the tide; it might not stop the major distributors but it will at least slow down the limewire frat boys.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on July 22, 2009, 09:30:48 AM
But of course it would require everyone to be adult and honest about the whole situation.
Obvious :lol: goes here
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 22, 2009, 10:21:21 AM
Here's another amusing history tale.

Do you know why the single greatest source of english-language films is located in the town of Hollywood out on the west coast, when at the time of it's founding there was literally sweet fuck all going on over there?

Because when films first came out - at the very beginning - Edison held most of the patents relating to movies and their projection. In order to avoid paying out onerous royalties on every single movie made, most of the nascent US movie industry left New York for a distant locale where they could avoid Edison's patent regime.

Does this mean Edison was an overbearing plutocrat bent on milking artists? Does it mean the founders of Hollywood were no more than a pack of fly-by-night petty thieves? I don't really care.

What's important is that Edison chose the bully route, and in the end he was left behind. What's important now is that you can't flee the RIAA & co by going to the other side of the country. Hell, you can't even get away throughout most of the western world. The distribution centres of the future will simply go where they are immune, the world hasn't shrunk so far that there are no safe havens remaining. The problem is that this means out of our hands and into a country more than happy to dance on the graves of the west. This time the US as a whole will suffer for the loss.

The recording and entertainment industries need to put their "principles" (ahaha) aside for a minute and do what all cartoonish evil empires are supposed to be experts in: embrace expediency over principle.

We're already halfway there anyway. At this point it might as well be closing the barn door after all the horses have left... but the sooner the attempt comes the better.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 22, 2009, 10:46:56 AM
The key parallel between regular consumer goods and artistic materials is that increased availability brings with it lower prices. Barring strange situations, that's basic economics. In the best cases, a producer is compensated for the lower prices by having a greatly expanded market, in the worst cases a producer continues to try and have their cake and eat it too and their business suffers for their stubbornness.

But we're talking about goods which have, hypothetically, infinite reproducibility.

I can't help thinking what Walter Benjamin would say if he were observing the situation. I mean, he's a Marxist, so he'd probably be  :jizz: over the reproductive qualities of digital media, but the fact that the power didn't lay in the hands of the workers would make him  :over9000:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Transportation on July 22, 2009, 10:49:52 AM
While this (literally) legalistic argument is absolutely fascinating, it's ignoring the practical/moral implications of current copyright laws.

Contextless Observation: The whole copyright infringement vs. theft is just an arguing tool meant to show the difference in the morality of the two crimes using the "common" definitions to a laymen.

Considering the ludicrous amounts of bandwidth shown to be torrent traffic it should be quite clear these are a tad unenforceable. And considering the millions that would imprisoned/in debt if they were all caught, I'd say it'd be immoral as well. Especially since this is the entertainment industry we're about here.

Making comparisons to prohibition, turning it down a few orders of magnitude, is apt I'd say in a costs vs. benefits analysis.

tl;dr Digital rights need to be burned to the ground.

An aside:
Quote from: P. Birdy
At any rate, I know what the definition of theft is and I know it only specifically applies to physical chattels.  I was illustrating a point: wrongs are not based on harm done, they are based on intent.

Are you speaking legally here or is this a moral statement? Because I deny its validity so hard to most extents if it's the latter. And those I can usually juggle rather easily. But that's getting away from my main points and why this is an aside!

Quote
From a practical standpoint, the only reason to cry about infringement not actually being stealing because the law calls it something else is to justify it to yourself and take comfort in the fact that you didn't really steal that copy of Windows XP when you pirated it instead of paying the $300 market value.

In addition to the standard supply/demand curve argument questioning whether a person who downloaded it would've bought (or at that price for that matter), I was under the impression the bulk of piracy was related to entertainment, not actually useful software. Is this just a throwaway example or did you know of some study that contradicts this?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 22, 2009, 11:21:50 AM
Werd  (http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/Bon_Bon_2009/scruffy-1.jpg)

Regarding that last bit, I think the Photoshop phenomenon might be worth looking at. In that rather comical version, Adobe charges upwards of four figures for some of its software. Partially as a result of this, Photoshop is estimated as being the most pirated program in the world*. Adobe's high prices are a way of compensating for this, forcing the much smaller number of users who cannot afford to be caught with pirated sofware (mostly corporate clients) to bear the burden of expense for 99% of the user base. of course, the other end of this scale is mass distribution, where the price is dropped so that it is accessible and affordable to all potential users.

As you might guess, the latter is by far my preferred option, but I can't help but wonder if the apparently absurd opposite extreme that Adobe subscribes to has any merit. Sort of a "that's so crazy it just might work!" approach? 

*I saw this figure over a year ago and cannot immediately produce a source, but it was credible when I saw it. Even if it's not true anymore (perhaps in 2nd or 3rd place), the example is still sufficient, I think.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 22, 2009, 12:01:18 PM
An aside:
Quote from: P. Birdy
At any rate, I know what the definition of theft is and I know it only specifically applies to physical chattels.  I was illustrating a point: wrongs are not based on harm done, they are based on intent.

Are you speaking legally here or is this a moral statement? Because I deny its validity so hard to most extents if it's the latter. And those I can usually juggle rather easily. But that's getting away from my main points and why this is an aside!

I would actually be very interested in debating this because 1) I meant the latter, and 2) though I do not get behind Kant 100%, that is a major underpinning of his theories and I think one of the stronger ones.  It's not enough to do the right thing; you have to do the right thing for the right reason in order to be a good person.

But you are correct in saying that would be an aside!  I would be fine with a thread where we yell at each other, though!

Quote
Quote
From a practical standpoint, the only reason to cry about infringement not actually being stealing because the law calls it something else is to justify it to yourself and take comfort in the fact that you didn't really steal that copy of Windows XP when you pirated it instead of paying the $300 market value.

In addition to the standard supply/demand curve argument questioning whether a person who downloaded it would've bought (or at that price for that matter), I was under the impression the bulk of piracy was related to entertainment, not actually useful software. Is this just a throwaway example or did you know of some study that contradicts this?

So you are okay with stealing things that have commercial value so long as you do not think they are "useful"?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Transportation on July 22, 2009, 12:57:19 PM
I would actually be very interested in debating this because 1) I meant the latter, and 2) though I do not get behind Kant 100%, that is a major underpinning of his theories and I think one of the stronger ones.  It's not enough to do the right thing; you have to do the right thing for the right reason in order to be a good person.

But you are correct in saying that would be an aside!  I would be fine with a thread where we yell at each other, though!

Always enjoyable, that.

Quote
Quote
In addition to the standard supply/demand curve argument questioning whether a person who downloaded it would've bought (or at that price for that matter), I was under the impression the bulk of piracy was related to entertainment, not actually useful software. Is this just a throwaway example or did you know of some study that contradicts this?

So you are okay with stealing things that have commercial value so long as you do not think they are "useful"?

I am more "okay" with it, yes. I person can do without their widescreen television than, say, their car. Or game consoles instead of their supply of medication. More so with a very limited money supply where it would be hard to replace the stolen item. Or dissuading someone from being a software programmer is more detrimental than an artist, for instance.

For a more generalized example the "serious" software market is needed for keeping the modern world running (medical machines, for starters) while music, films, or videogames could go poof and the world wouldn't implode. At worst there would be a recession. Just a basic utility analysis.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 22, 2009, 01:41:49 PM
Funny; I think of it pretty much exactly the opposite.  Like, it's morally permissible to steal food to feed your family, but there is no imperative requiring copyrighted entertainment in particular to survive.  There's no motivation for taking it for your own enjoyment without paying I can see other than simple greed or entitlement.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on July 22, 2009, 03:42:59 PM
DRM is a means to stem the tide; it might not stop the major distributors but it will at least slow down the limewire frat boys.

Okay, there are fifty different related arguments being made in this thread.  The severity of lawsuits, the semantics of the crime, the moral considerations, etc. 

Right now I'm just focusing on whether DRM is a good idea or not.  You say DRM is a good thing because it "stems the tide".

The reason I don't agree with you is because I don't think DRM works at all.  In theory, it should prevent illegal sharing, but I cannot think of any circumstance in which DRM would prevent someone who wanted to illegally download something from doing so.

If you want to make the claim that DRM is effective, can you please show me some sort of evidence that DRM has "slowed down" illegal copying in any way?  I can understand the claim that it prevents casual copying between friends ("let me burn that for you"), but is there any evidence that this is a significant source of revenue loss for the copyright holder?

I don't want to take this part of the argument any further unless we come to an agreement on whether DRM "slows down" illegal copying.  Chances are we're not going to change anyone's mind, so I want to avoid arguing the finer points of DRM when there's a fundamental disagreement that will keep us from seeing things eye to eye.

And please... PLEASE don't tell me that "It must be working or else companies wouldn't continue spending so much money on it".  I want to see some data on the subject.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Transportation on July 23, 2009, 06:49:21 AM
Funny; I think of it pretty much exactly the opposite.  Like, it's morally permissible to steal food to feed your family, but there is no imperative requiring copyrighted entertainment in particular to survive.  There's no motivation for taking it for your own enjoyment without paying I can see other than simple greed or entitlement.

Well, there really isn't any moral imperative for entertainment to exist at all, or to profit from it for that matter. It's just not necessary. As such I don't really consider actions related to harming it that immoral to begin with.

I'm honestly at a loss for any real comparisons, but the "Information Revolution" making businesses and their business models obsolete is just how these things go, similar to craftsmen going out of business due to a similar mass distribution of products. Except this time the copying is a lot more blatant. It's inevitable, so I don't really have much sympathy for copyright holders trying to stem the tide with what, from what you're saying, legal but highly disproportionate punishments in my opinion. This makes them the "bad guy" in my eyes.

To bring back the prohibition analogy, I consider alcohol consumption bad and I doubt it would be difficult to find someone who has driven drunk by randomly pointing fingers at people.

But I don't go out of my way to condemn people who can't resist a moderate amount on occasion and thus making it socially acceptable. Forbidding it has been shown to have worse consequences then the benefits, similar to the futile and border-line draconian enforcement of digital rights.

In this analogy drunk driving would be the equivalent of selling copyrighted items. It's both embracing digital distribution (and thus hurting artists) but being regressive by trying to make money off it (thus missing the point of massive piracy). Orders of magnitude in differences, but still similar logic behind both.

Fake Edit: is this confusing yes/no?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on July 23, 2009, 07:14:42 AM
You're good - it's pretty clear... up until the last paragraph. You totally lost me on that analogy.  :OoO:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Transportation on July 23, 2009, 07:48:33 AM
Yeah that one felt strained when I was typing it.

I don't really like deleting parts from posts responded to, so  it stays. The point was negative aspect of the analogy is related to X negative perpetrated by copyright infringers.

OH WELL
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on July 25, 2009, 12:11:44 AM
In case you missed it, Amazon's CEO is pretty legitimately sorry about all this. (http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1FXQPSF67X1IU&displayType=tagsDetail)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 02, 2009, 03:38:52 PM
For those of you following along at home: things still retarded, yawns at 11. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/man-ordered-to-pay-675000-over-illegal-downloading/article1238237/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on August 02, 2009, 04:04:35 PM
These dipshits are the North Korea of American economics.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on August 02, 2009, 05:46:36 PM
... Well fuck, if I ever need a lawyer in the future I think Harvard Law is going to be crossed off the list.  If the quality of the education he's giving out is in any way a reflection of the quality of his legal defense, he should've been kicked to the curb years ago.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on August 02, 2009, 06:41:24 PM
Those who can't, teach?

The defendants need to start hiring these RIAA lawyers themselves. If they can convince a jury to bill half a million for a few music downloads, imagine what they can do on the other side?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on August 02, 2009, 07:03:34 PM
Well, the RIAA spent over a million dollars on the case, so I don't think getting the same lawyers would benefit the defendants much.

It's terrifying that they would throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars just to ruin one person's life.  Which of course is exactly what they're going for.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on August 02, 2009, 07:06:58 PM
which is why I stopped purchasing music a long time ago..
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 02, 2009, 10:30:58 PM
Which brings me to another point:

I have complained, repeatedly, over the years that DRM apologists erroneously refer to copyright infringement as "stealing".  Copying and redistributing a file that you don't have the right to redistribute is illegal, but it's not stealing.


The criminal culpability of commiting an illegal act has exactly jack and shit to do with how the victim of your crime is harmed, or if there's even a victim at all, so if you're going Semantic Fu here based on an infringer not depriving someone of physical property, I am going to throw a hearty lol in your direction, friend.

You can't seriously be suggesting that being guilty of one illegal act is equivalent to being guilty of another, significantly different illegal act, so I'm going to have to ask you precisely what your point is.

Quote
From what I hear, pro-DRM people believe that 80,000 times the sale value of a file is a suitable amount to claim for damages.

I am pro-DRM and I do not think it is reasonable, no.

However, I do think it should be treated as per the market value of the copyrighted material, with appropriate criminal sentencing.  If you've got thousands of dollars worth of pirated media, you should be treated like somebody who stole a car.

But I am guessing we part ways on this.

We part ways on being pro-DRM.  I can't imagine supporting a business model that harms customers while not deterring illegal consumers in the slightest.  (See my Blu-Ray example, above -- the copy protection has prevented third parties from developing on-the-fly decompression software, but not from developing software to rip data to a file; it has literally prevented people who use Mac or Linux from playing legally-purchased discs without stopping pirates from copying and redistributing the data on them.)

As for "treated like somebody who stole a car", you're being vague, and I'm sure deliberately so.  If we're simply talking about a monetary fine, I can get behind that.  As for prison time, no, not unless we're talking about people selling warehouses full of bootlegs.

I think DRM and piracy lawsuits are two different heads of the beast, so it's pointless to claim that pro-DRM people must advocate huge lawsuits.

I was being glib, and making a specific reference to the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case, referenced earlier in the thread.

I think DRM will not be as big of an issue, as companies are beginning to legitimately fear the backlash that comes from draconic DRM.  I cannot see anybody rationalizing the use of rootkits or system-disabling malware being installed without permission.  The producers will see how far the can push the boundries, as they will with any new technology, but I think the trend will curve more towards consumer rights as people learn more about what they face.

An RIAA spokesman was recently quoted as saying "DRM is dead" (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9136128/DRM_s_Slow_Death._Sorta) -- he's now claiming he was misquoted (http://www.betanews.com/article/RIAA-spokesperson-denies-proclaiming-DRM-dead/1248118659), but what he DID say is that the music industry is moving away from it as a business model.  The Sony rootkit fiasco did a hell of a lot of damage, and Apple's proven that DRM-free songs sell just as well as DRM'ed ones (and has pulled the neat trick of charging thirty percent more for them).

Shit like that's going to keep happening.  The blowback from this incident could damage ebook DRM just as badly as the Sony incident damaged music DRM.  More on the pending lawsuit below.

Also, they treat you like you do not own the song you just bought because you in fact do not own it, just like you don't suddenly own the entire Beatles back catalog the moment you buy a Greatest Hits album.

Oh, come the fuck on, this is some Guildenstern-level strawman bullshit you're pulling here.

If you buy a Beatles album on a traditional, physical medium, you fucking-well own the album.  You can play it on any hardware you want, you can copy it (for personal use), and you can goddamn well resell it to somebody else if you want to.

Nobody, anywhere, ever has suggested that buying a book is equivalent to buying its copyright.  That's a very very stupid strawman, and I am embarrased for both of us that you've put me in the position of even taking the time to rebut it.

ps: the penalty for infringement has been 150 grand per act of infringement for decades.  The RIAA does not make these numbers out of whole cloth.

...are you seriously citing the fact that these numbers have existed before widespread Internet usage as support FOR continuing to use them?

At any rate, I know what the definition of theft is and I know it only specifically applies to physical chattels.  I was illustrating a point: wrongs are not based on harm done, they are based on intent.  From a practical standpoint, the only reason to cry about infringement not actually being stealing because the law calls it something else is to justify it to yourself and take comfort in the fact that you didn't really steal that copy of Windows XP when you pirated it instead of paying the $300 market value.

Did you just describe price-fixing by a convicted monopoly as "market value"?  Cute.

Infringement is itself part of the market's tendency toward self-correction.  People are pirating songs because they don't want to pay $17 for a fucking CD?  Try offering them 99-cent singles.  Works pretty well, it turns out.  If the publishers had tried that approach in the first place instead of trying to fight emerging technology in the courts, things might never have gotten to this point.

Sell your product through a convenient means at at a reasonable price and people will be less inclined to seek illegal alternatives.  Even if you take ethics and morals out of the argument entirely (and I think there are PLENTY of ethical and moral arguments to be made against gouging consumers, stifling competition, and taking in huge profits while giving a pittance to the people who actually produced the product you're selling), that's the bottom line here.  Speaking from a purely pragmatic perspective, all the lawsuits and DRM in the world aren't going to curb piracy -- providing a consumer-friendly alternative is the only thing that can.

I WANTED to buy a Blu-Ray drive, God dammit.  I really did.  I'd have been happy to shell out $100 (well, a net $70, since I went with a $30 DVD burner instead) for one and then thrown down hundreds more dollars over the next few months on movies to stick in it.  But some fuckwits at the MPAA decided they didn't want me to be able to use it under OSX or Linux (or even on standard software under Windows).

That's how the market WORKS: if you ask for $100 for a product that doesn't work, you're not going to sell very many.

DRM is a means to stem the tide; it might not stop the major distributors but it will at least slow down the limewire frat boys.

Det responded to this as if it bore any kind of counterargument besides "Don't be stupid."

I am not as polite as Det.

In case you missed it, Amazon's CEO is pretty legitimately sorry about all this. (http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum/ref=cm_cd_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx1FXQPSF67X1IU&displayType=tagsDetail)

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic.  He made a big public apology because he hoped it would mollify his company's victims enough to keep his ass from getting sued.

It didn't (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/31/amazon_sued_over_orwellian_moment/), of course.  A high school senior who lost all the notes he'd scribbled in the margins is the first to sue; he's seeking class-action status.

I'll say one thing: when he goes back to school, that kid is going to be able to give a hell of a report on 1984.





EDIT: :facepalm: to myself and a vicarious :facepalm: to everyone else in the thread for not immediately seeing what you did here:

Which brings me to another point:

I have complained, repeatedly, over the years that DRM apologists erroneously refer to copyright infringement as "stealing".  Copying and redistributing a file that you don't have the right to redistribute is illegal, but it's not stealing.


The criminal culpability of commiting an illegal act has exactly jack and shit to do with how the victim of your crime is harmed, or if there's even a victim at all, so if you're going Semantic Fu here based on an infringer not depriving someone of physical property, I am going to throw a hearty lol in your direction, friend.


Quote
From what I hear, pro-DRM people believe that 80,000 times the sale value of a file is a suitable amount to claim for damages.


The part of my post that you skipped over was this:

You know what stealing is?  It's when you take something that somebody else owns and remove it from their property.

It fucking-well does not matter if you're the person who sold it to me or if you pay me back for it.  If you remove it from my property without my permission, it is theft.

A simple "Sorry, won't happen again" from Amazon is insufficient.  They should be sued for theft.

You just spent two pages arguing with the two sentences I spent saying downloading a file illegally is not the same as stealing, while neatly sidestepping the part where I suggested that deleting a file off a user's device without permission is.

I mean, through my whole response I was aware that you were focusing on the larger issue of infringement while avoiding the specific issue of the Amazon case we're talking about, but it only just now hit me that you actually deliberately avoided the comparison that was the entire point of my post...and in fact quoted everything in my post BUT that.

A nicely subtle bit of trolling, that.  Like Guild before he got lazy and just started saying the craziest shit he could possibly come up with.  It's a welcome break from the bludgeoning, inartful trolling that SoraCross keeps cranking out.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 03, 2009, 03:53:29 AM
Come on now.  How do you expect me to not take the piss at anybody who says "I am taking things that don't belong to me but it's not stealing because hurf blurf technology" with a straight face?

Quote
You just spent two pages arguing with the two sentences I spent saying downloading a file illegally is not the same as stealing, while neatly sidestepping the part where I suggested that deleting a file off a user's device without permission is.

lmao
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Detonator on August 03, 2009, 06:05:08 AM
Still waiting for that evidence that DRM works, bird.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on August 03, 2009, 07:29:30 AM
It didn't (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/31/amazon_sued_over_orwellian_moment/), of course.  A high school senior who lost all the notes he'd scribbled in the margins is the first to sue; he's seeking class-action status.

Quote
after seeing a high school student sue Amazon for eating his homework,

Man, how often do you get to say "Amazon ate my homework?"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 03, 2009, 10:37:51 AM
Less often then you get to say "An Amazon ate my homework."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on August 03, 2009, 10:57:09 AM
You call it your "homework"?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Catloaf on August 03, 2009, 10:58:38 AM
Less often then you get to say "An Amazon ate my homework."

Wow, I considered posting that exact sentence but didn't. :ohmy:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 03, 2009, 11:02:51 AM
You call it your "homework"?

