Topic: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law (Read 58762 times)

Thad · « **Reply #380 on:** December 09, 2011, 01:17:58 PM »

Doctorow reviews How to Fix Copyright, 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.

Thad · « **Reply #381 on:** December 12, 2011, 01:46:13 PM »

Yet more from Doctorow: The pirates of YouTube

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.

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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.

Thad · « **Reply #382 on:** December 13, 2011, 09:53:40 AM »

OtherOS suit thrown out; 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.

Thad · « **Reply #383 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, 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.

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/megaupload-will-sue-universal.html

Megaupload is suing Universal and will devote its energy to fighting SOPA

Quote from: http://boingboing.net/2011/12/13/hollywood-studios-busted-as-to.html

Using YouHaveDownloaded, 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.

Büge · « **Reply #384 on:** December 21, 2011, 09:47:16 AM »

A year of federal prison for pirating X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Cait · « **Reply #385 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.

Brentai · « **Reply #386 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.

Thad · « **Reply #387 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.

Thad · « **Reply #388 on:** December 30, 2011, 10:18:36 AM »

Doctorow: The Coming War on General Computation.

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.

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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.

Mongrel · « **Reply #389 on:** December 30, 2011, 02:48:17 PM »

That's a good one. The whole read is indeed worth it.

Büge · « **Reply #390 on:** January 19, 2012, 06:01:10 AM »

Now in video form!

28c3: The coming war on general computation

Thad · « **Reply #391 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.

fullmooninu · « **Reply #392 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.

Thad · « **Reply #393 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.

sei · « **Reply #394 on:** January 19, 2012, 07:50:15 PM »

Quote from: Thad on January 19, 2012, 09:12:47 AM

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.

Thad · « **Reply #395 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.

Rico · « **Reply #396 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.

Thad · « **Reply #397 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, 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.)

Rico · « **Reply #398 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.

JDigital · « **Reply #399 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.

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Author Topic: Another thread on copyright/patent/trademark law (Read 58762 times)