She refused unless she got to be player 1.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on August 04, 2009, 07:22:42 AM
Where is Friday, anyway?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 04, 2009, 07:30:17 AM
Doing homework.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 10, 2009, 08:14:57 PM
Come on now.  How do you expect me to not take the piss at anybody who says "I am taking things that don't belong to me but it's not stealing because hurf blurf technology" with a straight face?

What am I taking?

Not very verbose when I come back and respond, are you.  Pity; I had a really great bit about how nobody ever actually pays $300 for Windows that I was all set to bust out with.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cyan Prime on August 10, 2009, 10:48:50 PM
Copying != Stealing.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: yyler on August 10, 2009, 10:52:23 PM
WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD'S FUCK ARE YOU ARGUING WITH A FUCKING LAWYER

WHY
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cyan Prime on August 10, 2009, 10:54:44 PM
Thad is a lawyer?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: yyler on August 10, 2009, 10:55:37 PM
PACOBIRD IS A LAW LIBRARIAN I DONT KNOW WHY YOU ARE CHALLENGING HIM

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cyan Prime on August 10, 2009, 11:04:24 PM
GET A PIECE OF PAPER
:advice:
MAKE LAWS THAT ARE WRONG
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on August 11, 2009, 12:51:06 PM
Because being a law librarian does not by any means imply that you can't be profoundly, terribly wrong about something.  It is supposed to act against someone completely misstating the law (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=280.msg97361#msg97361) to back up an unsupportable claim, though.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on August 11, 2009, 02:09:45 PM
A general observation: Common geek sentiment seems to be that if the law or penalty isn't 'fair' that there must be a loophole or defense. Further, popular media dramatizes the courtroom by suggesting that most laws are not (relatively) simple and that most cases don't have a pretty cut and dry connect-the-dots conclusion. Neither of these are accurate.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 11, 2009, 03:32:10 PM
What's that old Terry Pratchett quote about cops? I'm probably misquoting horribly, but it goes:

Quote
When you see a woman holding a knife over her dead husband in her kitchen bawling 'he shouldn't ort've said that about our Ron!', sure one in a hundred times, it's actually a grand conspiracy where nothing is as it seems. But the other ninety-nine times it's exactly what it looks like.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 17, 2009, 11:25:55 AM
Interesting follow-up on the i4i/Microsoft Word business. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/features/vox/i4i-won-a-huge-legal-victory-but-at-what-cost/article1251606/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 17, 2009, 11:47:56 AM
Question for TA: If intellectual property rights had not been explicitly enshrined in the Constitution, do you think the United States, at either the federal or state level, would still have drafted laws to protect them?  Why or why not?

For the record, this is not an attempt to rhetorically trap anybody or anything.  I am honestly curious as to 1) why somebody who did not consider copyright infringement morally equivalent to stealing would support IP rights at all, and 2) if they in fact do not support IP rights, what their justification/alternative might be.

My stance is simple and not at all based on the letter of the law: I support DRM because I think copyright infringement is, on a moral level, stealing.  Someone put the sweat of his brow into the creation of something that we all agree belongs to them in some way, and the infringer comes and takes it without permission or actual (though perhaps imagined) entitlement.  My mentioning of any letter of the law at all has only been to call attention to the spirit of our cultural prohibition on stealing, and to draw moral parallels.  You all may disagree, but I have yet to see an argument as to why, and I find it telling that whenever someone who is pro-Copyright draws that simple moral parallel, the response is inevitably technical hair-splitting between "theft" and "infringement", which is ultimately a questionable distinction since both are quite illegal anyway.

(bonus fun fact, appropos of nothing: Anglo-American Common Law does not include IP infringement under the definition of theft because the British Parliament passed statutory protection of Copyrights about 20 years after the invention of the printing press.  No judge ever said IP infringement was theft because there was never any need for them to.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Saturn on August 17, 2009, 04:16:54 PM
I'll support DRM when it stops causing more trouble to the PEOPLE THAT PAID FOR SOMETHING THAN THE PIRATES.

This will probably never happen.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on August 17, 2009, 11:40:31 PM
You're preaching to the choir, of course.

DRM puts your usage rights in the hands of a third party, meaning it's only as trustworthy as the company who issues it. Some companies have the upside-down idea that you can monetize DRM by imposing restrictions on rights, without seeming to realize that this decreases the value drastically.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on August 18, 2009, 06:31:52 AM
DRM is also a company's way of saying you don't own that thing you just bought.  You just spent $15 on a CD, not the music.  You just spent $50 on a DVD, not the game.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 18, 2009, 08:08:43 AM
DRM is also a company's way of saying you don't own that thing you just bought.  You just spent $15 on a CD, not the music.  You just spent $50 on a DVD, not the game.

Precisely. Don't ever let someone blur the distinction between 'data' and 'idea'.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on August 18, 2009, 08:13:57 AM
That's been the case for a while: you buy a copy of the software and a license to use it. What DRM adds is that it gives the company control over how you use it. They can use that to limit you in unreasonable ways for their own benefit.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 18, 2009, 09:15:20 AM
Quick, somebody hide this thread before Kazz necro's the Steam thread.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on August 18, 2009, 09:35:37 AM
DRM is also a company's way of saying you don't own that thing you just bought.  You just spent $15 on a CD, not the music.  You just spent $50 on a DVD, not the game.
I wonder if this has ever not been the case (ignoring, for a moment, DRM which specifically fucks with the right of first sale).  The idea that buying a record somehow entitles you to rights over the music within or to somehow download it all if you're a big fattie and sit on it and break it is very, very new—and I don't think simply because the technology which enables it is new. 
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on August 18, 2009, 09:45:49 AM
That's been the case for a while: you buy a copy of the software and a license to use it. What DRM adds is that it gives the company control over how you use it. They can use that to limit you in unreasonable ways for their own benefit.

See the Steam thread.  Short version: You don't need a license to use it.  Unless you're making new copies and selling them, or renting the copy you have, you can do whatever you like with your copy, including reselling it.  It's called the first-sale doctrine, and has been recognized law at the Supreme Court level for more than a hundred years.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 18, 2009, 09:50:37 AM
Agreed, but if that's your beef the real problem here is not the enforcement of IP rights at all; it is the continued validity of EULAs.  After all, there's nothing stopping anybody from contracting away their rights of first sale, but it is problematic if they do not realize they are doing it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on August 18, 2009, 09:56:14 AM
If sacrificing the right of first sale is that easy, what exactly makes you think the right won't just immediately vanish?  It's been known to happen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dog_contract).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 18, 2009, 10:11:28 AM
I'm not sure what you're asking here.  Are you suggesting that people shouldn't be allowed to contract away legal rights with other private parties for material gain (excepting, of course, unconscionability, which I consider EULAs to be)?  Nobody is "sacrificing" anything.  The doctrine of first sale itself does not come under attack simply because you clicked "I Accept" on the Terms and Conditions screen.

At any rate, yellow-dog contracts were terrible, too, but for wildly different reasons than EULAs.  When I am faced with the choice of signing away my right of first sale and watching my family starve to death on the street, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, my objection to EULAs is that they necessarily deny the opportunity for arms-length negotiation between the parties, regardless of relative power or sophistication.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 18, 2009, 02:53:08 PM
(ps get a real issue nerds)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 26, 2009, 09:17:53 PM
Okay, playing catchup.

WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD'S FUCK ARE YOU ARGUING WITH A FUCKING LAWYER

WHY

Next thread-derailing post like this gets you kicked off Real World.  Have a nice day.

My stance is simple and not at all based on the letter of the law: I support DRM because I think copyright infringement is, on a moral level, stealing.

Which might be relevant if DRM actually (1) prevented infringement and (2) didn't harm legitimate customers.  A point which I'm pretty sure every single person in this thread has already made several times.

Someone put the sweat of his brow into the creation of something that we all agree belongs to them in some way,

Yeah, like when Michael Jackson made Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.  And I will never forget Bob Iger's fantastic run on Spider-Man.

My mentioning of any letter of the law at all has only been to call attention to the spirit of our cultural prohibition on stealing, and to draw moral parallels.  You all may disagree, but I have yet to see an argument as to why, and I find it telling that whenever someone who is pro-Copyright draws that simple moral parallel, the response is inevitably technical hair-splitting between "theft" and "infringement", which is ultimately a questionable distinction since both are quite illegal anyway.

I've already pointed out the huge gaping fallacy in your "all illegal things are equivalent" argument.

...you know what?  Nice try.  You're not going to respond to a single thing I said in my post, and you're going to ignore Det's request for any kind of evidence that DRM works (come on, let's have that argument; I'm sure Yyler will jump right in and obnoxiously demand in all caps why you're arguing with a computer scientist), and then you're going to turn around and accuse everybody ELSE of ignoring you and repeating the same arguments over and over again?

Come on, dude, this ain't my first rodeo.  I've played this game before; I'll respond to your arguments when you respond to mine.

...actually, I already did respond to your arguments.  I'll respond to your arguments when you come up with some new ones, then.

I wonder if this has ever not been the case (ignoring, for a moment, DRM which specifically fucks with the right of first sale).  The idea that buying a record somehow entitles you to rights over the music within or to somehow download it all if you're a big fattie and sit on it and break it is very, very new—and I don't think simply because the technology which enables it is new. 

Making a copy to a cassette tape to play in your car was perfectly legal.  And 1980's copyright law said that it was legal to make a single copy of any software you owned for backup purposes.

The Internet has complicated the hell out of these things.  Strictly speaking, it's legal to rip a CD to MP3 but not to download somebody ELSE'S MP3 rip of it if you already own a copy, which is rather a silly and arbitrary distinction.  And you can record a TV show off the air and skip the commercials, but not download somebody else's copy that already has them ripped out -- this one's a little more understandable, of course, given the nature of ad-supported revenue, but at the end of the day I still didn't watch the ads in either case.  A lot of the discussion amounts to trying to figure out where the line is.

Agreed, but if that's your beef the real problem here is not the enforcement of IP rights at all; it is the continued validity of EULAs.  After all, there's nothing stopping anybody from contracting away their rights of first sale, but it is problematic if they do not realize they are doing it.

Ahhh, NOW we're getting somewhere.

You can't defend DRM AND hold EULA's to be unconscionable.  Maybe in a purely philosophical sense (like how the platonic ideal of DRM is okay, it's just the pesky reality of it that, you know, doesn't work and trashes people's CD drives) those two views are compatible, but in real life, the two issues are inextricable.  DRM exists to enforce EULA's, period.

As I understand it, what makes EULA's unconscionable (or at least one of the factors) is that the EU has no ability to negotiate.  Add in the ability for users to negotiate contracts and you'd need corresponding DRM limits for each contract.  (And of course if I could engage in contract negotiations with software vendors, I would demand my product not come with any DRM in the first damn place.)

So what sort of licensing scenario would you suggest, in that case?

...I'll start another post for all the comic-booky copyright news of late.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 26, 2009, 10:37:49 PM
So, okay.  Going waaaaaaay back to the beginning of the thread and the Superman copyright termination case.

The latest is that, about 6 weeks back, the Siegels secured more Superman rights.  Here's how it went down: as I noted back at the beginning of the thread, copyright lawyer Jeff Trexler put out a slew of very good posts about the case on Newsarama.  One of them, Russell Keaton: Superman's Fifth Beatle (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/08/20/russell-keaton-supermans-fifth-beatle/), attracted the attention of publisher Denis Kitchen, who alluded in a comment (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/08/20/russell-keaton-supermans-fifth-beatle/#comment-448958) to some unpublished correspondence between Siegel and Keaton.  The Siegels' lawyers caught wind of this and asked to see the letters, and discovered that Siegel had written the Superman story from Action Comics #4 prior to signing his contract with National/DC.

(To review, Siegel and Shuster's heirs are only eligible to reclaim copyright on material that was created BEFORE their contracts with DC; whatever they made under contract was never their property to begin with and was always DC's.  Stuff they created on their own and THEN sold to DC, however, is eligible for their heirs to reclaim.)

The upshot of all of this is that the Siegels now own Superman's origin story.  Newsarama (http://blog.newsarama.com/2009/08/12/blog-post-gets-siegels-more-superman/) has a quick overview; Variety (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118007269.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562) has a more in-depth description of what the Siegels got here:

Quote
This means the Siegels -- repped by Marc Toberoff of Toberoff & Associates -- now control depictions of Superman's origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lora, Superman as the infant Kal-El, the launching of the infant Superman into space by his parents as Krypton explodes and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash.

That's a pretty fucking important piece of the property to own, right there.

The timing is good for the Siegels: this week saw the release of DC's latest retelling of Superman's origin story, and recent rumors suggest that, after the disappointing numbers from Superman Returns, DC was planning to give the franchise the Batman treatment and relaunch it from the origin story.  (Per Nrama (http://www.newsarama.com/film/090917-superman-movie-no-plans.html), WB has confirmed that the litigation has put Superman movie plans on hold.)

That said, the nimrods on the comments threads suggesting that the Siegel heirs deliberately timed this decision for the release of Superman: Secret Origin and to preempt a hypothetical Superman Begins clearly do not have a working idea of how the court system works; you can't really time decisions by a comic book release schedule.

Meanwhile, over on the Marvel side:

Hollywood Reporter (http://www.heatvisionblog.com/2009/09/jack-kirby-lawsuit-details.html): Jack Kirby's heirs have hired Toberoff and filed similar termination notices to Marvel for a bevy of his characters, including the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men, and...Spider-Man?

Per Robot 6 (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/09/confirmed-jack-kirbys-heirs-want-a-piece-of-spider-man/), Kirby's claim on Spider-Man goes something like this: Stan Lee approached him with the character idea and he did a couple designs; Stan didn't like him because he was too musclebound, so he went to Ditko instead.  But some accounts claim that Kirby introduced some elements from an unpublished character called the Silver Spider that he and Joe Simon co-created.

CBR (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23063) has a good rundown of the legal ramifications here; Nat Gertler has a list of bad assumptions (http://www.gertler.com/nat/tv/?p=1425) people in the comments section have been making.

Some points:

While they're similar on the surface (and share the same lawyer), this is a completely different animal from the Superman case.  For starters, the circumstances of Siegel and Shuster's contracts with DC were well-known; the heirs know that DC is entitled to the work they did under contract and DC knows the heirs are entitled to the work they did before the contract, it's just a question of determining which is which, and what that entails.  Meanwhile, from what I gather, nobody really knows what Kirby's contract with Marvel was, or even if he had one; apparently everyone who worked for Marvel in the 1960's was a freelancer, not an employee.  This was so Marvel could screw them out of employee benefits, but it may come back to bite them in the ass if it means they were buying characters from people who weren't their employees.  Marvel's going to have to produce evidence that Kirby created his characters as work-for-hire, under a contract -- and not a back-of-the-check contract.  At any rate, when Kirby tried to get his original art back from Marvel in the 1980's, they tried to make him sign a contract saying he wouldn't seek the return of any of his characters, which would suggest they thought he might have a case.

Another key difference is Stan Lee's place in the equation.  Where the Siegel and Shuster heirs are BOTH seeking termination of copyright transfer, Stan Lee's not going to seek termination on any of the characters he co-created.  He's got a sweetheart deal with Marvel; as I understand it he agreed never to seek copyright termination in return for $1M a year for the rest of his life.  So Marvel's going to own half the copyright to these characters no matter what happens (and in the likely event that the heirs fail their bid for Spider-Man, all of their biggest character, unless Ditko's got some heirs out there who have very different political beliefs from his own); if the Kirbys get the rights to some of them, Marvel doesn't lose them, it just has to share the profits.  (Which is a whole other mess in and of itself; if, for example, the Kirbys got half the X-Men rights, what would they entitled to from a movie like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which has "X-Men" right in the title but only has 3 Kirby characters in it, in very minor roles?)

Anyway!  This is the kind of stuff that fascinates the hell out of me.  (I realize most people do not share this fascination, and in fact explained all this to my girlfriend last night when she was complaining of insomnia in the hopes that it would cure it.)

There's also been huge news on Marvelman, but I think I'm going to split a Marvelman thread off from the Funnybooks thread and talk about it there.  In the meantime it is 11:35 and, while I'm not sleepy, I figure I should at least look at some other threads for a bit rather than stay on this one topic.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Alex on September 27, 2009, 12:02:11 AM
Anyway!  This is the kind of stuff that fascinates the hell out of me.  (I realize most people do not share this fascination, and in fact explained all this to my girlfriend last night when she was complaining of insomnia in the hopes that it would cure it.)

I'm pretty intrigued by this stuff too, I just don't have the smarts to fully follow it so having someone else explain it is A++ to me.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on September 27, 2009, 06:04:26 AM
Anyway!  This is the kind of stuff that fascinates the hell out of me.  (I realize most people do not share this fascination, and in fact explained all this to my girlfriend last night when she was complaining of insomnia in the hopes that it would cure it.)

I'm pretty intrigued by this stuff too, I just don't have the smarts to fully follow it so having someone else explain it is A++ to me.

 (http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/Bon_Bon_2009/scruffy-1.jpg) Werd ta that, homes.

Thad's boilerplate accounts are much more succinct and enjoyable than actually following along with all this stuff as it breaks.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 20, 2009, 06:16:14 AM
Sometimes we can all use a laugh. I noticed this amusing trademark line appended to all emails I receive from UPS. I have 'enhanced' the relevant bit.

Quote
© 2009 United Parcel Service of America, Inc. UPS, the UPS brandmark, and the color brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All rights reserved.

:rolleyes:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on October 20, 2009, 06:29:25 AM
I just changed the forum color scheme to brown in honor of that. :8D:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on October 20, 2009, 06:36:13 AM
I've now changed my workplace signature to brown.
 :perfect:

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Miss Cat Ears on October 20, 2009, 07:03:27 AM
dibs on periwinkle
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on October 20, 2009, 10:58:30 AM
I guess it is hard for people to know what trademarks actually mean.
I AM BEING FUNNY ON THE INTERNET GUYS
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 22, 2009, 07:40:18 AM
Nokia sues Apple, claiming iphone infringes 10 Nokia patents (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/nokia-launches-patent-suit-over-iphone/article1333942/)

That's some amusingly high-level patent trolling. I guess this is the new model if you can't compete.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 22, 2009, 09:48:35 AM
Pissing on the iPhone seems to be in vogue these days.  I guess since Windows 7 isn't a huge piece of fudge everybody has to take their elitism elsewhere?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 25, 2009, 06:08:58 PM
Backing up a bit, something I meant to mention earlier:

I wonder if this has ever not been the case (ignoring, for a moment, DRM which specifically fucks with the right of first sale).  The idea that buying a record somehow entitles you to rights over the music within or to somehow download it all if you're a big fattie and sit on it and break it is very, very new—and I don't think simply because the technology which enables it is new. 

Making a copy to a cassette tape to play in your car was perfectly legal.  And 1980's copyright law said that it was legal to make a single copy of any software you owned for backup purposes.

The Internet has complicated the hell out of these things.  Strictly speaking, it's legal to rip a CD to MP3 but not to download somebody ELSE'S MP3 rip of it if you already own a copy, which is rather a silly and arbitrary distinction.  And you can record a TV show off the air and skip the commercials, but not download somebody else's copy that already has them ripped out -- this one's a little more understandable, of course, given the nature of ad-supported revenue, but at the end of the day I still didn't watch the ads in either case.  A lot of the discussion amounts to trying to figure out where the line is.

Relevant: Kaleidescape loses; DVD copying falls again (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10308493-93.html).

Quote from: cnet
"It may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual's computer," [Judge] Patel wrote, "a federal law (the DMCA) has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies."

So, uh.

According to current US copyright law, it's legal to HAVE a backup copy of something you own...just not legal to MAKE one.

:endit:





(EDIT: Fixed typo which presumably made that last sentence very confusing.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on November 29, 2009, 06:53:27 PM
Huh.

BoardGameGeek.com has apparently been handed a C&D order from Games Workshop. What's odd is that they were forced to take down FAQs, rules summaries and scenarios, too.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on November 29, 2009, 07:15:20 PM
mininova essentially dead (http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2009/11/26/mininova-limits-its-activities-to-content-distribution-service/).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on December 17, 2009, 04:07:30 PM
A follow up on that (and I'm quite late in linking this) from the land of the obvious.
Quote from: http://torrentfreak.com/mininova-traffic-plummets-after-going-legal-091205/
Roughly a week ago, Mininova was still the largest torrent site on the Internet, but this quickly changed after the site’s founders removed of millions of torrents to avoid having to pay millions of dollars in fines. In the days that followed, traffic to the site dropped 66%, while the number of daily downloads are less than 4% of what they used to be.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on December 25, 2009, 11:50:40 PM
Looks like isoHunt may be next (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/judge-slams-isohunt-infringement-old-wine-in-a-new-bottle.ars).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on December 26, 2009, 08:53:26 AM
When the hell are these guys going to wise up and base their sites in countries where they can get away with this shit? I mean, these legal cases are (for the most part) a foregone conclusion, so the next step is to set up shop in a friendly jurisdiction (or at least one that's happy to turn a blind eye to your shenanigans). It's basic capitalism, and it's happened to most other moneymaking ventures at one time or another, most notably with the shipping industry and Hollywood (the latter one also arising from the need to avoid copyright law).

I mean sure, it doesn't make any sense for joe whozit with a tiny site to pack up and move to some random country in eastern europe, asia, or wherever else, but if you want to fully commit to barefaced piracy and derive a non-negligible income from same, it's probably worth it in the mid-to-long term.

Or just be an asian citizen to start with. I'm still waiting for a giant piracy site to start somwhere in East Asia or maybe Russia that carries a full search for western content as well.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 11, 2010, 04:10:13 PM
Marvel's filed suit against Kirby's heirs, seeking to have their copyright claims dismissed.

There's a thread at Robot 6 (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/01/kirby-family-attorneys-respond-to-marvel-lawsuit/) with typical ass-backwards ignorant fanboy commentary (repeated references to Kirby's heirs suing Marvel, which is the opposite of what happened), but unlike other threads of the sort, Kurt Busiek posts repeatedly and at length and explains the law, why it exists, what it means, and how it applies to these specific circumstances.  It's not really anything I didn't already know (except that Kurt Busiek wrote an unpublished Final Fantasy comic!), but it's very well presented.  Kurt's comments are highly recommended reading, but I'd advise ignoring the rest of the thread.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 11, 2010, 04:24:25 PM
Followed your advice to the letter.

All I have to say is:

Quote from: poster in that thread
I like Kurt Busiek's one man campaign to make the internet smarter.

EDIT: Scotch that, I would also like to add that watching Kurt take a five second sidestep to pwn the hell out of the idiot who brought up the French Revolution before getting right back on topic was a thing of pure beauty. 
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 12, 2010, 09:34:34 PM
TechDirt (http://techdirt.com/articles/20100111/2149377710.shtml) has a rundown of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which is neither anti-counterfeiting nor a trade agreement but an attempt to strengthen the DMCA and expand it to the rest of the world.  The primary focus is on secrecy -- in a nutshell, there's a good reason the backers of this thing don't want the public to know what's in it.  (I have a rant all saved up for the healthcare thread about the Democrats not letting C-SPAN cover their closed-door negotiations.  Obama said something on the campaign trail about how he would allow C-SPAN in so the American people could see who was serving them and who was serving the insurance companies, but I think he's answered the question for us.)

Hat tip to GP (http://gamepolitics.com/2010/01/12/behind-acta).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on March 18, 2010, 07:49:02 PM
Viacom suing YouTube for not being vigilant enough in protecting copyrights. (http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadcast-yourself.html)

 :tldr: version:

Quote
In their opening briefs in the Viacom vs. YouTube lawsuit (which have been made public today), Viacom and plaintiffs claim that YouTube doesn't do enough to keep their copyrighted material off the site.
Quote
For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site. It deliberately "roughed up" the videos to make them look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent employees to Kinko's to upload clips from computers that couldn't be traced to Viacom.

And a response from a friend of mine:

Quote
Sometimes I have other people beat my family members to death so I can get other people to protect my family members from getting beaten to death afterwards. I am very crafty.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Miichan on March 19, 2010, 08:24:09 AM
In Viacom's defense, they aren't suing over the videos they uploaded.

Quote
Viacom's efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

...

At least they aren't INTENTIONALLY suing over videos they uploaded.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on March 19, 2010, 08:47:53 AM
Who's running that company? Hank Pym?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Lottel on March 19, 2010, 10:20:09 AM
Who's running that company? Hank Pym?

Are you saying the company is shrinking? Or growing?
Or is very good at science?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on March 19, 2010, 10:29:55 AM
Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man, aka Giant-Man, aka Goliath, aka Yellowjacket, aka The Wasp.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on March 19, 2010, 10:35:53 AM
I was referring to the time he built a robot in secret that he would 'defeat' to redeem himself.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on March 19, 2010, 10:42:47 AM
I was referring to the time he built a robot in secret that he would 'defeat' to redeem himself.

(http://www.the-leaping-lamp.com/images/incredibles-syndrome-mirage-characters.jpg)

"You don't say?"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on April 27, 2010, 06:46:36 PM
AFP Suing Photographer They Stole Images From (http://www.pdnpulse.com/2010/04/insult-to-injury-afp-suing-photographer-it-stole-photos-from.html)

Quote
It's hard to explain a mind-blowing mess like this one, but AFP is suing a Haitian photojournalist for "antagonistic assertion of [his] rights" after it distributed his news-breaking earthquake photos all over the world without his permission. AFP is mad because the photographer, Daniel Morel, sent cease and desist letters to numerous AFP clients, allegedly made false and defamatory statements about AFP, and made unreasonable monetary demands of AFP for infringement.

Emphasis mine.

It's an interesting case, as it shows the need for copyright reform in the age of the internet.  This story also follows on the heals of Al Gore's Current TV clearing itself in a misappropriation case (http://www.pdnpulse.com/2010/04/al-gores-tv-channel-cleared-in-photo-misappropriation-case.html).  The website for Current TV used one of Ken Light's photographs on it, and he sued in small claims court for damages.  He ultimately lost, but it shows that we need a model so that small artists and creators can make money on the work they do, without providing free content for bigger entities.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on April 27, 2010, 06:56:31 PM
If Pacobird ever gets the time, I'm curious on how India's recent Copyright law is, after all the media love.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on April 27, 2010, 07:26:52 PM
You know what's an antagonistic assertion of rights?  The Boston Tea Party.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 01, 2010, 08:48:35 PM
Shit, if it's illegal to make an antagonistic assertion of your rights, then every major media distributor in the country is in serious fucking trouble.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on July 13, 2010, 01:51:58 AM
WHAT IS WITH THE HUGE NAMES ON YOU PEOPLE
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 13, 2010, 05:34:29 AM
asked the pot to the kettle
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on July 26, 2010, 02:56:43 PM
:goodnews:
EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers (http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2010/07/26)

Quote from: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2010/Librarian-of-Congress-1201-Statement.html
...exemptions from the statute’s prohibition against circumvention of technology that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work...
(1)  Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:

    (i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;

        (ii) Documentary filmmaking;
        (iii) Noncommercial videos

(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

(3) Computer programs, in the form of firmware or software, that enable used wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telecommunications network, when circumvention is initiated by the owner of the copy of the computer program solely in order to connect to a wireless telecommunications network and access to the network is authorized by the operator of the network.

(4) Video games accessible on personal computers and protected by technological protection measures that control access to lawfully obtained works, when circumvention is accomplished solely for the purpose of good faith testing for, investigating, or correcting security flaws or vulnerabilities, if:

    (i) The information derived from the security testing is used primarily to promote the security of the owner or operator of a computer, computer system, or computer network; and
    (ii) The information derived from the security testing is used or maintained in a manner that does not facilitate copyright infringement or a violation of applicable law.

(5) Computer programs protected by dongles that prevent access due to malfunction or damage and which are obsolete.  A dongle shall be considered obsolete if it is no longer manufactured or if a replacement or repair is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace; and

(6) Literary works distributed in ebook format when all existing ebook editions of the work (including digital text editions made available by authorized entities) contain access controls that prevent the enabling either of the book’s read-aloud function or of screen readers that render the text into a specialized format.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on July 26, 2010, 03:21:34 PM
The jailbreak thing also belongs in Applepocalypse.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 26, 2010, 04:41:28 PM
And also that thread where a bunch of people told me I was stupid for thinking that being able to run homebrew software was a consumer right.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on July 27, 2010, 06:14:21 AM
Quote from: Thad
And also that thread where a bunch of people told me I was stupid for thinking that being able to run homebrew software was a consumer right.

You know that scene at the end of the Untouchables where that reporter is like MISTER NESS PROHIBITION IS OVER WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW and Costner says WELL I THINK ILL GO HAVE A DRINK and the camera pans out as he walks away into the hustle and bustle of a Chicago morning?

This is like that.

(also homebrewing is not generally done for the purpose of security testing iirc but feel free to correct me)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on July 27, 2010, 09:14:29 AM
Quote from: Thad
And also that thread where a bunch of people told me I was stupid for thinking that being able to run homebrew software was a consumer right.

You know that scene at the end of the Untouchables where that reporter is like MISTER NESS PROHIBITION IS OVER WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW and Costner says WELL I THINK ILL GO HAVE A DRINK and the camera pans out as he walks away into the hustle and bustle of a Chicago morning?

This is like that.

Any excuse to post great music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0vChyJqrok#)

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on July 27, 2010, 01:48:39 PM
Quote from: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2367037,00.asp quoting apple
"It is also important to note that unauthorized modification of the iOS is a violation of the iPhone end-user license agreement," the company wrote. "Because of this, Apple may deny service for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch that has installed any unauthorized software."
Standard procedure, but still annoying.  Shows that the victory doesn't mean a hell of a lot if AT&T gets on board with whatever Apple means by "deny service."

Correct me if I'm wrong on this next part.

You can't fully escape this kind of shit by going the Android route.  Manufacturers have rules about not bypassing their firmware/bootloaders, some of which will only support up to a certain version of the Android OS.  This means manufacturers can effectively halt your ability to keep your phone modern, unless you're willing to void your warranty (or whatever EULA they've whipped up).

(There's something to be said about Motorola and the case of the Droid X and Droid 2 vs the original Droid, but I'm too busy to do the proper research.  Maybe I'll get back to this.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on July 27, 2010, 05:10:22 PM
Well, that's Apple's line.  But it kind of affirms what I've suspected in that the ruling doesn't say jack about a company's attempts to circumvent homebrew applications, it just means they can't outright sue you for it.

Which doesn't mean device makers explicitly have that right, or don't.  It just means the ruling is still in the air on that one.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 28, 2010, 09:20:21 PM
(also homebrewing is not generally done for the purpose of security testing iirc but feel free to correct me)

Well, I was talking about the part about running custom apps rather than the security testing part.

Quote
(2) Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

Technically only applies to phones, but I can see a broader interpretation showing up in the courts.  For example, no rational person would say "This applies to the iPhone but not the iPod Touch."

But it kind of affirms what I've suspected in that the ruling doesn't say jack about a company's attempts to circumvent homebrew applications, it just means they can't outright sue you for it.

Which doesn't mean device makers explicitly have that right, or don't.  It just means the ruling is still in the air on that one.

I don't think it's up in the air at all; you were right the first time: manufacturers are still allowed to use whatever ridiculous anti-circumvention techniques they want to try and stop people from jailbreaking their devices, they just can't sue anyone who circumvents them.

And again, it's limited to phones (again, with my caveat above that I think there's some wiggle room there) and breaking DRM for reasons of security or interoperability.

Still no backups, which is of course completely fucking asinine.  But it's a pretty big step in the right direction.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on July 28, 2010, 09:27:21 PM
So... crack party?

KRAKK KRAKK
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 03, 2010, 08:50:40 PM
The best thing you will read all day: Judge rules Dark Ages Spawn, Domina and Tiffany are derivative characters (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/07/judge-rules-dark-ages-spawn-domina-and-tiffany-are-derivative-characters/).

Quote
"Much as defendant [McFarlane] tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century," [Judge Barbara] Crabb writes. "Not only does this break the Hellspawn 'rule' that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns [sic] to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue no. 9. [...]

"If defendant really wanted to differentiate the new Hellspawn," the judge continues, "why not make him a Portuguese explorer in the 16th century; an officer of the Royal Navy in the 18th century, an idealistic recruit of Simon Bolivar in the 19th century, a companion of Odysseus on his voyages, a Roman gladiator, a younger brother of Emperor Nakamikado in the early 18th century, a Spanish conquistador, an aristocrat in the Qing dynasty, an American Indian warrior or a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I? It seems far more than coincidence that Dark Ages (McFarlane) Spawn is a knight from the same century as Medieval (Gaiman) Spawn."

As a bonus, Crabb uses the phrase "kick-ass warrior angels" in reference to Domina and Tiffany.

I would totally buy a comic by Judge Crabb.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on August 04, 2010, 07:22:40 AM
Wow. It really tickles me to know that truth is often more awesome than fiction.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 06, 2010, 09:30:20 PM
GPL scores historic court compliance victory (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/04/gpl_violation_westinghouse/)

Quote from: TFA
The Software Freedom Conservancy has secured $90,000 in damages for willful infringement of GPLv2, plus nearly $50,000 in costs from Westinghouse Digital Electronics over its illegal distribution of the Unix utility BusyBox. The company has also been ordered to stop shipping product loaded with BusyBox.

It's the first time a US court has awarded an injunction ordering a GPL violator to permanently stop distribution of out-of-compliance GPL'd software.

It might not be the last. The action is one of 14 that SFC has filed against the same number of consumer electronics manufactures and retailers for GPL violations, including Best Buy, Samsung Electronics America, and JVC Americas.

Westinghouse is bankrupt and they may never see that money, but this is a big deal as far as setting precedent.

And I think the keyword here is "willful".  They knew exactly what the fuck they were doing.  Why do people think they can get away with this shit?  You think because you compile it and hide it in firmware nobody's going to find out?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Burrito Al Pastor on September 10, 2010, 10:43:54 AM
9th Circut Court of Appeals rules that EULAs can void first-sale doctrine. (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/)

Man, between this and that "your car in your driveway isn't an area with a reasonable expectation of privacy" thing, they're really on a roll these days.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on September 10, 2010, 06:23:12 PM
...Oh, shit, I think I hear TA stomping up.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: SCD on September 10, 2010, 07:37:38 PM
Good.  I want to know if this can make it into SCOTUS. 
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: TA on September 19, 2010, 02:28:11 PM
Apparently Nintendo has decided that having a thriving Pokemon fanbase is a bad thing, and is sending takedown notices to a bunch of the bigger resources for Pokemon. (http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Fansites_served_with_copyright_infringement_notices)  I have no idea whether they really have a leg to stand on here but whether or not they do, this strikes me as kind of, um, psychotic.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on September 19, 2010, 03:10:32 PM
Elsewhere it was pointed out that there's a bunch of screwy shit (Spelling/Grammar errors, making up laws & deadlines that have no basis in actual law, etc) in the takedown notices that point to the most drunk lawyer ever, or someone's pulling a fast one over on the internet "for teh lulz"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on September 19, 2010, 03:39:59 PM
Damning evidence: AGNPH hasn't said anything about it.

EDIT: This is post #12345.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 19, 2010, 08:22:33 PM
Neil Patrick Harris is an attorney general?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 02, 2010, 12:26:29 PM
Ars: Judge in Xbox modding trial berates prosecution, halts trial (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/judge-in-xbox-modding-trial-berates-prosecution-halts-trial.ars).

A lot of it is that he's berating the witnesses for the prosecution for breaking the law (one recorded the defendant without his knowledge or consent, which is illegal in California; the other admits he's modded Xboxes himself).

More importantly, he seems to have a technical understanding of fair uses of modded Xboxes, and seems to be questioning the anti-circumvention clause itself:

Quote
“The only way to be able to play copied games is to circumvent the technology,” Gutierrez said. “How about backup games and the homebrewed?”

I'd say this is good news.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 03, 2010, 07:25:53 AM
Prosecution drops case (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/prosecutors-dismiss-xbox-modding-case-mid-trial.ars) after first witness suddenly recalls that he saw the defendant put a pirated game in the modded console to test it out.

Victory for the good guys, but not as decisive as it would have been if they'd proceeded.  They knew they were going to lose and this way there's no precedent set.  Next time the ESA may have more competent witnesses.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 10, 2011, 02:25:54 PM
Oh wow: depositions are up from the Kirbys' suit against Marvel.  A blogger called Danny Boy (http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/) has the goods, with Bleeding Cool delivering some highlights:

John Romita (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-john-romita-deposition-for-the-kirby-family-v-marvel-lawsuit/)
Stan Lee (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-stan-lee-deposition-on-the-origins-of-the-marvel-universe-for-kirby-family-vs-marvel-lawsuit/)
Mark Evanier (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-mark-evanier-deposition-for-the-kirby-family-vs-marvel-lawsuit/)
Larry Lieber (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-larry-lieber-deposition-for-the-kirby-family-vs-marvel-lawsuit/)
Roy Thomas (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/09/the-roy-thomas-deposition-for-the-kirby-family-vs-marvel-lawsuit/)

I've read through the Thomas one and about halfway through the Lee one and I'm about to head to bed.  So far there aren't any real surprises (and these are from Marvel's submitted evidence so they're overwhelmingly pro-Marvel), but it's an interesting damn read anyway, just hearing it articulated in this much detail from primary sources.

EDIT: Finished the Stan Lee bit.  Pretty good.  My favorite part, in a discussion on Thor:

Quote
STAN LEE: I wanted him to be the son of Odin

Ladies and gentlemen, Stan Lee is now claiming credit for Norse mythology.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 12, 2011, 12:51:11 PM
The Evanier one is long and contentious but, not coincidentally, damned interesting.  Evanier is a pro and doesn't fall for the lawyer's tricks.  Marvel's strategy here is clearly to establish that Evanier (1) wasn't there; (2) is biased by his friendship with Kirby; (3) has a financial incentive for exaggerating Kirby's accomplishments; and (4) hasn't done his homework.  The lawyer succeeded in (1).

A highlight is when the lawyer asks Evanier if he's studied anyone else's research in this area, and he responds flat-out that there isn't any, that he literally wrote the book on comics history.  And then he names off a few dozen people he's interviewed over the past 40 years and adds that he has about 300 more names he could provide if they want him to.

A couple key points he makes: Jack was only paid for pages that were accepted; if Stan made him redraw 4 pages, he'd still only get paid for a 20-page story even though he'd drawn 24.  So that makes it look a lot like a seller/client relationship, not work-for-hire.  And there's also the fact that Kirby created the Fourth World characters while he was still working at Marvel; the fact that Marvel didn't agree to the pay he wanted for them and he took them to DC pretty clearly establishes that Marvel did NOT automatically own every character he came up with while he was freelancing for them.  (And also that we may be going through this same story again with DC in a few years.)

Like everybody else, I would love to read a deposition from Ditko, but I imagine neither side really wants him up there.  I imagine he'd damage both sides' cases pretty heavily and it's not easy to predict whose side he'd damage more.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on March 12, 2011, 12:55:01 PM
The Evanier one is the only one I read, actually, on account of Mark Evanier <3<3<3.

Care to elaborate on the Ditko point? I'm not as well up on the history of all this as I'd like to be.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on March 12, 2011, 01:49:59 PM
The Evanier one is the only one I read, actually, on account of Mark Evanier <3<3<3.

Care to elaborate on the Ditko point? I'm not as well up on the history of all this as I'd like to be.

I'm curious about that too. I mean, I know Ditko went headfirst into Ayn Rand's ass at some point, but I'm not sure if that was before or after his stint at Marvel.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on March 12, 2011, 05:52:05 PM
From what I understand, Ditko also has a fairly contentious relationship with Marvel, suffering many of the disputes over pay, copyright and credit that Kirby did during his stint. But there's also no love lost between him and Kirby, and I think in several cases Ditko has come out of seclusion to publicly cast doubt on Kirby's claims to the Marvel universe and his position on pay and attribution in general.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 13, 2011, 01:47:37 AM
Certainly on Spider-Man; Kirby repeatedly claimed credit for creating Spider-Man (and indeed that's part of this case), and Ditko really resented that.  He has every right to, honestly; Kirby had nothing to do with the Spider-Man who ultimately appeared on the page.

My understanding is that Ditko doesn't believe he has any claim on the Spider-Man copyrights but DOES believe he's owed tens of millions in royalties.  In this situation most creators (including Kirby) agreed to settle for some lump sum in exchange for giving away their claims for anything more.  Ditko has refused; he'd rather take nothing than sign a document saying he hasn't been wronged.

Basically I see him sitting down and corroborating Marvel's WFH claims but totally savaging their business practices and treatment of artists, and casting serious doubt on Stan Lee's claims about the creative process.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on April 14, 2011, 12:08:43 PM
The legal battle between Warner Brothers and the Siegel/Shuster estates continues. (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/04/warner-bros-dealt-a-setback-in-superman-legal-battle/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on June 09, 2011, 06:51:30 AM
Microsoft loses the last appeal in the i4i case and must pay out just shy of 300 million for wilful and deliberate infringement. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/microsoft-must-pay-torontos-i4i-in-patent-suit/article2053417/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 09, 2011, 04:33:55 PM
Good.  A few more suits like that and maybe the multibillion-dollar corporations who write our copyright and patent laws will realize they've fucked themselves, not just us.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cthulhu-chan on June 09, 2011, 08:29:36 PM
Wishful thinking, that.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 10, 2011, 02:12:41 PM
Well, yes.

There IS a victory for the little guy in here: the opinion explicitly states that juries can consider information in lawsuits that the USPTO was unaware of when a patent was granted.  It's a long, LONG way from fixing our totally fucked-up patent system but it's one small step.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 29, 2011, 07:38:29 AM
Kirbys lose. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/28/marvel-jack-kirby-copyrights/)

Basically what happened here is that neither side kept good records and could produce strong evidence of its claim.  And since the Kirbys were the plaintiffs, they had the burden of proof -- which put them in the position of having to prove a negative (that Kirby's work wasn't for-hire).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 02, 2011, 12:44:59 PM
Still chewing over the Kirby case.  Colleen Doran (http://adistantsoil.com/2011/07/28/marvel-comics-vs-jack-kirby-decision-marvel-wins/) has a good summary, and a link to the complete decision (http://adistantsoil.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Kirby-decision.pdf).  I've made a couple updates to my form post (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/index.php/2010/04/05/kings-ransom/) and posted it angrily to the Comics Alliance comments section before deciding I need to steer clear of comments sections for awhile.

Except maybe Colleen Doran's.  And Steve Bissette's (http://srbissette.com/?p=12761)!  He's calling for a Marvel boycott.  Which is fair enough, as I can't really fault the judge's ruling but still think the whole situation stinks.  Maybe I won't go see Captain America after all.

Anyhow.  The Evanier and Morrow depositions were tossed out as hearsay, which sucks but which I can understand, I guess.  Lee's deposition, meanwhile, was treated as gospel, which is pretty infuriating; when a guy claims credit for making Thor the son of Odin, it's probably reasonable to think he may be exaggerating his contributions in other ways.


EDIT: Will be interesting to see what happens in a decade or so when Jack's DC work comes up for termination.  I think the Kirby heirs have a much better case there; from what I understand they have hard evidence that he was working on the New Gods well before going to work for DC.  OTOH, they may be less inclined to terminate in that case, as DC has treated them much better than Marvel.  I believe they still get royalties from DC.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 29, 2011, 07:07:24 AM
Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/bittorrent-users-dont-act-in-concert-so-judge-slashes-mass-p2p-case.ars): California judge winnows another monolithic BT suit down from 188 IP's to a single defendant; understands how BT works and says that simply being part of the same swarm does not satisfy the legal requirement of "acting in concert".
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on August 29, 2011, 07:27:09 AM
Quote
which put them in the position of having to prove a negative (that Kirby's work wasn't for-hire).

er
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 29, 2011, 08:04:59 AM
Part error and part oversimplification.

One: The Kirbys weren't actually the plaintiffs in this case, Marvel was.  But the Kirbys were the ones who filed for termination of copyright transfer, which meant they had to prove that a transfer occurred.

But that DOES boil down to proving a negative: that no for-hire agreement existed.

The instance-and-expense test relies on the assumption that Kirby didn't do work on his own initiative and THEN pitch it to Marvel.  But the creation of characters like the Silver Surfer, the Black Panther, and the New Gods suggests Kirby did exactly that.

Trouble is, Marvel kept Kirby's original art pages, so if he DID do any work on spec, his family can't produce evidence of it.

Now, Marvel agreed, back in the 1980's, to return Kirby's pages.  In exchange, he ultimately signed a contract saying his work had been for-hire.  (Which, again, would be superseded if his family could produce any evidence to the contrary; you can't retroactively define a work as for-hire.)

Perversely, Marvel never returned his art; that was part of this legal maneuvering too, but the judge threw it out on statute-of-limitations grounds.  Famously, a few thousand pages of it were left in a box in a break room and mysteriously walked away.  And Lee recently casually revealed, on some damn Sci-Fi Channel special, that he's got a few thousand pages in his garage.

Ultimately I can't really fault the judge's decision under the circumstances.  But it got to this point because of a decades-long pattern of malice and incompetence.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Bal on August 29, 2011, 08:24:38 AM
Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/bittorrent-users-dont-act-in-concert-so-judge-slashes-mass-p2p-case.ars): California judge winnows another monolithic BT suit down from 188 IP's to a single defendant; understands how BT works and says that simply being part of the same swarm does not satisfy the legal requirement of "acting in concert"; has 50gig/month usenet account
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 07, 2011, 07:44:27 AM
What?  We're finally getting patent overhaul?

...oh.  It's designed specifically to fuck individuals and small businesses even MORE.  Well that's unsurprising.

Kudos to the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904537404576554633952918662.html) for reporting that ACTUALLY looks out for small business instead of just claiming to.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on September 07, 2011, 03:13:40 PM
Can you re-post the text? All I'm getting is

Quote
WASHINGTON—A patent-system overhaul nearly a decade in the making is expected to receive final congressional passage this month, significantly altering how anyone with an invention—from a garage tinkerer to a large corporation—will vie for profitable control of that idea's future.

The bill, which passed a key Senate vote Tuesday and is expected to get President Barack Obama's signature, will reverse centuries of U.S. patent policy by awarding patents to inventors who are "first to file" their invention with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Currently the "first to invent" principle reigns, which often spawns costly litigation between dueling inventors.

The ...

Yes, it actually ends in an ellipse. There isn't even a "Want more? Pay now for access!" ad or anything like that. It just ends.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on September 07, 2011, 03:33:03 PM
Here's a tip when that happens: Simply copy the headline then post it into Google. That'll get your around the WSJ's paywall.


But the gist of it is that the system is changing from patents being awarded to the first to actually invent something, to being the first to come up with the idea. So in short, there's no reason that say, Apple wouldn't just flood the patent office with every asinine idea it can think, and sue anyone who gets it working later.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on September 07, 2011, 03:51:10 PM
Terrible law.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 07, 2011, 03:58:14 PM
But the gist of it is that the system is changing from patents being awarded to the first to actually invent something, to being the first to come up with the idea. So in short, there's no reason that say, Apple wouldn't just flood the patent office with every asinine idea it can think, and sue anyone who gets it working later.

First to file, in fact.  So even if somebody else already GOT it working but didn't pony up the dough, Apple can patent it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mothra on September 07, 2011, 06:35:01 PM
Christ that's retarded.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on September 07, 2011, 08:21:11 PM
It's the system used by virtually every other country with patent protection, so it might be interesting to do the research to see how it's ended up working in practice.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Norondor on September 07, 2011, 08:56:14 PM
EXCUSE ME RICO, i'm pretty sure that america exists in an exceptionalist vacuum and there's no point in looking at how other countries handle their social policies to see if they would work here!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 09, 2011, 08:59:54 AM
To the best of my knowledge, the EU, Australia, and most other first-world countries have the same kind of patent nonsense that we do.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 12, 2011, 07:45:35 AM
Copyright troll asks court for permission to subpoena ISP's, decides court is taking too long, sends them out without permission, gets sanctioned and fined $10,000.  Also, a Texas judge used the phrase "Staggering Chutzpah" (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/sanctioned-p2p-lawyer-fined-10000-for-staggering-chutzpah.ars) (which would also be a great name for a band -- we play bar mitzvahs!).

Also: the porn company's lawyer is named Evan Stone, but no, he is not THAT Evan Stone.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on September 12, 2011, 09:53:24 AM
Copyright troll asks court for permission to subpoena ISP's, decides court is taking too long, sends them out without permission, gets sanctioned and fined $10,000.  Also, a Texas judge used the phrase "Staggering Chutzpah" (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/09/sanctioned-p2p-lawyer-fined-10000-for-staggering-chutzpah.ars) (which would also be a great name for a band -- we play bar mitzvahs!).

Also: the porn company's lawyer is named Evan Stone, but no, he is not THAT Evan Stone.
Quote
Update: Stone tells me by e-mail, "After three rewrites, I finally decided I'm just going to have to let Justin Bieber do my quoting for me: 'Whenever you knock me down I will not stay on the ground.'"
:pfflol:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 13, 2011, 12:21:13 PM
MacNN: Filesharing service sues Warner Bros. for copyright fraud (http://www.macnn.com/articles/11/09/13/claims.warner.removed.100s.of.files.it.didnt.own/)

Quote
Hotfile accuses the Warner Bros. of using the hosting company's anti-piracy tools to remove titles the studio doesn't own, including open source software.

[...]

A spokesman for Hotfile claims the studio was warned repeatedly about using the site's anti-piracy mechanisms to remove content that Warner did not own. Hotfile developed the tool to allow copyright holders to protect their intellectual privacy. The company says Warner went far beyond the intended use, removing open source and public domain titles, and even game demos. Each time Hotfile's Special Rightsholder Account (SRA) is used, the account holder must certify "under penalty of perjury" that it is the authorized legal representative of the copyright owner and "has a good faith belief" that the use of the material has not been authorized.

For example, while claiming to remove files that are copies of the movie The Box, Warner removed several files related to the alternative cancer treatment book “Cancer: Out Of The Box,” by Ty M. Bollinger. Another title deleted by Warner was “The Box that Saved Britain,” a production of the BBC, not Warner.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on September 13, 2011, 04:15:47 PM
DELICIOUS! :glee:
Title: Re: Occupy Wall Street
Post by: Amuro Ray on October 28, 2011, 10:02:31 AM
There go the lets plays, oh and the protests too.  ::(:

I don't know the name of the bill, so I'm posting a article here instead, I don't have all the info cause it was posted to me on facebook.

Some provisions in the bill would make it a “felony to stream unlicensed content — including cover band performances, karaoke videos, video game play-throughs, and more.” (http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/27/new-bill-being-considered-in-congress-could-shut-down-social-media-sites-crucial-to-occupy-protests/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 28, 2011, 10:31:09 AM
Moved over here since this is clearly more about copyright law than OWS.

EDIT TO ADD: Cute that the article you linked sticks "Republican controlled Congress" in the first sentence when in fact the bill is sponsored by a Democrat.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: NexAdruin on October 28, 2011, 12:23:38 PM
Is there really a difference?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on October 28, 2011, 12:36:23 PM
haha worst article

"Republican-controlled Congress" is pushing a Copyright-protection bill!  Clearly this is to quash to Ocuppy protests; never mind that this bill emerged from committee without amendment, which is a stage it takes most bills months to reach as it is, on July 22.

I would link to a stream of "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock but FELONY
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 28, 2011, 12:47:26 PM
Is there really a difference?

Well, the person who wrote the article seems to think so.  It's adorable.

"Republican-controlled Congress" is pushing a Copyright-protection bill!  Clearly this is to quash to Ocuppy protests; never mind that this bill emerged from committee without amendment, which is a stage it takes most bills months to reach as it is, on July 22.

In fairness, it doesn't actually say that that's the bill's intent, just that it could be one of its consequences.

Which still doesn't excuse the ridiculous partisan slant.  (It's got "Republicans" in the tags at the bottom, too; no "Democrats" of course.)  Copyright overreach, like censorship, is one of those things that partisans like to blame the other party for despite the fact that it's clearly a bipartisan problem.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 28, 2011, 01:18:32 PM
Copyright lies at the crossroads of censorship and DRM.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on October 28, 2011, 02:29:58 PM
haha worst article

"Republican-controlled Congress" is pushing a Copyright-protection bill!  Clearly this is to quash to Ocuppy protests; never mind that this bill emerged from committee without amendment, which is a stage it takes most bills months to reach as it is, on July 22.

I would link to a stream of "I'm Just a Bill" from Schoolhouse Rock but FELONY
"And I wanna make it legal for policemen to beat 'em 'cause there's limits to our liberty, at least I hope and pray that they are, you know those liberal freaks go too far."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 15, 2011, 07:46:03 AM
Company called ReDigi is set up to "resell" "used" iTunes downloads; RIAA is, as you might guess, not amused (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/riaa-wants-redigi-out-of-the-business-of-selling-used-itunes-tracks.ars).

ReDigi's argument hinges on the loophole that the iTunes EULA doesn't use the word "license", claiming that it therefore doesn't impose any additional restrictions on top of standard copyright law.

RIAA's argument, therefore, hinges not on the standard "it's a license; you don't own the track" argument, but on the fact that the file has to be copied and therefore you're selling an unlicensed copy, not the copy you own.

Don't know what the lawyer perspective is in all this (I have certain guesses about what TA is going to say and what Paco is going to say), but the technical one is that the "copy of a copy" distinction is completely fucking meaningless.

Leaving aside that a song is copied to memory and then deleted every single goddamn time you play it, and that a typical iTunes user has two copies of every song (one on the computer and one on the iPod), the concept of an "original copy" is meaningless on a computer.  If you defrag your hard drive, you've copied the bits to a different location; the "original" is gone.  Back up your library, reinstall Windows, restore?  Well, even assuming the backup was legal (and in the case of iTunes, it probably is, as no decryption is required to copy a file, just to play it), you're now working with a copy of a copy (of a copy of a copy of a copy, quite possibly).

The entire concept of a "move" on a computer is an abstraction.  There's no such thing.  There's a copy/delete (where "delete" itself is an abstraction for "mark as okay to overwrite"), and there's rewrite location information.

The copy/delete operation that ReDigi relies on is functionally equivalent to the move operation you perform when you move a file from one partition to another.

Of course, the flipside of this is that ReDigi's argument that it "deletes the original file" is bullshit.  I don't know enough about how FairPlay works to categorically state that it's impossible for ReDigi to de-authorize your DRM'ed music so it won't play under your account anymore, but that frankly seems unlikely, and, moreover, Apple's been selling DRM-free music for years at this point.  You deleted the file from the iTunes directory?  Great.  Did you delete every copy from the hard drive?  From ALL the hard drives?  From all mounted CD's and memory sticks?  From all UNmounted CD's and memory sticks?  From CD's and memory sticks that are not currently in the computer?

From, oh, I don't know, the user's iPod?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Pacobird on November 15, 2011, 09:15:37 AM
I am actually in favor of ReDigi on this one.  What's good for the goose and all; if we are going to hold consumers accountable to the letter of massive EULAs they don't read, we damn well better hold the people who draft them accountable, as well.

That said, the RIAA clearly got screwed by somebody here and they might have a better suit against Apple, since it's Apple's shoddy contract drafting that's allowed their IP to be used in this way.  That the RIAA's attorneys almost certainly realize this and are going after ReDigi and not the wealthiest corporation in the world is a pretty good example of everything wrong with the American legal system.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 15, 2011, 10:07:40 AM
Weeeeeeell, it's not really surprising that they're trying to define copying as broadly as possible.  They've claimed in the past that ripping CD's is itself illegal (though as far as I know they've had the sense not to take that claim to court).

I wouldn't be surprised if they went after Apple if this tack fails.  But it most likely won't be in court.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 22, 2011, 08:20:59 AM
Doctorow (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/22/movie-fans-piracy-online?) once again points out a bunch of shit that should be obvious, viz that not enough movies are readily available online, they're spread across too many different services requiring different credentials, they're overpriced, and all these factors contribute to piracy.  And that, not incidentally, copyright law is currently based around an evidence-free approach.

The story's about the UK industry, but things don't look a hell of a lot different on this side of the pond.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 30, 2011, 11:59:46 AM
So here's a fun one.

Ars has been reporting, for the past several months, about an organization called Medical Justice that various doctors have been using to stifle online criticism.  The gist: you sign a contract granting copyright on any reviews you write to doctors.

Well, unsurprisingly, there's now a class action (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/patient-sues-dentist-over-gag-order-causing-medical-justice-to-drop-it.ars), and it's already paying dividends: MJ has decided to stop including that clause in its contracts.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 30, 2011, 01:45:35 PM
MAFIAAFire updated (http://boingboing.net/2011/11/30/mafiaafire-teams-latest-brow.html) to circumvent domain bans.

Quote
Putting the add-on to work only requires two clicks and is completely free.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 01, 2011, 11:42:08 AM
Today in Big Content hypocrisy: Dutch copyright group hires artist to write anti-piracy song (http://boingboing.net/2011/12/01/dutch-copyright-group-accused.html), pays him for a single use, puts it on tens of millions of DVD's without compensating him further.  Royalty collecting agency offers to help him -- if he'll sign away 33% of the royalties and the rights to the song.

Related: the largest copyright settlement in Canadian history was recently reached.  The pirate?  Warner Music (http://www.canoe.com/cgi-bin/imprimer.cgi?langue=A&id=818616), which sold a few hundred thousand songs it didn't own the copyright to.  What's that, Warner?  You think old songs shouldn't be covered by copyright years after the original artist has died?  Huh.  How 'bout that.

I think it's about time to ditch all pretense of Big Content being anti-piracy.  Big Content is anti-anything that cuts into Big Content's bottom line.  Which means they're pro-piracy as long as they're the pirates.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 01, 2011, 02:50:09 PM
Oh hey, it's DMCA Exemption Time again.

Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/fight-for-your-right-to-party-rip-dvds-legally.ars) says that Public Knowledge is pushing for the right to rip DVD's, and is soliciting messages from people who have examples of occasions when they've been inconvenienced by the ban.  I can probably produce a couple.  For example, the software for playing DVD's under Linux is illegal.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 09, 2011, 01:17:58 PM
Doctorow (http://boingboing.net/2011/12/09/patrys-how-to-fix-copyri.html) reviews How to Fix Copyright (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199760098/downandoutint-20), by William Patry.

Quote
William Patry is no copyright radical. He's the author of some of the major reference texts on copyright, books that most copyright lawyers would have on their bookcases, books like Patry on Copyright. But Patry -- once copyright counsel to the US House of Representatives and policy planning advisor to the US Register of Copyrights -- is furious with the current state of copyright law, and he's marshalled his considerable knowledge of copyright and combined it with his considerable talent as a writer to produce a new book, How to Fix Copyright, a book that is incandescent in every sense of the word.

How to Fix Copyright is a superbly argued, enraging book on the state of copyright law today, one of the great evidence-free zones in policymaking, where every measure is taken on faith and whose results are never seriously measured (except by tame, partisan researchers who always conclude that more draconian laws are in order). Patry dismantles the arguments for "strong" copyright protection like a top chef deboning a fish, deftly carving away the industry rhetoric and leaving behind the evidence.

[...]

As to solutions, Patry notes that his publisher wanted him to include a list of bullet-point solutions at the end of the book, an approach he rejected because these aren't simple problems -- they're difficult and nuanced, and so are his solutions, so they're best couched in the arguments they refer to. I agree with this approach, though two of Patry's suggestions are simple enough: first, stop making new copyright laws until we know whether the current ones are working (we'll have to define what they're supposed to be doing first!); and second, make no new laws without a strong, impartial evidentiary basis.

Funnily enough, these two suggestions do mark Patry out as a copyright radical by modern standards.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 12, 2011, 01:46:13 PM
Yet more from Doctorow: The pirates of YouTube (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/12/pirates-of-youtube-cory-doctorow)

It's similar to the above; it's about Big Content falsely claiming copyright over public-domain videos on YouTube, and how YouTube doesn't have appropriate mechanisms for contesting them.

Quote
And unfortunately, there is no organised lobby for the public domain to demand the kind of stiff sanctions for Universal and co that other copyright infringers face at their behest.

Here's a SOPA amendment for you: subject Big Content to all the same punishments as individuals.  You're accused of falsely asserting copyright on a YouTube video?  Your domain gets seized, without you getting an opportunity to plead your case.

I do not, of course, actually think such a thing should actually be put into practice.  But as a rhetorical tactic it would make for a rather nice amendment.

There ARE realistic ways of actually dealing with the problem, though.  YouTube disables the accounts of people who are repeatedly subjected to takedown requests?  Fair enough -- now do the same to people who repeatedly make FALSE takedown requests.

And on the legal side, there should be harsh financial punishments for frivolous DMCA takedowns too.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 13, 2011, 09:53:40 AM
OtherOS suit thrown out (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/12/judge-dismisses-other-os-class-action-suit-against-sony.ars); companies' right to sell you a product and later make you choose between two of the features you bought it for now enshrined in law.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 13, 2011, 10:09:36 AM
What's Boingboing got to say about copyright today?

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/sopa-watered-down-still-toxic.html
The lawmaker behind SOPA introduced amendments that dramatically water it down (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/sopa-watered-down-amendment/), reports Wired's David Kravets. Unfortunately, the amended plan "still gives legal immunity to financial institutions and ad networks that choose to boycott “rogue” sites," among other problems.

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/universal-artists-didnt-giv.html
UMG claims that several artists appearing in Megaupload's music video did not give their consent (http://gigaom.com/2011/12/12/universal-vs-megaupload/).

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/megaupload-will-sue-universal.html
Megaupload is suing Universal (https://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-to-sue-universal-joins-fight-against-sopa-111212/) and will devote its energy to fighting SOPA

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/hollywood-studios-busted-as-to.html
Using YouHaveDownloaded (http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/), a Russian site that indexes downloads of popular .torrent files, TorrentFreak checked to see just how suited the studios are to serving as judge, jury and executioner over the Internet. They discovered (predictably enough) that the studios are full of pirates, greedily hoovering up illicit copies of popular movies, CDs, TV shows, and more.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on December 21, 2011, 09:47:16 AM
A year of federal prison for pirating X-Men Origins: Wolverine (http://news.yahoo.com/ny-man-gets-1-prison-x-men-piracy-025424624.html)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cait on December 21, 2011, 11:31:25 AM
A year for a repeat offense of actively creating a pirate copy of a movie for distribution before it was even released for theaters.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on December 21, 2011, 12:56:31 PM
Yeah okay THAT is a valid infringement case, even if the plaintiff is also extremely guilty of being an accessory to millions of users having to actually see X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 21, 2011, 01:02:44 PM
Yeah, a year in prison seems harsh, but it was absolutely a serious case of infringement from a guy who'd been busted for it before.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 30, 2011, 10:18:36 AM
Doctorow: The Coming War on General Computation (https://github.com/jwise/28c3-doctorow/blob/master/transcript.md).

He argues that the problem with attempts to regulate computers and the Internet is one of a flawed analogy, that legislators think of computers as special-purpose devices like cars instead of general-purpose devices like wheels.

Quote
So today we have marketing departments who say things like "we don't need computers, we need... appliances. Make me a computer that doesn't run every program, just a program that does this specialized task, like streaming audio, or routing packets, or playing Xbox games, and make sure it doesn't run programs that I haven't authorized that might undermine our profits". And on the surface, this seems like a reasonable idea -- just a program that does one specialized task -- after all, we can put an electric motor in a blender, and we can install a motor in a dishwasher, and we don't worry if it's still possible to run a dishwashing program in a blender. But that's not what we do when we turn a computer into an appliance. We're not making a computer that runs only the "appliance" app; we're making a computer that can run every program, but which uses some combination of rootkits, spyware, and code-signing to prevent the user from knowing which processes are running, from installing her own software, and from terminating processes that she doesn't want. In other words, an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box.

Worth reading the whole thing.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on December 30, 2011, 02:48:17 PM
That's a good one. The whole read is indeed worth it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on January 19, 2012, 06:01:10 AM
Now in video form!

28c3: The coming war on general computation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg#ws)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 19, 2012, 07:53:17 AM
Oh good, Congress can just restore copyright on public-domain works under pressure from foreign governments now. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/supreme-court-rules-congress-can-re-copyright-public-domain-works.ars)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: fullmooninu on January 19, 2012, 08:24:24 AM
From my classes and experience on patents, the window of opportunity to settle all these matters into a more current and stable state of things, will be when the mother of all patents: the mickey mouse one, expires (again).

It has expired what, three times already? I hope you Americans are ready then and finally get the damn rat to go public. It's the double standard that is the problem.

So, keep the ring clear till then, 'cause the rest of the world usually takes you guys as inspiration.

This means you must keep defeating this current "SOPA and friends" crap, till you get to the big rat boss.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 19, 2012, 09:12:47 AM
Well, that one's not a patent, it's a copyright.  And it's not that Mickey himself will enter into the public domain, just his first few toons.

(Roughly: Patents are for inventions and processes; they don't enter into it.  Copyrights are for specific creative works.  And trademarks are for names, designs, icons, images, and the like -- and they don't expire.  Mickey will still be covered by trademark even when the copyrights to his original shorts start to expire.)

But yes, there's another big fight coming the next time Plane Crazy is about to go into the public domain.  And yes, I expect Congress to pass yet another damn extension.  It's less clear if the next one will pass muster in the SCOTUS (the last one did, but the ruling DID state that Congress can't just keep doing this forever).

I mentioned in the other thread that repelling SOPA is one step in copyright reform, and repealing good big chunks of the DMCA and the last two copyright extensions are others.  I'm hoping for something a little more active than just letting things sit the way they are.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on January 19, 2012, 07:50:15 PM
I mentioned in the other thread that repelling SOPA is one step in copyright reform, and repealing good big chunks of the DMCA and the last two copyright extensions are others.  I'm hoping for something a little more active than just letting things sit the way they are.
Which chunks?

I only really remember two key parts:
1) takedown requests, which probably have a place in this world.
2) outlawing reverse engineering, which I'm strongly against.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 19, 2012, 08:30:59 PM
Takedown requests DO have a place in this world, but they need a little more due process, and there needs to be a way to stack the deck a little more in favor of individuals (whether they're the person requesting the takedown or the subject of the takedown).  Safe harbor is also a pretty damn important bit of DMCA that we need to keep.

Technically DMCA doesn't ban reverse engineering entirely, but it weakens it, and largely bans the circumvention of copy protection mechanisms even in cases of fair use.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on January 19, 2012, 10:42:24 PM
The theoretically-easiest-to-push-through change would be meaningful penalties for an instance of a company filing a notice for something it obviously doesn't control.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 20, 2012, 07:13:58 AM
Almost mentioned that.  The drawback is that, in practice, it would probably chill LEGITIMATE takedowns by people who don't have much money, without doing much to deter, say, Universal from continuing to do it.

(Stross mentioned, in his SOPA thread (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/01/sopa.html#comment-243068), that he's issued DMCA takedowns against people who took his CC-licensed books and sold them on Amazon.  And that Amazon completely ignored the takedown requests he sent himself, and he had to get his publisher involved before they would do anything about it.  And that he could sue them for ignoring his earlier requests but that they have more money and lawyers.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Rico on January 20, 2012, 10:23:29 AM
You could do a scale or percentages or something. Pretty much everything save small claims court already chills legitimate action by people who don't have much money, so barring that substantial reform we may as well try and slip in punishments for people with money who abuse it. A provision to curb the most rampant abuses would also be easier to slip in than a more comprehensive reform.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on January 20, 2012, 11:45:15 AM
The DMCA already lets trolls take down any Youtube channel by flooding the videos with fake takedown requests. Amateur voice actress Nyanners' channel was down for two weeks. It's a terrible law that would let someone do this with an entire website.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 23, 2012, 02:19:16 PM
So okay.  Remember Righthaven?  The copyright troll that went bankrupt after a series of ill-conceived lawsuits on behalf of companies who never actually gave it permission to file lawsuits on their behalf?

Well, per Boingboing (http://boingboing.net/2012/01/23/new-righthaven-offers-hosting.html), a Swiss company has grabbed up righthaven.com and turned it into a hosting service.  And is marketing it as a provider that won't take your site down over frivolous copyright claims.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 23, 2012, 02:20:22 PM
:glee: Delicious!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on January 24, 2012, 09:51:22 AM
You wouldn't download a dreadnaught. (http://www.3dfuture.com.au/2011/12/games-workshop-submits-dmca-takedown-notices-to-thingiverse/)

(a blueprint for a 3D model of a Warhammer 40k Dreadnaught was taken down after a DCMA notice by Games Workshop from one website, but strangely, the original blueprint remains on Google Sketchup)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 24, 2012, 10:07:07 AM
I keep saying that eventually we're going to see a big offshore site in a country where people are reasonably certain their government won't extradite and which will simply ignore takedown requests. Eventually the site may be delisted, but as has been said over and over, there will be workarounds to reach them in any country that doesn't have censorship built into their internet network infrastructure at the national level (and even then, there may be workarounds). Hell, even the Pirate Bay is still sailing along for the most part.

You'd maybe expect China to be the place for such a site to pop up (and Megaupload did in fact have a big presence in Hong Kong, but that was only a slice of their pie and the principals all lived elsewhere), but cultural differences mean that the Chinese aren't big enough on western IPs and music to make such a site (that's not to say there are no Chinese fans of say, Warhammer, but that the biggest and most powerful Chinese websites all cater to the domestic Chinese market with little exterior presence). And even the Chinese government does pay some lip service to western IP, very occasionally raiding the biggest producers of counterfeit goods or pirated work. Got to keep up appearances!

The tipping point will be when a government feels it has more to gain by supporting such a site then it has to lose by pissing the US off. Such countries already exist, but usually they have severe proscriptions against western media and products (Iran, North Korea, etc.). It's just a matter of waiting for the stars to line up.

Also, someone may look at Megaupload's music box idea and decide that's a big moneymaker and push it hard.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 24, 2012, 10:10:03 AM
You wouldn't download a dreadnaught. (http://www.3dfuture.com.au/2011/12/games-workshop-submits-dmca-takedown-notices-to-thingiverse/)

(a blueprint for a 3D model of a Warhammer 40k Dreadnaught was taken down after a DCMA notice by Games Workshop from one website, but strangely, the original blueprint remains on Google Sketchup)

Yeah, in the coming decade 3D printing is going to become a HUGE disruptive technology.

io9 had a story yesterday titled Charles Stross’ [sic] latest novel is coming true over on The Pirate Bay (http://io9.com/5878633/charles-stross-latest-novel-is-coming-true-over-on-the-pirate-bay).  I haven't read Rule 34 yet (waiting for the paperback) but yeah, the trading (legal and illegal) of 3D printer blueprints is going to be a big deal very soon.

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 24, 2012, 10:20:32 AM
It's funny... minis wargamers vs GW is actually one of the forefronts of that issue. Wargames minis, because they're expensive items, but small, inert, solid objects with no moving parts, made from unremarkable material. Basically a perfect candidate for early 3D printing. And GW because they're so crazy protective of their IP.

Now I do think that 3D printers will have some fairly high restrictions for a while yet. Printing food doesn't solve a hunger problem or really act as anything more than a novelty, because if anything you still need to physically ship raw foodstuffs and I expect printed food to be of even worse quality than fast food. Machine parts with high loads is also probably not a big starter, because if you know about say... car parts, you know that most of them are produced through manufacturing processes designed to affect the material at very fundamental levels. And some materials will never be decent as printables (for instance, no one's going to try and print an aluminum engine block though maybe we'll someday see some kind of high-density super-epoxy) At least not for a very long time. But you may see stuff like side panels, or trim as printables. Or little kit cars with 2HP engines and very short lifespans as a gimmick to show proof of concept.

Even then, home printing will hardly be a be-all end-all. Magic cards have been printed for nearly 20 years, and home printing and scanning has been in place for just about as long, but we still don't see home-printed counterfeits as a big problem for a variety of reasons - even though some cards are worth as much as $1000. That's not to say it doesn't happen, but that it's extremely rare. There's probably a lower percentage of counterfeit Magic cards in circulation then there is counterfeit US currency in circulation.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ziiro on January 24, 2012, 10:29:22 AM
I wish GW was smart enough to jump at this head on. Offer a service where you can buy a custom figure for them to print. You buy the product from them, for example (Lets say a Space Marine 'Kit') that allows you to create a customized figure (Which head, arms, pose, etc) and then GW has the printer setup to print your custom figure and send it out to you. It'd be pricy, of course. But people would pay for it, no doubt.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 24, 2012, 10:34:54 AM
@Mongrel: I'm thinking stuff a lot simpler than food or auto parts.  I'm thinking anything cheap, plastic, and typically manufactured in places like China, Taiwan, etc.  Stuff like toys, small replacement parts for household appliances -- that's the stuff that's going to explode in the next decade.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 24, 2012, 10:49:10 AM
@Mongrel: I'm thinking stuff a lot simpler than food or auto parts.  I'm thinking anything cheap, plastic, and typically manufactured in places like China, Taiwan, etc.  Stuff like toys, small replacement parts for household appliances -- that's the stuff that's going to explode in the next decade.

That, yeah absolutely.

Man, that actually makes me wonder if those economies will be seriously affected. It'll be first world households that early-adopt 3D printing. It'll take time for companies to build a store of downloadable blueprints optimized for printing, but this could really rewrite much of the low-value offshoring story.

Of course, it's just another step in the effective destruction of overall jobs and the grossly reduced need for labour in general. But at this point the west has already suffered much of the ill effects. It'll be other parties denied the chance to climb up the industrialization tree. The poorer parts of Asia might wean themselves off such production just enough to avoid devastation (they're trying to move in that direction, but we'll see how that goes), but future aspirants like Africa can never used 1st stage industrialization as a stairway out of poverty.

Even if it is just cheap plastic crap, a big chunk of the economic future could be bound up in this story.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on January 24, 2012, 11:09:39 AM
cheap plastic crap

I'm curious to know if we'd have the petroleum necessary to produce enough plastic to make printable products feasible.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 24, 2012, 11:28:15 AM
Well, right now we're already using that in factories. The volumes of raw ingredients for the base materials won't change all that much.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 30, 2012, 07:10:17 AM
Newt: the latest politician to get a C&D for using a song without permission. (http://www.newsfromme.com/2012/01/28/claim-that-tune/)

We live in a world, now, where everyone is an infringer -- anyone who tells me he's never so much as watched a video on YouTube that includes unauthorized use of copyrighted content is a liar.

So there comes a point where you've got to prioritize, go after the big fish and let the little ones go.

So who's bigger -- the guy sharing a few hundred songs on Limewire (or whatever the fuck the equivalent is these days), or the half-dozen fucking guys running for President who've been busted using music they didn't pay for at their campaign events in the last two elections?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: NexAdruin on January 30, 2012, 07:31:18 AM
Why would you go after the guys who have been writing the laws that give you carte blanche to do whatever the fuck you want re: Copyrights?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 30, 2012, 08:36:28 AM
Yeah, you're right.  That'd be like suing their customers.  Or putting rootkits on CD's.

...anyway, speaking of stupid and counterproductive ways of dealing with customers, Doctorow's latest is titled With a Little Help: Digital Lysenkoism (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/cory-doctorow/article/50413-with-a-little-help-digital-lysenkoism.html).

The explanation for the title:

Quote
Soviet-era scientists were required, on pain of imprisonment, to endorse Lysenkoism, a discredited theory of inheritance favored by Stalin for ideological reasons. [... W]hen Soviet scientists met their Western counterparts, everyone knew that Lysenkoism was an awful absurdity. But the Soviet scientists had to pretend it wasn’t. Not unlike some of the discussions inside today’s major publishing houses when it comes to DRM.

He goes on to say that he's helping put together the Humble E-Book Bundle, and gives this anecdote:

Quote
And I’ve recruited enthusiastic contributors from all of the big six publishers for the Humble E-Book Bundle—that is, all except one, which has an all-DRM-all-the-time policy and won’t consider publishing anything without DRM in any of its divisions.

Because of its insistence on DRM, this one publisher is going to miss out—along with its authors—on hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales, and some great exposure. Needless to say, every author I’ve approached from that publisher is now trying to figure out how to get out of their contracts for future books. It’s one thing to have your publisher’s bizarre, ideology-driven superstitions erode e-book sales. It’s quite another to learn that you’re going to miss out on a chance to pay off your mortgage because your publisher has bought into a form of digital Lysenkoism.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on January 30, 2012, 07:44:01 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/mrColl.jpg)
Anyone else in?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on January 30, 2012, 07:45:12 PM
Yes, but probably not on purpose.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: François on January 30, 2012, 07:49:29 PM
Well, in my case we're talking about sacrifice on the caliber of giving up eating truffles and caviar for lent, but I'm with y'all wealthy folks in spirit and I'd do it if I could.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 30, 2012, 07:57:01 PM
Yes, but probably not on purpose.

Yeah.  I haven't bought a new RIAA-affiliated album since...2004?  When was Poodle Hat?

And those qualifiers are kind of important, too.  Better yet, DO buy music, movies, and games in March.  Buy independent ones that aren't affiliated with the MPAA/RIAA/ESA.  Buy used ones whose sales don't go to the MPAA/RIAA/ESA.  Don't punish the people who aren't part of the problem.

(And yeah I know the ESA backed out.  The argument is probably that it was too little, too late.  But I can understand if people don't want to flog them further, too.)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Joxam on January 30, 2012, 08:00:28 PM
Actually I think arguments could be made that you should loudly support the people that backed out at the same time that you condemn those refusing to. "We use their shit because they got a clue, your turn!"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on January 30, 2012, 08:16:00 PM
Well, in my case we're talking about sacrifice on the caliber of giving up eating truffles and caviar for lent, but I'm with y'all wealthy folks in spirit and I'd do it if I could.

Right there with you, brother Frank.

Now pass the aqua-velva.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on January 30, 2012, 08:26:19 PM
The most important thing is kind of buried in the fine print of that manifesto.  If you want to send a real message, don't pirate things during that month.  I know you can't stop everyone from doing it - it's not like pirates are innately honest people - but if they see their "goal" of greatly reducing piracy succeed and still see their bottom lines fall out, they might, in actual cost-analysis, realize that the reason they're hurting has nothing to do with torrent sites and more to do with the fact that they've driven people to not want to patronize them in any way.

...which would be nice, but the problem is that we've seen ample evidence that they pay really no attention to all the existing cost-analyses that already say exactly that.  I don't think the associations can be "convinced" to back the fuck off, even in the face of their own benefit.  They are insane ideologists and the only way to stop them is to remove their ability to actually do anything.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Lottel on January 30, 2012, 08:53:34 PM
Suuuuure but... when does Avengers come out?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 30, 2012, 09:00:31 PM
Har.

Yeah, I've actually stuck to my guns and not bought any Kirby-derivative Marvel comics since Bissette first broached the subject.  (Aside from a couple issues of Deadpool that guest-starred Captain America, I guess.  Because Deadpool is a non-Kirby-derived Marvel character, the book is on my pull list, and I don't check in advance whether any given issue will guest-star a Kirby-derived character.)  Haven't seen Captain America, either.

Neal Adams has actually made some rumblings about the situation, with BC (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/01/24/neal-adams-on-jack-kirby-case/) speculating that he might have something in mind to coincide with the release of Avengers.  For those who don't know, this is reasonable speculation; Adams was instrumental in the bad press against DC, just prior to the release of the Superman movie, that led to them finally agreeing to give Siegel and Shuster a creator credit and a stipend.  Whether the same trick will work this century, well...times have changed and I'm a cynic, but I sure hope it does.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Catloaf on January 31, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
And those qualifiers are kind of important, too.  Better yet, DO buy music, movies, and games in March.  Buy independent ones that aren't affiliated with the MPAA/RIAA/ESA.  Buy used ones whose sales don't go to the MPAA/RIAA/ESA.  Don't punish the people who aren't part of the problem.

So let's see...
So no (new) games from:
    505 Games
    Atari
    Capcom
    Crave Entertainment
    Deep Silver
    Disney Interactive Studios
    Eidos Interactive
    Electronic Arts
    Epic Games
    Her Interactive
    Ignition Entertainment
    Koei
    Konami
    Microsoft
    MTV Games
    Namco Bandai Games
    Natsume
    Nintendo
    Nival America
    Nvidia
    O-Games
    Playlogic Entertainment
    Sega
    Sony Computer Entertainment
    Sony Online Entertainment
    SouthPeak Interactive
    Square Enix
    Take-Two Interactive
    THQ
    Trion World Network
    Ubisoft
    Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
    Xseed Games

So...  Let's see here.... Only some PC games allowed.

No non-indie music that isn't pre-owned.
And only indie/foreign films.

Various games coming out March:  Kid Icarus, Mass Effect 3, Armored Core V, Street Fighter X Tekken, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon city, Ninja Gaiden 3

Well, only one of which I'm dead-set on getting, and I think I can wait a few more weeks for Icarus.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on January 31, 2012, 11:36:49 PM
You can still buy Eversion.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on February 04, 2012, 08:14:00 AM
Watching the Super Bowl on a big screen?

STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070201/140812.shtml)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on February 04, 2012, 09:39:34 AM
Yeah, there's no bad PR for shutting down a CHURCH PARTY.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on February 04, 2012, 10:24:37 AM
Breaking down the offending clause (emphasis mine for clarity):

Quote from: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/HowCurrent.php/?tn=17&fragid=T17F00015&extid=usc_sec_17_00000110----000-&sourcedate=2010-06-28&proctime=Tue%20Jun%2029%2009:57:25%202010
Title 17 of the US Code as currently published by the US Government reflects the laws passed by Congress as of Jan. 7, 2011, and it is this version that is published here.

Quote from: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000110----000-.html
110. Limitations on exclusive rights: Exemption of certain performances and displays
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 (concerning the right to make recordings, etc. -B), the following are not infringements of copyright:

[...]

(B) communication by an establishment of a transmission or retransmission embodying a performance or display of a nondramatic musical work intended to be received by the general public, originated by a radio or television broadcast station licensed as such by the Federal Communications Commission, or, if an audiovisual transmission, by a cable system or satellite carrier, if—
(i) in the case of an establishment other than a food service or drinking establishment, either the establishment in which the communication occurs has less than 2,000 gross square feet of space (excluding space used for customer parking and for no other purpose), or the establishment in which the communication occurs has 2,000 or more gross square feet of space (excluding space used for customer parking and for no other purpose) and
[...]
(II) if the performance or display is by audiovisual means, any visual portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 4 audiovisual devices, of which not more than 1 audiovisual device is located in any 1 room, and no such audiovisual device has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches, and any audio portion of the performance or display is communicated by means of a total of not more than 6 loudspeakers, of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space;

The :tldr: version: You can't have a ton of screens showing an otherwise public broadcast if you're not a sports bar or other kind of restaurant.  This is almost certainly because of protectionism, and it'll be interesting to see how the Church reacts when it realizes that its interests are second to the interests of generally small businesses (and a few owned by ESPN).

Actually it'd be clarifying if the article specified what church (or in fact any source at all - we're getting dangerously close to unsubstantiated reporting becoming the norm) to see if it happened to be a little too close to one of the corporate-owned joints.  That'd make it easier to see why they'd suddenly give a rat's ass.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Caithness on February 04, 2012, 10:47:14 AM
That story is from 2007. I remember hearing about it from multiple sources at the time.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 07, 2012, 09:31:08 AM
Oh hey, it's DMCA Exemption Time again.

Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/fight-for-your-right-to-party-rip-dvds-legally.ars) says that Public Knowledge is pushing for the right to rip DVD's, and is soliciting messages from people who have examples of occasions when they've been inconvenienced by the ban.  I can probably produce a couple.  For example, the software for playing DVD's under Linux is illegal.

EFF's pushing for a jailbreaking exemption (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/playstation-3-other-os-saga-jailbreaking-not-crime), and Exhibit A is Sony yanking the OtherOS option.  "You can set your PlayStation on fire, but you can’t run Linux on hardware you own."

Oh man that would be delicious if that was the thing that finally convinced the Copyright Office to explicitly allow jailbreaking.  Though of course we've been walking down this road for awhile now; last year's set of exemptions allowed jailbreaking on phones, and I commented at the time that it would be awfully difficult to make a case in court that it's legal to jailbreak an iPhone but not an iPod or iPad.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Caithness on February 07, 2012, 10:33:36 AM
What about jailbreaking a TiVo? If that were ruled legal, would they have to go back to their original business model?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 07, 2012, 11:12:10 AM
Jailbreaking a TiVo is a tricky prospect; there's a firmware chip soldered to the board that checks hashes and won't run modified software.

Which is kind of a dick move since the TiVo runs Linux and other GPL'ed software.  TiVo, as required under the terms of the GPL, releases its source code back to the community to modify -- but won't actually let anyone USE the modified code on its hardware.

This was the major impetus behind GPLv3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html): closing the loophole TiVo discovered in v2 where they could allow people to modify the source code without actually allowing them to RUN their own code.

That said, while it may be tricky it's not impossible; as Doctorow noted in the talk I linked earlier in the thread, these boxes aren't actually single-purpose appliances, they're general-purpose computers that have crap installed on them to artificially limit their functionality.  TiVo's solution may be difficult to circumvent but it's possible.  And if Wikipedia's "citation needed"-filled entry is correct, TiVo HAS threatened hackers with litigation on a few occasions.

That said, if TiVo jailbreaking were made legal, it wouldn't radically change TiVo's business.  iPhone jailbreaking is legal, but the vast majority of users don't do it, and Apple uses technical means to try to make it less desirable.

What's the bit in Matrix 2 about how when the machines tried to completely subjugate the humans, they rebelled, but when they gave them the CHOICE to fight, the vast majority chose submission?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 08, 2012, 10:30:22 AM
Letters to the Copyright Office: Why I Jailbreak (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/letters-copyright-office-why-i-jailbreak)

Features a deaf man who needs video relay software, a soldier who uses his button as a one-button flashlight, and a nurse who uses third-party software to access patient data.  Pretty good examples, I'd say; hopefully they convince The Powers That Be.

(via (http://boingboing.net/2012/02/08/americans-explain-why-jailbrea.html))
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 09, 2012, 07:17:33 AM
Welp, HERE'S something completely fucking horrible: Marvel Demands $17,000 For Gary Friedrich’s Ghost Rider Prints (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/09/marvel-demands-for-gary-friedrichs-ghost-rider-prints/)

Quote
Recently, Marvel triumphed in court against Gary Friedrich, the creator of Ghost Rider, as to whether any moneys or rights were owed to him from the use of the characters in movies, with the second movie starring Nicolas Cage on its way.

And while the court decided that Marvel owe Gary nothing, they also decided on a counter claim from Marvel, that Gary Friedrich owes $17,000 for selling prints of the Ghost Rider character at conventions and the like.

This represents Gary’s earnings from selling such prints over several years – but now Gary is penniless. And Marvel are demanding payment now. Oh, and that he is not allowed to say he is the creator of Ghost Rider for financial gain, say by doing an interview, in the future.

Now, what the article doesn't mention, according to one of the commenters, is that Friedrich was selling unauthorized Ghost Rider prints -- which weren't even of his own art.  But even granting that he fucked up and they had every right to smack him down for that, this is wildly excessive and it's hard to see it as anything other than retaliation for his lawsuit.

I've never seen anything like this.  Marvel is not exactly known for treating its creators fairly, but I've never heard of them completely grinding somebody into the dirt like this before.  I've never even heard of ARCHIE being this vindictive.

The motivation is clear: it's a warning.  "Any more artists have any bright ideas?  This is what happens when you fuck with the Mouse."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 09, 2012, 10:41:51 AM
On the subject of royalties:

Quote from: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/02/why-dont-more-game-developers-see-royalties-from-their-work.ars
When people talk about the importance of actually spending money on games, rather than resorting to a used purchase or piracy, the importance of "supporting the developers" is never far from the argument. Yet for a lot of classic titles being repackaged and sold these days, money from new purchases isn't going to the developers at all, but solely to the publishers that own the long-term rights to the titles.

Freelance developer Simon Roth decided to see just how deep this problem goes. He started digging around on Google and talking to his colleagues to determine which developers, if any, were actually receiving a cut of the continuing profits on their work. Last week, he published the results of his research, a list of over 200 classic titles (http://machinestudios.co.uk/viewentry.php?id=45) that are currently being sold by publishers without any of the new income going to the actual developers that made the game.

Not surprising, but eye-opening.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Shinra on February 09, 2012, 10:49:51 AM
the moral of the story is that if you really want to support the developers, pirate it and send them a check.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 13, 2012, 08:52:10 AM
Doctorow: BitTorrent doesn't hurt US box-office, delayed international releases drive downloading (http://boingboing.net/2012/02/13/bittorrent-doesnt-hurt-us-bo.html)

The study he cites is Reel Piracy: The Effect of Online Film Piracy on International Box Office Sales (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1986299), by Brett Danaher of Wellesley and Joel Waldfogel of UMinn Twin Cities.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on February 13, 2012, 09:25:51 AM
Honestly, in the world of digital distribution, wide-margined staggered international release dates ARE pretty stupid.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Niku on February 13, 2012, 09:30:14 AM
Remember, Sherlock series 2 is premiering in May!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Lottel on February 13, 2012, 10:03:49 AM
The UK just got The Muppets a few weeks before DVDs hit the shelves.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on February 13, 2012, 04:50:54 PM
So Disney is planning to release a film, Oz, the Great and Powerful. Should be easy-peasy, right?

NOPE (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/wizard-of-oz-disney-warner-bros-289305)

Yeah. Even though Baum's original work is under public domain, Warner is fighting tooth and nail for the trademark to everything about the Wizard of Oz.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on February 13, 2012, 04:58:44 PM
Too bad this isn't Talking Time, because James Franco.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 15, 2012, 09:19:36 AM
BleedingCool has a post from Steve Bissette on the Ghost Rider case (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/14/jean-marc-lofficier-on-the-consequences-of-the-gary-friedrich-decision/), mostly consisting of comments by actual-lawyer Jean-Marc Lofficier.  Lofficier takes something of an alarmist position -- that this is the first step in Disney handing out C&D's at Artist's Alley -- but of course it's legally possible.

There's an extensive post early in the comments section that rebuts some of Lofficier's major points and it's worth reading too.  I haven't read the rest of the comments section yet but I assume it devolves back into the usual cesspit shortly after.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on February 15, 2012, 10:15:53 AM
Wow... Jean-Marc Lofficier? He and his wife Randy worked with Moebius for years and years as Moebius' translator (still does, I think) and the Lofficiers been involved with comic and sci-fi in general for years and years as well as being writers and creators themselves. I had no idea the guy was a Lawyer ON TOP of all that.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ted Belmont on February 15, 2012, 12:10:30 PM
BleedingCool has a post from Steve Bissette on the Ghost Rider case (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/02/14/jean-marc-lofficier-on-the-consequences-of-the-gary-friedrich-decision/), mostly consisting of comments by actual-lawyer Jean-Marc Lofficier.  Lofficier takes something of an alarmist position -- that this is the first step in Disney handing out C&D's at Artist's Alley -- but of course it's legally possible.

There are rumors going around that Marvel/Disney are going to use the blank 'sketchbook' covers as entrapment to sue artists for copyright violation. It's ridiculous, of course, but it says something about how cartoon-villainous their behavior has been of late that such rumors almost seem credible.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on February 15, 2012, 02:00:53 PM
"Disney itself to feature as main villain in upcoming Disney movie"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on February 15, 2012, 02:07:14 PM
I thought that WAS The Muppets.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 16, 2012, 08:22:21 AM
Davids Brothers and Uzumeri analyze pirated versions of Marvel comics to try and determine where they're coming from, and conclude it's from inside the house (http://4thletter.net/2012/02/are-they-scanning-marvels-comics-from-inside-the-house-of-ideas/).

Quote
Messed up fonts, print indicia, missing digital comics redemption codes, the fact that Avengers 22 is available as a digital scan despite not being available on ComiXology (or on Marvel’s stupidly exclusive app), the standard DPI, the rigid resolution, the perfect scans… it’s obvious what this is. Someone’s got Marvel’s print-ready files before they’re finalized, and they’re slapping them up online as digital scans. Clever girl.

EDIT: The post's been updated; apparently they've found the real culprit and, in compliance with Hanlon's Razor, it's not someone in the supply chain, it's an unspecified "dumb" security hole.  Marvel has apparently fixed it and hopefully more info is forthcoming.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 20, 2012, 07:38:10 AM
Eternal Copyright: A Modest Proposal (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/adrianhon/100007156/infinite-copyright-a-modest-proposal/), by Adrian Hon

Quote
But what, I ask, about your great-great-great-grandchildren? What do they get? How can our laws be so heartless as to deny them the benefit of your hard work in the name of some do-gooding concept as the "public good", simply because they were born a mere century and a half after the book was written? After all, when you wrote your book, it sprung from your mind fully-formed, without requiring any inspiration from other creative works – you owe nothing at all to the public. And what would the public do with your book, even if they had it? Most likely, they'd just make it worse.

(via Doctorow (http://boingboing.net/2012/02/20/copyright-forever.html), naturally)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ted Belmont on February 23, 2012, 06:36:01 PM
 Marvel totally not trying to bully artists who make a living selling sketchbooks. Nope. No sir, not at all. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/23/sean-murphy-convention-sketches-sketchbook/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 24, 2012, 06:48:38 AM
"Sketchbooks" is distinct from "sketches".  He should probably have known better.

But yes Marvel trying to get him to sign away the rights in exchange for not being sued is a bully tactic.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 29, 2012, 09:03:00 AM
Ars: Why wait? Six ways that Congress could fix copyright, now (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/why-wait-six-ways-that-congress-could-fix-copyright-now.ars)

It's pretty much shit that we've been discussing for 23 pages already, but it's pretty well-assembled and -summarized.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 01, 2012, 08:05:32 AM
Ars explores YouTube's asinine copyright claim policy (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/copyright-kings-are-judge-jury-and-executioner-on-youtube.ars).

Quote
On Friday, a YouTube user named eeplox posted a question to the support forums, regarding a copyright complaint on one of his videos. YouTube’s automated Content ID system flagged a video of him foraging a salad in a field, claiming the background music matched a composition licensed by Rumblefish, a music licensing firm in Portland, Oregon.

The only problem? There is no music in the video; only bird calls and other sounds of nature.

[...]

Back at YouTube, eeplox found himself at a dead end. YouTube now stated, “All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content.” No further disputes were possible, the case was closed.

Whether caused by a mistake or malice, Rumblefish was granted full control over eeplox’s video. They could choose to run ads on the video, mute the audio, or remove it entirely from the web.

I've already linked Doctorow's piece on how Big Content has been pushing false copyright claims on public-domain material.  This is along the same lines.  Ars argues, and I'm inclined to agree, that this is much worse than the DMCA takedown process.

I think this policy is likely to change soon, and Google will move ContentID to be more inline with DMCA takedowns.  Because there will be more, and increasingly embarrassing, abuses of this nature, and sooner or later somebody's going to sue.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 02, 2012, 08:05:44 AM
Gaiman v McFarlane settlement: $382,000 (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2012/03/mcfarlane-to-pay-gaiman-382000-following-spawn-settlement/)

Gaiman's already said it's all going to charity.  Must be nice to be able to spend 15 years in court just to set a precedent.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 07, 2012, 09:47:58 AM
Reg: EFF accuses Warner of spamming DMCA takedown notices (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/07/eff_warner_dmca_takedown/)

Quote
Much of the legal battle is still sealed, but according to the brief, Warner has acknowledged that the notices were sent out incorrectly, saying they were mistakes churned out by the software while searching for content. The EFF brief points out that such practices are barred under the terms of the DMCA.

"The law requires the sender of a takedown notice has to have a good-faith belief that their copyright is being infringed," Mitch Stoltz, staff attorney at the EFF told The Register. "The system they are using appears to only be looking at file names, and sending out notices with no human review of the requests, or even an automated review of the file in question."

In essence, the EFF claims, Warner is attempting to set a precedent that would allow DMCA takedown notices to be used for competitive advantage. By being able to blame the whole thing on computer error, companies would have a "perverse incentive to dumb-down the process," the brief reads.

The EFF points out that over a third of takedown notices received by Google are false, and warns the problem will get worse if Warner wins this point.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 08, 2012, 12:01:58 PM
Warner Bros. Embarrasses Self, Everyone, With New “Disc-to-Digital” Program (http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/warner-bros-embarrasses-self-everyone-new-%E2%80%9Cdi)

Quote
The program, which would have merely been ill-advised had it been announced ten years ago, today stands as a testament to the ability of movie studios to blind themselves to reality.

[...]

The head of Warner Home Entertainment Group thinks that an easy, safe way to convert movies you already own on DVD to other digital formats is to take your DVDs, find a store that will perform this service, drive to that store, find the clerk who knows how to perform the service, hope that the “DVD conversion machine” is not broken, stand there like a chump while the clerk “safely” converts your movie to a digital file that may only play on studio-approved devices, drive home, and hope everything worked out.  Oh, and the good news is that you would only need to pay a reasonable (per-DVD?) price for this pleasure.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on March 08, 2012, 01:20:11 PM
Well, what are they to do, let consumers do it themselves?

That'd let them play it however they want, instead of under the watchful eye of the studio execs.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on April 20, 2012, 10:58:27 AM
German court rules that YouTube must install front-end filters to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/german-court-rules-youtube-must-stop-users-uploading-music/article2408683/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 08, 2012, 02:46:53 PM
Quote from: http://dajaz1.com/our-response-to-unsealed-court-documents-in-dajaz1-domain-seizure/
The owner of Dajaz1.com appreciates the fact that the United States Government, on studying the matter further with all the information the RIAA could furnish, determined that there was in fact no probable cause to seek a forfeiture of the domain it had seized and held for a year.

That exoneration, however, did not remedy the harms caused by a full year of censorship and secret proceedings — a form of “digital Guantanamo” — that knocked out an important and popular blog devoted to hip hop music and has nearly killed it.

The original seizure was unjustified. The delay was unjustified. The secrecy in extensions of the forfeiture deadlines was unjustified.

Five details are notable here.

First, the seizure occurred pursuant to language the PRO-IP Act authorizing seizures of property used in connection with the making of, or trafficking in, “articles” in violation of copyright law. In that context, “articles” are physical items. The law does not authorize seizure of domains that link to other sites. So from the beginning this seizure was entirely legally unjustified, no matter what the allegations about infringement.

SEC. 2323. FORFEITURE, DESTRUCTION, AND RESTITUTION.
(a) CIVIL FORFEITURE.-
(1) PROPERTY SUBJECT TO FORFEITURE.-The following property is subject to forfeiture to the United States Government:
(A) Any article, the making or trafficking of which is, prohibited under section 506 of title 17, or section 2318, 2319, 2319A, 2319B, or 2320, or chapter 90, of this title.
(B) Any property used, or intended to be used, in any manner or part to commit or facilitate the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).
(C) Any property constituting or derived from any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of the commission of an offense referred to in subparagraph (A).

Second, seizing a blog for linking to four songs, even allegedly infringing ones, is equivalent to seizing the printing press of the New York Times because the newspaper, in its concert calendar, refers readers to four concerts where the promoters of those concerts have failed to pay ASCAP for the performance licenses.

Third, RIAA’s grand and sweeping attacks on dajaz1.com suggest that RIAA’s powers of demonization far exceed its ability to substantiate its malicious statements with specific and credible facts.

Fourth , when I explained that the blog publisher had received music from the industry itself, a government attorney replied that authorization was an “affirmative defense” that need not be taken into account by the government in carrying out the seizure. That was stunning.

Fifth, when discussing the secret extensions with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, I repeatedly asked the government attorney to inform the court that my client opposed any further extensions and asked for an opportunity to be heard. Not once did the government reveal those requests or positions to the court. The government should be embarrassed for keeping that information from the court.

This entire episode shows that neither the government nor the recording industry deserves any additional powers with new so-called “antipiracy” legislation, especially in the context where copyright law has been expanded and new anti-piracy remedies have been crafted ***16 times*** since 1982. This episode shows that the copyright establishment and the government are very much the “rogues” that deserve to be reined in.

Booya.

(via (http://boingboing.net/2012/05/07/scorching-legal-response-from.html))
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on May 08, 2012, 03:36:52 PM
Hate to say it, but that response is only going to matter if they succeed in suing the US gov for abuse of power (or whatever the relevant violation would be). I would not be surprised if the law specifically included a clause disallowing any claims for redress.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 08, 2012, 07:07:22 PM
Well, no shit, but it sounds like they've got good lawyers.

Moreover, I find it pretty hard to believe that the current SCOTUS would rule that the government can just take people's websites down without evidence, if it were to come to that.

I expect this to come down to a tidy settlement and the Justice Department thinking twice next time.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 16, 2012, 10:53:42 AM
Ars: Fair use (mostly) triumphant: Judge exonerates campus "e-reserves" (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/fair-use-mostly-triumphant-judge-exonerates-campus-e-reserves/)

It's a narrow ruling but a good one and potentially important; the upshot is that a single chapter copied from a reference text for educational purposes is fair use.

A couple highlights:

Quote
In a massive 350-page ruling (PDF) handed down on Friday, the judge overseeing the case dug deep into the questions surrounding fair use and concluded that copyright was meant to promote the writing of more books. And, the judge concluded, "There is no reason to believe that allowing unpaid, nonprofit academic use of small excerpts in controlled circumstances would diminish creation of academic works."

Quote
So—crushing victory for Georgia State, whose professors can now dance gleefully through the ash of their foes in publishing? Not quite. After years of litigation, the case came down to 75 particular items that the publishers argued were infringing. Five unlicensed excerpts (from four different books) did exceed the amount allowed under factor three above. These books include The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in both its second and third editions, along with The Power Elite and the no-doubt-scintillating tome Utilization-Focused Evaluation (Third Edition).

While the university had issued a 2009 guide designed to help faculty know when they needed a license for excerpts, the judge found that the policy "did not limit copying in those instances to decidedly small excerpts as required by this Order. Nor did it proscribe the use of multiple chapters from the same book."

Still, copyright and fair use can be murky, and the judge found no bad faith on the school's part, concluding: "The truth is that fair use principles are notoriously difficult to apply."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: McDohl on May 26, 2012, 05:26:34 AM
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/23/xbox-360-sales-ban-for-us-recommended-by-judge (http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/23/xbox-360-sales-ban-for-us-recommended-by-judge)

Motorola is seeking action against Microsoft because...um, money?

It has to do with video codecs and Wi-fi functionality, and, while I can't verify it independently, apparently Motorola released these architectures in to the realm of free usage.  If this goes through, Motorola would be entitled to a slice of that fat X-Box pie.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 25, 2012, 10:16:00 AM
Judge dismisses Apple/Motorola patent suits with prejudice. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/in-bid-for-patent-sanity-judge-throws-out-entire-applemotorola-case/)

Quote
Judge Richard Posner previously canceled a jury trial in Chicago in the case, and then castigated both Apple and Motorola while calling the entire US patent system "chaos."

[...]

Posner complained that Apple's attempt to get an injunction restricting the sale of Motorola phones would have "catastrophic effects" on the mobile device market and consumers. He further criticized Motorola for trying to use a standards-essential patent to get an injunction against Apple.

Good step towards patent sanity.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 27, 2012, 07:37:45 AM
And in a good step AWAY from patent sanity: Judge bars sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in US (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/06/judge-bars-sales-of-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-in-us/).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 27, 2012, 01:51:08 PM
Meanwhile, Patent trolling cost the US $29 BILLION in 2011 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/27/patent_trolling_costs_too_much/), according to research by the Boston U School of Law.

Quote
While high-profile cases – by NPEs [non-practicing entities, ie companies that own patents but don't actually use them] the researchers describe as “big game hunters” – give the impression that patent trolling is mostly between giant corporations, the researchers noted that the median defendant had annual revenue of $US10.8 million, and 82 percent of actions were launched against companies with less than $US100 million in annual revenue.

[...]

It should be noted that this research focused only on the NPE business model – it didn’t take into account the increasingly bitter, frivolous and expensive patent spats between active vendors such as Apple, Motorola, Samsung and the rest.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 11, 2012, 07:57:19 AM
Just when I'm considering deleting The Reg from my RSS feed, it posts something that's actually edifying.

US mulls outlawing rival product bans using standards patents (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/11/us_gov_sep_hearing/)

Quote
The US Congress is holding a hearing today to consider whether companies that own standards-essential patents (SEP) should be allowed to use them to get sales and import bans on their rivals' products.

That Congress is even having this conversation is a step in the right direction.  A tiny one, but still a step.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 18, 2012, 08:27:37 AM
More in the Superman case.

Shuster's heirs (his sister and nephew) are poised to seek termination for their half of the property next year.  But DC has just released documentation (http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/dcs-pre-emptive-strike-600000-buys-50.html) indicating that they already signed a contract agreeing NOT to seek termination.

Quote
Following this discussion, the parties executed an agreement on October 2, 1992. It confirmed that DC would cover Shuster’s debts and pay Jean $25,000 a year for the rest of her life. SUF 19. In exchange, Jean and Frank re-granted all of Joe Shuster’s rights (including any Superman copyrights) to DC and vowed never to assert a claim to such rights. The 1992 Agreement stated, in pertinent part:

Quote
We [DC] ask you to confirm by your signatures below that this agreement fully settles all claims to any payments or other rights or remedies which you may have under any other agreement or otherwise, whether now or hereafter existing regarding any copyrights, trademarks, or other property right in any and all work created in whole or in part by your brother, Joseph Shuster, or any works based thereon. In any event, you now grant us any such rights and release us, our licensees and all others acting with our permission, and covenant not to assert any claim of right, by suit or otherwise, with respect to the above, now and forever. SUF 19 (emphasis added).

via (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/07/18/new-twist-in-the-fight-for-superman-600000-for-shusters-half/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Caithness on July 18, 2012, 09:59:35 AM
Shouldn't Superman be in the public domain by now? Or is that never going to happen because he was created after Mickey Mouse?
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on July 18, 2012, 10:22:28 AM
...I know this is a long thread, but that question is answered in the first post.  And repeatedly afterward.

Yes, Superman is still under copyright.  Yes, he got the same extension Mickey Mouse and every other corporate mascot got.  Yes, the original expiration would have been 56 years, or 1994 -- which is why the Siegel and Shuster heirs are entitled to reclaim the rights.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Zaratustra on July 23, 2012, 05:44:58 AM
How to defend yourself on the internet: Divide the insults between those directed to you and those directed to the company, then defend one with the arguments of the other.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-23-uniloc-founder-hits-back-after-minecraft-fans-vent-fury-in-disgusting-emails (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-07-23-uniloc-founder-hits-back-after-minecraft-fans-vent-fury-in-disgusting-emails)

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 08, 2012, 08:34:42 AM
So okay.  We've discussed previously that YouTube's ContentID system sucks.

Goes something like this: content owner uploads video; software looks for other videos that contain the same material.

As you can probably surmise, this pretty much fucks anybody who's using public domain or stock footage.  There are already multiple (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/how-youtube-lets-content-companies-claim-nasa-mars-videos/) instances (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/as-curiosity-touches-down-on-mars-video-is-taken-down-from-youtube/) of videos of the Mars landing being taken down as  false positives.

And while Big Content is responsible for demanding that Google institute a system like this in the first damn place, in these specific instances it's not the people submitting their stuff to ContentID who are at fault, it's Google's fault for making ContentID suck.

Because here's the thing: you can TOTALLY create an original, copyrighted work -- say, a news broadcast -- that incorporates public-domain footage!  But ContentID has no mechanism for telling which parts are original and which are public domain!

Meanwhile, the fucking video gets taken down and is subject to a not-very-good review process.  Even if the people who (accidentally) got it taken down are scrambling to get it put back up again!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 10, 2012, 11:09:02 AM
Google to downgrade search rankings of sites which are frequently reported for copyright violations (http://insidesearch.blogspot.ca/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html?m=1)

So now when I search for "Youtube.com" it'll come up on the fourth page? :whoops:

Okay, I know that's not what they mean, but it's a bit of a dangerous precedent they're setting with major alterations to search patterns based on (mostly corporate) outside pressure. Of course they've done this before I think? But not on such a scale or with such a broad net. I really dislike the idea of a blatantly non-neutral search provider (even though none of them are truly so).

And of course, this risks opening the search results to massive gamesmanship.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 10, 2012, 01:22:35 PM
Google to downgrade search rankings of sites which are frequently reported for copyright violations (http://insidesearch.blogspot.ca/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html?m=1)

Well, not exactly; they put the word "valid" in there and it's kind of an important word to define.

The biggest problem is, of course, the one I just got through talking about: completely fucking invalid copyright takedowns -- some of them automatic and even accidental!

I'm still inclined to think that Google should treat false copyright claims exactly the same regardless of whether they're from someone posting a video, or requesting a takedown of it.

You want to start penalizing sites that frequently post things they don't have the copyrights to, fine -- but you'd better fucking penalize Warner Music for its constant frivolous takedown claims while you're at it.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on August 10, 2012, 02:25:12 PM
Potentially open for abuse. Anyone can make a fraudulent DMCA takedown request and Google has to honour it.

It's bad enough on Youtube, but it'll be worse when it applies to all Google Search results.

However, I've always thought Google should do something about piracy sites blatantly appearing in search results. It's bad when the first link for an RPG book is a pirate PDF download.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 10, 2012, 04:11:17 PM
Potentially open for abuse. Anyone can make a fraudulent DMCA takedown request and Google has to honour it.

Well, no, they don't.

I'm pretty damn sure that if I claimed I was the rightsholder for Thriller and submitted a takedown notice, it would not get taken down.

DMCA takedowns are dicey, but there's not actually an obligation to respond to ones that are patently frivolous and false.

So again, the question is, how does Google define "valid"?  It's clear from context that its definition falls somewhere short of "declared valid by a court of law".  So does "valid" mean "unchallenged"?

And that brings up the question of how QUICKLY this is going to happen.  If a site receives 2000 takedown notices in one day, does its pagerank immediately drop?  Or is it given a period of time to respond to the takedown notices?  If so, how long?

It's also probable that Google's definition of "copyright removal notice" is broader than simply DMCA takedown notices.  I'm thinking it probably includes YouTube ContentID, too -- and as I mentioned, ContentID is a piece of shit that recently took down the fucking Mars landing videos that my goddamn taxes paid for, fuck you Google.

That, really, is a kind of worst-case -- sites getting penalized, immediately and without a window for review, due to a false positive on flawed pattern-matching software aggressively enforcing a copyright claim that the supposed claimant never even made and is in fact frantically trying to reverse.

On the one hand, I'm sure Google's TOS are pretty fucking clear in disclaiming responsibility for fuckups like that.

On the other, seeing as Google is literally synonymous with the service it provides and YouTube occupies an equally dominant market position, a day could come when Google's capricious nonsense makes it legally vulnerable no matter what the TOS page says.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 16, 2012, 11:12:39 AM
Quote from: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apple-v-samsung-judge-at-wits-end-asks-if-lawyers-are-smoking-crack/
"You want me to do an order on 75 pages tonight? When, unless you're smoking crack, you know that these witnesses are not going to be called?" Koh shouted at Apple lawyers. "Who is going to call all these witnesses when you have less than four hours left?"

[...]

"Your honor, first of all, I'm not smoking crack," said Apple lawyer Bill Lee. "We have timed it out."

Apple lawyer Michael Jacobs also stepped forward, assuring her that they had done a time test, and could get through 20 witnesses today and tomorrow in its rebuttal case against Samsung. "We didn't mean to burden the court," he said.

"You filed 75 pages of objections!" shouted Koh. "What do you mean you didn't mean to burden the court?"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 16, 2012, 12:16:05 PM
...and sometimes the gods are kind to us. :glee:
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on August 16, 2012, 01:59:20 PM
I guess?  If Apple wasn't "that bunch of assholes with a crack team of lawyers" things wouldn't have gotten to this point.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Friday on August 16, 2012, 02:04:12 PM
If the gods were really kind that excerpt would have ended with Koh stealing Lee and Jacob's faces
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 16, 2012, 02:07:34 PM
I like to think that the increasing number, and increasing absurdity, of cases like this is finally going to start convincing people that we need patent reform.  Guess we'll see.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on August 16, 2012, 02:22:29 PM
I guess?  If Apple wasn't "that bunch of assholes with a crack team of lawyers" things wouldn't have gotten to this point.
If the gods were really kind that excerpt would have ended with Koh stealing Lee and Jacob's faces

Why must you rob me of my tiny tiny victories?  ::(:

So tiny. Look at them they're so... they're so tiny! You can't even see them!

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Kayma on August 16, 2012, 07:29:19 PM
If the gods were really kind that excerpt would have ended with Koh stealing Lee and Jacob's faces

Annnnnd this is why we need karma.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on August 23, 2012, 08:21:17 AM
Rocket News 24 (http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/08/22/award-winning-manga-to-be-freely-used-by-anyone-for-anything-anytime-author-will-not-request-royalties/): mangaka Shuho Sato to stop enforcing copyright on Say Hello to Black Jack -- so fan translations, adaptations, whatever kind of secondary use is allowed.

He's stopping short of releasing it into the public domain, and the article refers to this as an "indefinite" period for choosing not to enforce his copyrights.

Should be interesting to see what happens.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Cait on September 03, 2012, 02:23:51 PM
Hugo Awards live stream taken down by automated copyright sensors for showing clips of nominees. (http://io9.com/5940036/how-copyright-enforcement-robots-killed-the-hugo-awards)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 03, 2012, 09:01:47 PM
Hm.  If only this affected someone with deep pockets who had a history of engaging in copyright suits not because he needed the money but simply because it would set precedent and protect other creators who didn't have his resources.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 05, 2012, 08:15:43 AM
So okay.

The Mars landing, the Hugos, aaaaaand Michelle Obama's speech (http://boingboing.net/2012/09/05/youtube-blocks-clip-of-michell.html).

On a totally unrelated note, her husband has recently reaffirmed his support for vigorous copyright enforcement (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/for-dems-internet-freedom-means-vigorously-protecting-copyrights/).
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on September 05, 2012, 09:35:31 AM
Barack Obama will be remembered as the third-worst President we had this century.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on September 26, 2012, 01:14:59 PM
Anti-gay group Public Advocate decides it's okay to just grab a gay couple's engagement photo off the Internet and use it in an attack ad against a political candidate who supports civil unions.  (And a Republican at that!)

The couple and the photographer are suing (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/gay-couple-hate-group-misusing-engagement-photo/story?id=17329214), because no fucking shit.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 03, 2012, 02:29:54 PM
ContentID gets a little less odious: (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/youtube-finally-offers-a-meaningful-contentid-appeal-process/)

Quote
In a Wednesday blog post, the Google-owned video site announced that copyright holders that wish to keep a video offline after the uploader disputes a ContentID claim will (in most cases) be required to file a formal takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That matters because there are legal penalties (albeit relatively modest ones) for filing bogus DMCA takedown requests.

It's a start, anyway.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 07, 2012, 08:54:07 PM
Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/07/microsoft-claims-ownership-of.html
A series of monumentally sloppy, automatically generated takedown notices sent by Microsoft to Google accused the US federal government, Wikipedia, the BBC, HuffPo, TechCrunch, and even Microsoft Bing of infringing on Microsoft's copyrights. Microsoft also accused Spotify (a music streaming site) of hosting material that infringed its copyrights. The takedown was aimed at early Windows 8 Beta leaks, and seemed to target its accusations based on the presence of the number 45 in the URLs.

You know, I think I'm finally starting to understand how the execs at the RIAA and MPAA feel.  They read stories, day in and day out, about people flagrantly, shamelessly violating copyright law, and are shocked and enraged that nobody's doing anything to stop it.

You know what, guys?  That IS a pretty crappy feeling.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on October 08, 2012, 09:35:56 AM
It's so crappy that the only thing that can make you feel better is whittling away at the rights of people to resell anything at all.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: NexAdruin on October 08, 2012, 09:51:20 AM
Maybe they should just turn off the fucking news before the negativity of it all kills their empire.

None of this would even be an issue if the MPAA and RIAA hadn't from the outset made themselves the enemy of everyone, including the music artists.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 08, 2012, 10:20:06 AM
I'd just like to see them have to pay $7000 per fraudulent takedown notice.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: NexAdruin on October 08, 2012, 10:30:41 AM
Well that's exactly the point I was trying to make. They've alienated all their customers on both ends of the spectrum and now everyone hates them. There can still be a place for middlemen even in the modern world - namely people who can facilitate growth and take care of advertising. But the RIAA/MPAA don't come out as people that want to facilitate growth and help artists advertise their work. They come out as jerks who want money and will take yours if you don't hold onto it firmly enough.

Convincing the public that people calling themselves pirates (the scary motherfuckers who pillaged ports and kidnapped women) are the bad guys should be the easiest thing in the world, but the RIAA and MPAA by suing children and grandmothers have turned themselves into the bad guys, while the "pirates" are freely distributing things to the masses on their own dime.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 08, 2012, 11:09:36 AM
BTW for those of you who like watching me argue about copyright...

Maine GOP Attacks Democratic Candidate Over Her Record... In 'World Of Warcraft' (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/10/05/maine-gop-attacks-democratic-candidate-world-of-warcraft/)

The comments section is now largely made up of me trying to explain to a couple of clueless partisans why it would not be okay for Blizzard to sue the Maine GOP for using a single image of Colleen Lachowicz's WoW avatar in a campaign flyer that is specifically about Colleen Lachowicz's WoW avatar.

It's got all the stuff you'd expect -- a guy referring to infringement as "theft of property", and then explaining that what "fair use" actually means is some bullshit he just made up.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: sei on October 08, 2012, 02:02:49 PM
There can still be a place for middlemen even in the modern world - namely people who can facilitate growth and take care of advertising.
Beatport. Serving as a discovery, preview, and convenient purchasing service. The platform adds value.

I guess the same could be said for iTunes and app stores, though closed gardens skeeve me the fuck out.

Convincing the public that people calling themselves pirates (the scary motherfuckers who pillaged ports and kidnapped women) are the bad guys should be the easiest thing in the world, but the RIAA and MPAA by suing children and grandmothers have turned themselves into the bad guys, while the "pirates" are freely distributing things to the masses on their own dime.
Look out, peasants! It's that scary motherfucker: Robin Hood!
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 09, 2012, 10:02:16 AM
So if anyone cites the asinine statistic that America has lost 41% of its musicians due to piracy, give this handy Ars piece (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/have-we-lost-41-percent-of-our-musicians-depends-on-how-you-the-riaa-count/) a read.

It's best to read the whole thing and not reduce it to a tweet.  But here are the highlights:

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 09, 2012, 10:13:21 AM
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if that number exactly reflected the number of professional musicians who decided they no longer wanted to be affiliated with any facet of the American music industry.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 09, 2012, 10:55:58 AM
Weeeeell, it's not just people who've stopped working in "the industry" (read: touring, selling CD's, generally being affiliated with the RIAA), it's people who've stopped identifying as professional musicians entirely.  That's certain to include people who simply can't find work (which is a problem in EVERY industry right now, but people looking for paying music gigs are probably at more of a disadvantage in this economy than most professions).  There's also some confusion about nomenclature in the survey itself; maybe people who previously checked "Musician" check some other related box now.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 09, 2012, 03:40:35 PM
Something I doubt you'll hear either candidate mention this election season: Patent Trolling has officially reached the point where it is literally driving businesses out of the US (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/lodsys-claims-momentum-in-patent-fight-as-some-indie-devs-leave-us/?comments=1#unread).

Not technically news, I'm sure, but I think this is the first time I've seen actual releases from companies explicitly stating that they left the US to avoid patent trolls.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on October 09, 2012, 03:47:12 PM
Makes me think of that Atlas Shrugged trailer, where it ominously intones that the "government is claiming all copyrights and patents"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 11, 2012, 09:48:18 AM
Ars: Court rules book scanning is fair use, suggesting Google Books victory (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/court-rules-book-scanning-is-fair-use-suggesting-google-books-victory/)

Quote
Most of the books Google scans for its book program come from libraries. After Google scans each book, it provides a digital image and a text version of the book to the library that owns the original. The libraries then contribute the digital files to a repository called the Hathitrust Digital Library, which uses them for three purposes: preservation, a full-text search engine, and electronic access for disabled patrons who cannot read the print copies of the books.

So this doesn't necessarily indicate fair use in Google's entire book-scanning program, but it's a big step.

I don't think I've articulated my position on this lately but it's probably obvious given what you guys know about me: I am very much in favor of providing increased access to out-of-print books and relaxing copyright on orphaned works, but I'm nervous about Google striking a deal where it's the ONLY organization that's allowed to do that (and, what's more, may retain copyright on the scanned editions).

Keeping libraries in the loop is probably a good way to ensure Google doesn't build its own restrictive monopoly out of this.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 15, 2012, 04:13:27 PM
Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/15/pearsons-takedown-notice-ove.html
EduBlogs, a service that hosts 1.45 million educational blogs, had all 1.45 million of them taken offline for 12 hours because their $70K/year hosting company, ServerBeach, pitched a wobbly after receiving a takedown notice from Pearson Publishing. Pearson was upset over a five-year-old blog post where a teacher had quoted 279 words out of an article written in 1974. They sent the takedown notice to their host. EduBlogs deleted the post, but it was still present in their database, so ServerBeach punished them by removing 1.45 million peoples' sites.

Hey Pearson?  Fuck you.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on October 15, 2012, 04:31:09 PM
More like, hey ServerBeach, fuck you.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on October 15, 2012, 08:51:28 PM
It costs $120 to take the Beck Hopelessness Scale test on Pearson's website. (http://www.pearsonassessments.com/hai/Templates/Products/ProductDetail.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID={4DB6CC4B-D482-4DFD-A1BB-F7E2657F3EB2}&NRORIGINALURL=%2fHAIWEB%2fCultures%2fen-us%2fProductdetail.htm%3fPid%3d015-8133-609%26Mode%3dsummary&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest&Mode=summary&Pid=015-8133-609#)

Or you can just click the first scholarly link from Google. (http://mres.gmu.edu/pmwiki/uploads/Main/PCA1clinical2011.pdf)

It's a good thing I'm not taking this test right now, because my Hopelessness Index just spiked.

(http://brontoforum.us/Themes/default/images/post/fifty.gif)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 15, 2012, 09:02:17 PM
More like, hey ServerBeach, fuck you.

It's not really either-or.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on October 16, 2012, 09:58:59 AM
Reg (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/16/file_sharers_buy_more_music/): Columbia study finds that people who illegally download music ALSO spend significantly more money on legal music than people who don't, and also almost as many songs are shared directly among friends and family as on filesharing services.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on October 16, 2012, 11:00:42 AM
Which meshes with every other study on this subject since the dawn of time. Record companies plan to sue grandmas for $25 million each in light of this news.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Ted Belmont on October 31, 2012, 10:58:19 AM
Microsoft is being sued over the Windows Live tiles in Windows 8. (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/microsoft-live-tile-lawsuit/)

Well, that was fast.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 17, 2012, 11:41:24 AM
Doctorow: House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper (http://boingboing.net/2012/11/17/house-republicans-release-wate.html); Techdirt: House Republicans: Copyright Law Destroys Markets; It's Time For Real Reform (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121116/16481921080/house-republicans-copyright-law-destroys-markets-its-time-real-reform.shtml)

I've only skimmed the document so far, but WOW.

Quote from: Techdirt
This document really is a watershed moment. Even if it does not lead to any actual legislation, just the fact that some in Congress are discussing how copyright has gone way too far and even looking at suggestions that focus on what benefits the public the most is a huge step forward from what we've come to expect. In many ways, this is the next logical step after the completion of the SOPA fight. Rather than just fighting bad policy, it's time for Congress to recognize that existing copyright law is bad policy and now is the time to fix it. It comes as a surprise, but kudos to the Republican Study Committee -- and specifically Derek Khanna, the policy staffer who wrote the document -- for stepping up and saying what needed to be said, but which too many in Congress had been afraid to say for fear of how the entertainment industry lobbyists would react.

What we seem to have here is Republicans actually pointing out good conservative reasons to oppose the current copyright regime: it's a big-government handout to Hollywood that grants artificial monopolies, interferes with the free market, stifles innovation, and is clearly not what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.

Now, this could just be another fringe issue that gets swept under the rug -- I certainly don't think the leadership of either party wants to talk about this.

But if this group of Republicans manages to keep pushing this issue and getting people to talk about it, I think that's going to be a major step.

This could end up like SOPA/PIPA -- if you get a strong enough grassroots message out, it doesn't matter what Congressional leadership and Big Media say, it becomes self-evident to a vast majority of voters everywhere that this is in their interest.

Good luck to the Republican Study Committee, and anybody else who joins the fight, regardless of party.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 17, 2012, 12:10:55 PM
The trouble's going to be that the document outlines a clash between the concept of fiscal conservatism and the actual policy of fiscal conservatism.  The very first line rejects the notion of information "ownership", which is going to go down with the Tea Party about as well as two black men who want to adopt.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 17, 2012, 01:21:06 PM
The trouble's going to be that the document outlines a clash between the concept of fiscal conservatism and the actual policy of fiscal conservatism.

Well yes, exactly.

That's kinda what the Republican Study Committee does: they're Republicans who actually consistently push for ACTUAL fiscal-conservative policy, like cutting the military budget.

The very first line rejects the notion of information "ownership", which is going to go down with the Tea Party about as well as two black men who want to adopt.

I'd say Paul Teller, who's got his name right at the top of the document, is about as Tea Party as it gets; he's the guy most credited with convincing the party to reject Boehner's budget last year.

The author of the doc, Derek Khanna, sounds more middle-of-the-road; he's from Massachusetts and worked for Romney and Scott Brown.

I wouldn't expect the Tea Party -- or any other cross-section of Congress -- to act as a unified front on this.  The copyright wars have never been a partisan issue, much as both sides love to frame them that way.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: François on November 17, 2012, 03:04:47 PM
This could end up like SOPA/PIPA -- if you get a strong enough grassroots message out, it doesn't matter what Congressional leadership and Big Media say, it becomes self-evident to a vast majority of voters everywhere that this is in their interest.

Man, that would be awesome. The Republicans have recently learned that when they spout ridiculous bullshit it only appeals to the extremist crazies they've been almost exclusively pandering to for the last couple decades at least, but triggering a groundswell of support on copyright reform might teach them that working in the interest of the majority is a pretty good way to have democracy on your side.

This reminds me of the way I felt when our ex-PM stepped down after the last provincial elections. I don't like his party's ideas, but that's not what made me hate it. What did make me hate it, is that it had become a den of corrupt, bumbling villains. With the upcoming change in leadership I'd like to see them become opponents I can respect, simply because that would be healthy for the engine of government in general. In some regards, it could be the same for the Republicans; the possibility of them breaking down and being replaced by some unknown quantity is not as attractive as the possibility of them becoming sane.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on November 18, 2012, 06:06:09 PM
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121117/16492521084/hollywood-lobbyists-have-busy-saturday-convince-gop-to-retract-copyright-reform-brief.shtml (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121117/16492521084/hollywood-lobbyists-have-busy-saturday-convince-gop-to-retract-copyright-reform-brief.shtml)

welp
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on November 18, 2012, 06:18:14 PM
If you're going to win over the youth vote, you have to prove that you can back down on an issue with nearly universal popular support even faster than the Democrats.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 18, 2012, 08:22:06 PM
Disappointing but not exactly surprising.  Great to see the lobbyists and politicians so terrified, though.

Needless to say, we haven't heard the last of this.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: François on November 18, 2012, 09:07:28 PM
Back to corrupt bumbling villains it is, then.

Sigh.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on November 18, 2012, 10:01:59 PM
Disappointing but not exactly surprising.  Great to see the lobbyists and politicians so terrified, though.

Needless to say, we haven't heard the last of this.

The public aren't the only ones who are going to see this as an utterly spineless capitulation. Any Republican who backed this may well call it like it is. Even corrupt bumbling villains have pride. Well, some of them.

If we're really lucky, it'll be a wedge between free-market libertarian GOP dorks and corporate GOP dorks, ensuring a messy argument that'll raise the issue's profile.

Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on November 18, 2012, 10:12:44 PM
Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/influential-gop-group-releases-shockingly-sensible-copyright-memo/) has more, including a bit of a profile on the guy who wrote the memo, Derek Khanna.

Quote
Khanna has exactly the kind of resume you'd expect for someone with tech-savvy views on copyright law. He lists "C++, Backtrack, Python, Sql, Java, Dreamweaver/Photoshop, statistical modeling," as interests, as well as "building computers and beta testing software." Best of all, Khanna tells us that he's an "avid reader" of Ars Technica.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Catloaf on November 19, 2012, 02:17:02 PM
Just when something sweet comes out of an entity that I expect to have roughly the same output as a horse's ass and surprises me back into having some degree of faith in humanity, the reality that I've come to know and despise predictably smashes my hopes back down.

At least I still got a slight net gain for my faith in humanity, though.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 08, 2012, 10:56:19 PM
Marvel issues C&D to creators of Starstruck (http://srbissette.com/?p=16292), who originally published it through Epic, nominally Marvel's creator-owned imprint.

Appears they found the paperwork quickly and Marvel's already backed off, but Bissette's concerned that this won't be the last time Marvel tries to grab a creator's copyright.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 07, 2013, 08:59:23 AM
Derek Khanna talks to Ars. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/republican-staffer-fired-for-copyright-memo-talks-to-ars/)

Unsurprisingly, he finds the "inadequate review" excuse to be bullshit and says it actually received more review than a typical RSC paper.

He also says that, while he's not getting any support from Congress, he's getting quite a bit from the public -- again, not a surprise.

Quote
Khanna expressed no regrets and he urged other Hill staffers not to be intimidated.

"I encourage Hill staffers to bring forth new ideas. Don't be discouraged by the potential consequences," Khanna told us. "You work for the American people. It's your job, your obligation to be challenging existing paradigms and put forward novel solutions to existing problems."
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 10, 2013, 10:10:53 PM
Buffy vs. Edward removed from Youtube on DMCA grounds (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/buffy-vs-edward-remix-unfairly-removed-by-lionsgate/#p3n), despite being OFFICIALLY FUCKING RECOGNIZED, BY NAME, AS A DMCA EXEMPTION BY THE US COPYRIGHT OFFICE.

Quote
Since none of YouTube’s internal systems were able to prevent this abuse by Lionsgate and our direct outreach to the content owner hit a brick wall, with the help of New Media Rights I have now filed an official DMCA counter-notification with YouTube. Lionsgate has 14 days to either allow the remix back online or sue me. We will see what happens.

I expect Lionsgate to slink away on this one, realizing that they've accidentally stumbled across someone who (1) is willing to fight back and (2) again, has HIS WORK LISTED BY NAME in the Copyright Office's documentation on fair-use content that is exempt from DMCA takedowns.

Part of me hopes they'll be foolish enough to go ahead, but I really don't wish a lengthy David-and-Goliath legal battle on any David, no matter how much we'd all benefit from Goliath getting a rock upside his head.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: NexAdruin on January 27, 2013, 05:29:28 PM
http://allthingsd.com/20130126/ripped-off-by-glee-jonathan-coulton-rereleases-his-own-mix-a-lot-cover/ (http://allthingsd.com/20130126/ripped-off-by-glee-jonathan-coulton-rereleases-his-own-mix-a-lot-cover/)

Coulton did a version of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and Glee covered Coulton's version, possibly even using audio that he himself recorded. Coulton isn't happy about it, and other artists are starting to come out with similar claims.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on January 27, 2013, 09:21:26 PM
NewEgg defeats patent troll; court overturns frivolous "shopping cart" patent (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/)

Quote
For Newegg's chief legal officer Lee Cheng, it's a huge validation of the strategy the company decided to pursue back in 2007: not to settle with patent trolls. Ever.

"We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit," said Cheng in an interview with Ars. "We saw that if we paid off this patent holder, we'd have to pay off every patent holder this same amount. This is the first case we took all the way to trial. And now, nobody has to pay Soverain jack squat for these patents."

If I ever meet this guy I am buying him a beer.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 05, 2013, 01:54:52 PM
HBO's automated DMCA takedown software (http://torrentfreak.com/hbo-wants-google-to-censor-hbo-com-130203/) asks Google to remove links to infringing content at...hbo.com.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 06, 2013, 11:34:21 PM
Ars: Site plagiarizes blog posts, then files DMCA takedown on originals (http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/02/site-plagiarizes-blog-posts-then-files-dmca-takedown-on-originals/)

As crazy (yet sadly unsurprising) as that headline is, the story is even crazier.

The blog that had its posts removed is Retraction Watch.  It keeps track of scientific papers that have been retracted.

Quote
The Retraction Watch blog is run by Ivan Oransky, the executive editor at Reuters Health, and Adam Marcus, the managing editor of Anesthesiology News. Working in the field of medical reporting, they began to realize cases of erroneous or falsified research were often pulled from the scientific record with little notice, leaving the research community with little idea which, if any, aspects of the original report could be relied on. So they started to track the retraction of scientific papers on a blog they set up.

[...]

One of the cases they followed was Anil Potti, a cancer researcher who worked at Duke University at the time. Potti first fell under scrutiny for embellishing his resume, but the investigation quickly expanded as broader questions were raised about his research. As the investigation continued, a number of Potti's papers ended up being retracted as accusations of falsified data were raised. Eventually, three clinical trials that were started based on Potti's data were stopped entirely. Although federal investigations of Potti's conduct are still in progress, he eventually resigned from Duke.

In all, Retraction Watch published 22 stories on the implosion of Potti's career. In fact, three of the top four Google results for his name all point to the Retraction Watch blog (the fourth is his Wikipedia entry). Despite the widespread attention to his misbehavior, Potti managed to get a position at the University of North Dakota (where he worked earlier in his career). Meanwhile, he hired a reputation management company, which dutifully went about creating websites with glowing things to say about the doctor.

All this just happened yesterday, so there's no hard proof yet that this is a case of a disgraced researcher (or his reputation management company) attempting to scrub his negative Google results through copyright fraud, but, well, that's sure what it looks like, isn't it?

If this IS the work of a reputation management company, he should probably hire a new one.  Because somehow I doubt this little stunt is going to lead to FEWER high-ranked Google results calling him a conman and a fraud.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on February 06, 2013, 11:57:38 PM
As stupid as this whole thing is, I'm happy to finally see some case examples of people taking advantage of our fucked copyright enforcement system's obvious applications for criminal activity.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: JDigital on February 08, 2013, 09:10:08 AM
I heard of a guy once, back in maybe the late nineties, who would do this to Geocities sites. He'd copy the site to his own domain, improve the spelling and HTML to look legitimate, then report the original to Yahoo for plagiarism.

Trolling was an art form back then.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 27, 2013, 10:41:39 PM
Six Strikes has gone into effect (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/heres-what-an-actual-six-strikes-copyright-alert-looks-like/); participating ISP's are AT&T, Verizon, Cablevision, Time Warner, and of course Comcast.  This is probably the most pleased I've been to be a Cox customer since 2000, when I first upgraded from dialup.

Quote
“What is ‘improperly?' This is one of the problems with the system,” Derek Bambauer, a tech law professor at the University of Arizona, e-mailed Ars after he saw the alert pages.

“Making a fair use of a copyrighted work is not infringement. Thus, even if I download an entire copy, if it's fair use, I am not an infringer—and yet, the private law of six strikes treats me as one.”

Bambauer collaborated with Chris Soghoian, a policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, to submit Freedom of Information Act requests to learn more about the creation of the Six Strikes program. The two have a pending legal case to compel the Obama Administration’s Office of Management and Budget to release more information and related documents.

“Six strikes is fundamentally flawed,” Bambauer added. “Part of the reason is that users were never at the table: the bargaining parties were content owners and ISPs. And ISPs have very limited incentives to defend free speech or protect against mistakes—especially if all of their major competitors are in the system, too. No way to vote against the system with your feet.”

No surprises here.  VPN's are about to be a pretty good business to be in, I think.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Smiler on February 28, 2013, 07:50:56 AM
If I read about this right they are still using the exact same methods as before to find infringing users, so the only difference is that now the ISPs are super-required to send out the angry messages to their customers.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on February 28, 2013, 10:13:42 PM
So I dunno if you guys have been following this, but the latest round of DMCA exemptions did NOT include jailbreaking phones -- so it's now illegal to jailbreak your phone.  (As far as I know it's still legal to root your phone but, absurdly, only a phone.  You can root an iPhone but not an iPod or iPad.  In practice, I can't imagine that nonsense holding up in court, but as you know most DMCA cases are not decided in a courtroom.)

Backlash has been swift and the FCC has agreed to investigate (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/fcc-to-investigate-ban-on-unlocking-cell-phones/), whatever that means.

Quote
Derek Khanna, an online activist and former Republican staffer who has helped publicize the issue, called Genachowski's pledge a "terrific development." According to Khanna, the FCC "should be investigating this. The decision is indefensible."

He pointed out that the Competitive Carriers Association, which represents Sprint, T-Mobile, and dozens of smaller wireless carriers, has called for the ban on cell phone unlocking to be repealed.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 06, 2013, 06:08:01 PM
Bolstered by the response to the jailbreaking petition, some activists have set up a site at fixthedmca.org (http://fixthedmca.org) urging the repeal of the anti-circumvention clause.

I'm not much for online petition, but the way I see it this is the most momentum the issue's ever had and every little bit helps.  I didn't think we'd beat SOPA, either, but here we are.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 08, 2013, 10:33:14 AM
Apple files a patent for reselling ebooks and music (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/apple-follows-amazon-with-patent-for-resale-of-e-books-music/).

As you might suspect, I am pretty conflicted on this.  On the one hand, yay opening the door for digital resale; on the other, boo for DRM and software patents.

(And I thought Apple was done with music DRM -- maybe they'll just be rewriting the metadata on resold music files.  You can probably make an educated guess as to my opinion on whether that should be patentable.)

Amazon's filed similar patents.  I'd be happy to see Audible audiobooks become resellable; I'm not one of those nitwits who thinks an active used market is bad for business.  If someone buys one of my audiobooks, listens to it once, and then resells it or gives it away, then that's one more person who knows my name and, hopefully, thinks I'm okay at this whole narration thing.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on March 19, 2013, 08:21:47 PM
Court upholds first sale doctrine in that case about a student sent books from his family in Thailand and resold on the American Market that I could swear Thad posted about in here but I can't find it (http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/court_sides_with_student_in_case_over_textbooks/singleton/)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 19, 2013, 09:45:23 PM
Quote from: the ruling
Third, Wiley and the dissent claim that a nongeographical interpretation will make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for publishers (and other copyright holders) to divide foreign and domestic markets. We concede that is so. A publisher may find it more difficult to charge different prices for the same book in different geographic markets. But we do not see how these facts help Wiley, for we can find no basic principle of copyright law that suggests that publishers are especially entitled to such rights.

FTW.

Memo to Big Media: it's not the courts' job to protect your twentieth-century business model.  Deal with it.






UP NEXT: Big Media deals with it by asking Congress to protect their twentieth-century business model.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Mongrel on March 19, 2013, 09:55:46 PM
Man, I wonder how that affects game companies like WotC or GW. HUMMMMM (Well, okay, GW is a UK company, so not so much them). Is there any fallout effect here on companies with price differentials in foreign markets?

Actually, it's funny when you think about it. See the "Rich people win" part of globalization has been pretty-well established (production moved to cheapest operating location, capital having few links to a given state and therefore less loyalty to that state, etc. etc.). But this was one way that the little guy stood to benefit: In poorer markets you had either cheap domestic products or western products that had been marked down specifically for the purposes of entering that market. The people living in the poorer market could then turn the thing on it's head, selling their discounted product back to the "parent" country at lower prices than were offered in that country. Producers wanted it both ways: they wanted to get into cheaper markets, but still maximize profits back home, using punitive region-based pricing and demanding legislation to circumvent what should be a free market. 

You're probably right about the UP NEXT bit, but it's nice to see someone somewhere giving the lie to this nonsense.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 19, 2013, 10:05:00 PM
Yeah, wanting all of the strengths of the global economy/new technology/what-have-you and none of the drawbacks is a pretty apt description of how Corporate America functions.

In lots and lots of cases, they've succeeded -- the bank bailout is the most glaring example, but hardly the only one.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Sharkey on March 20, 2013, 12:26:28 PM
Ah, you've gotta love 17th 21st century mercantilism. Really, the parallels between this and stuff like the button-maker's guild pushing through laws against wearing or making cloth buttons, or death for making salt from brine instead of buying monopoly salt...  four hundred years later and it's just not getting any less absurd.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Royal☭ on March 20, 2013, 12:28:35 PM
Is Piracy Helping Game of Thrones? | Idea Channel | PBS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U3RE_NB0EA#ws)

Apparently the producer of Game of Thrones likes pirates.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on March 23, 2013, 12:13:16 PM
CISPA sponsor decides it's a good idea to gloat that he's sponsoring it because lobbyists gave him a shitload of money, later deletes the tweet. (http://boingboing.net/2013/03/23/congressman-boasts-on-twitter.html)
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on April 23, 2013, 02:10:54 PM
Fox sends fraudulent takedown notices for Cory Doctorow's novel Homeland (http://craphound.com/?p=4727), because whatever pattern-matching software they're using is not smart enough to tell the difference between an ebook and a video file.

Quote from: Doctorow
It's clear that Fox is mistaking these files for episodes of the TV show "Homeland." What's not clear is why or how anyone sending a censorship request could be so sloppy, careless and indifferent to the rights of others that they could get it so utterly wrong. I have made inquiries about the possible legal avenues for addressing this with Fox, but I'm not optimistic. The DMCA makes it easy to carelessly censor the Internet, and makes it hard to get redress for this kind of perjurious, depraved indifference.

Actually, the last half of that paragraph answers the question posed in the first half.

Companies send out massive numbers of takedown notices, with no human being involved, just an automated system searching for keywords.

And the perverse thing is, the DMCA actually ENCOURAGES them not only to do that, but to make those programs as rudimentary and sloppy as possible.

Because of the word "knowingly".

Via Ars (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/not-that-homeland-fox-sends-bogus-takedowns-for-copyright-reformers-book/):

Quote
It's hard to see how anyone at Fox or Warner Brothers could have a "good faith belief" that these works infringed their copyrights. Unfortunately, while the DMCA does include a provision punishing misrepresentations by copyright holders, this provision is basically toothless. Punishing a bogus takedown request requires proving that the sender "knowingly materially misrepresented" information in the takedown notice. But proving knowledge is difficult; the sender can always chalk bogus takedown requests up to carelessness rather than fraud.

In other words, if you're sending out DMCA takedown notices and are worried about liability, the absolute BEST thing you can do is write a program to send them out automatically and ensure that as few human beings as possible even look at them.

And, moreover, you want to make that program cast as broad a net as humanly possible, to MAXIMIZE your ability to claim any false positives are entirely unintentional.

We'll see where this goes.  It's a pretty clearly-cut case of abuse, and if anyone's got the resources and inclination to prove it in court it's Doctorow.  If it can be done, he'll be the guy to do it -- but I still don't like his odds in a copyright system that is clearly and deliberately designed to protect corporate interests over individual ones.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Brentai on April 23, 2013, 02:41:31 PM
I'll go ahead and do the very obvious tinfoil hat thing: The first thing to do is make sure these takedown claims actually weren't deliberate.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on May 10, 2013, 02:23:06 AM
New bill would make circumvention legal if not used for actual copyright violations. (http://boingboing.net/2013/05/10/new-law-will-fix-the-dmca-mak.html)

I don't have a whole lot of hope that this Congress will pass it or anything that will benefit anyone ever, but at least we've reached a point where people in Congress -- from both parties -- are actually willing to put a bill like this forward.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 16, 2013, 08:04:54 AM
Film company making a documentary about Happy Birthday sues Warner (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130613/11165823451/filmmaker-finally-aims-to-get-court-to-admit-that-happy-birthday-is-public-domain.shtml), claiming the song is public domain.

Oh, and it's a class action and they're seeking to make Warner refund all the license fees anybody has ever paid for the rights to the song, plus damages.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on June 20, 2013, 03:57:41 PM
Lofgren and Wyden introduce Aaron's Law. (http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/aarons-law-is-finally-here/)

The crux is that they want to narrow the definition of "access without authorization" so that you can't be charged with a felony just for violating a click-through license.  (Well...at least probably not successfully.)

Quote
The proposed definition for “access without authorization” is to obtain information on a computer that the accesser lacks authorization to obtain by knowingly circumventing technological or physical measures designed to prevent unauthorized individuals from obtaining that information.

The proposed changes make clear that the CFAA does not outlaw mere violations of terms of service, website notices, contracts, or employment agreements. The proposed definition of “access without authorization” includes bypassing technological or physical measures via deception (as in the case with phishing or social engineering), and scenarios in which an authorized individual provides a means to circumvent to an unauthorized individual (i.e. sharing login credentials).

It's going to be an uphill battle, but I salute them for picking this fight.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: on June 30, 2013, 05:45:06 PM
Darkspore, a game with always-online DRM, is permanently unplayable due to EA abandoning the game (http://www.gameDELETEMEtrailers.com/side-mission/55519/darkspore-delisted-from-steam-plagued-with-game-breaking-issues)

In short: The Title had always online DRM, but recently a bunch of issues cropped up, preventing people from logging in. EA eventually said the title is now considered abandoned, and would no longer perform any work on it. Barring any sort of incredible fan effort (Unlikely for such a panned game), the game is now rendered permanently unplayable.

EDIT: Remove the "DELETEME" between "Game" and "Trailers" in the URL to load it. The forum software keeps trying to load it as a video because it sees "Gametrailers.com"
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: François on July 01, 2013, 03:46:21 AM
I just logged in and played a round, and it seemed to work fine, though there were only like 5 people in the lobby (not surprised by that). That said, I don't doubt that the clock might be running out if I ever want to get back into it. Might just take a bunch of screenshots of my dudes for posterity, I got some cool shit done in there.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Büge on December 05, 2013, 04:03:45 AM
http://excesscopyright.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/bill-c-8-re-anti-counterfeiting-is_26.html (http://excesscopyright.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/bill-c-8-re-anti-counterfeiting-is_26.html)

uh oh.

Canadian Parliament is trying to push ACTA into law.
Title: Re: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law
Post by: Thad on December 08, 2013, 09:02:52 AM
Anti-patent troll bill passes House 325-91. (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/house-votes-325-91-to-pass-innovation-act-first-anti-patent-troll-bill/)

It's a good start.