The Inquisitr » copyright

Bye-Bye Psystar it was nice knowing ya until Apple chewed you up and spat you out

Steven Hodson — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:21:42 +0000

Like we didn’t know that this wasn’t going to happen.

Yesterday, November 13, 2009, Apple won its expected victory over pain in the ass Psystar Corp. when Judge William Alsup agreed with Apple that the little company that wished it was did indeed violate Apple’s copyright and just for good measure the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as well.

Judge Alsup sidestepped Psystar’s claim that it was protected by the first sale doctrine, which generally gives the buyer of a protected work the right to resell it without the permission of, or any payment to, the copyright holder. The judge said first sale only applies to legal copies and that the way in which Psystar had modified the software to let it run on clones meant that the copies did not meet this standard. The judge rejected out of hand Psystar’s claims that it made legal use of Apple’s trademarks and that Apple has misued it copyrights.

Source: BusinessWeek – The Tech Beat

A hearing on remedies is scheduled for December 14 at which point the brothers behind Psystar had better be ready to kiss their financial asses good-bye.

It’s okay for Lily Allen to pirate but anyone else is scum

Steven Hodson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:52:27 +0000

There’s a number of great posts today about the whole music piracy nonsense. However none come close to show the hypocrisy of the music business’s so-called war against piracy than the whole Lily Allen crap-fest that has hit the blogosphere today.

It all centers around a post on Allen’s recently launched blog, It’s Not Alright, where she attempts to take rapper 50 Cent to task over his recent interview on CNBC where he suggested that piracy is really just part of the music business. I say attempts because her argument would actually mean something if she hadn’t stolen it – word for word – from a post by Michael Masnick of Techdirt.

Here is a graphic of the post courtesy of Sean P. Aune over at SiliconAngle where he draws a line between the original text written by Masnick (top) and Allen’s rambling nonsense below it.

Masnick responded to the whole thing with a post today and like him I am having a really hard time making any sense of her incoherent reasoning of who she seems to think is affected by piracy. In the paragraph she mentions recording studio people, website builders, designers and last but not least the kids who put up posters.

Excuse me?

Exactly what do any of those people have to do with being affected by piracy. Every single example she uses are people who get paid for their service regardless of whether some musician’s music is pirated or not. Not one of them is paid using the recording companies highly questionable percentage basis as the musicians are. They get cash on the barrelhead – period.

So not only does Allen show that she has absolutely no couth when it comes to other people’s “copyrights” – I guess because it was a blogger they don’t count – but she shows that she doesn’t seem to understand some basic economics of paying for services rendered.

Do yourself a favor Lily Allen – shut up and leave the discussion about music and the bullshit around piracy to those who actually know what they are talking about, not what their manager or record company pumps up their ass.

Trevor Baylis is ‘farking’ nuts

Steven Hodson — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:45:00 +0000

For those of you who don’t know who Trevor Baylis is, which I didn’t until this stupidity got some notice, he is the man who invented the wind-up radio.

But that isn’t what is getting him all the attention that has occurred over the last couple of days. The attention comes from his suggestion that anyone caught ‘stealing’ intellectual property should be charged as a criminal. It’s his opinion as told to Register writer Kelly Fiveash that inventors need more protection from people who attempt to copy or steal their ideas. At this point in time those kind of cases end up as civil lawsuits where the rights-holder has to prove that their ‘idea’ was stolen or copied and then try to be compensated.

"If I was to nick your car, which is worth £10,000, say, I could go to jail," Baylis told the BBC.

"But if I were to nick your patent, which is worth a million pounds, you’d have to sue me.

"And if I was a colossal company, or indeed another country, that had stolen your invention, how could you find a million pounds a day to take me to court?"

Source: The Register – Brit inventor wants prison for patent crims

Well, given the current environment where even a home page can be trademarked the idea that copying that could land some-one in jail is the very height of stupidity. The only thing that doing something like this would do is cause an instant freeze on any kind of innovation.

One member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys described Baylis’s comments about criminalising patent violations as “barking mad”, while another said the parallel with copyright protection was a misleading one.

"Patent infringement is not remotely like flogging knock-off CDs.

"Honest, decent people running reputable businesses infringe patents. They might not know the patent exists, or their patent attorney might have told them it was valid or infringed."

Given the number of times that large corporations like Microsoft and Apple find themselves dragged into court over stupid things that shouldn’t have been patentable in the first place would now find themselves having to hire defense attorneys instead of patent lawyers. The fear that would permeate through out the whole technology world alone would bring new products and R&D to a grinding halt.

Dumb idea Mr. Baylis – very dumb.

Bigger issue than 1984 being pulled by Amazon is that 1984 isn’t in the public domain

Duncan Riley — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:43:59 +0000

The more than ironic decision last week by Amazon to delete George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from the Kindle (where people had paid for the books) rightfully gained worldwide attention, but what was missed in the coverage was a more important point: that Orwell’s works should be in the public domain in the United States to begin with.

Copyright over the printed word was established on the principle of protecting the works of authors, and yet today in the United States copyright for books is extended to between 70-125 years AFTER the death of the writer, protecting only the interests of the book company with the rights to the book.

It hasn’t always been this way though. Early copyright laws offered protection for 25 years after publication, and have crept up in length over the last 100 years. But how long is fair, because not every country offers the same protection. This paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for 1984:

Nineteen Eighty-Four will not enter the public domain in the United States until 2044 and in the European Union until 2020, although it is public domain in countries such as Canada, Russia, and Australia.

1984 entered the public domain in Australia in the year 2000, 50 years after the death of Orwell, although thanks to the US Free Trade Agreement, Australia has extended the term of copyright protection to 70 years for books published before January 1, 2005.

That the length of copyright is a corporate scam is a given, but in the consideration we often lose sight of the greater good. The works of Orwell are regarded as some of the most influential works of the first half of the 20th century, works that are not only taught in schools, but works that have influenced our understanding of mankind and have even contributed to the English language. If ever there was a strong public benefit for works entering the public domain, the works of Orwell are near the top of the list.

So why aren’t they in the public domain in the United States? Orwell has been dead nearly 60 years, and yet these masterpieces of literature are not freely available. Amazon did the wrong thing in deleting Orwell’s works from the Kindle, but the bigger crime is that these works are still under copyright in the United States to begin with.

If you do live in Australia or Canada, you can legally download Orwell’s works from Project Gutenberg Australia here.

Myth: Reporting the news is what makes it news

Steven Hodson — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:29:39 +0000

If journalists don’t write about it does that mean that news doesn’t happen and if they do does that mean they have some sort of copyright over the reporting of that news?

For as long as there has been a news industry what is considered important enough to take up so-called valuable space on a printed collection of paper or take up valuable airtime has been limited to a select few. It is the people in editorial boardroom or producer’s offices who decide what they think we need to see or read each day. The majority of the time it is the news that is most likely aimed to promote our most visceral responses – hence the popularity of “bad news” being the good news.

It’s good news for the news gatekeepers because it is almost guaranteed to bring in the most readers or viewers. The worst the disaster, the juicier the scandal, or the more heart-wrenching the story, the better. Sure we every once in a while go through our angst ridden worrying that the news is too negative and that there isn’t enough good news. The problem is good news isn’t profitable news and what is important to the news industry is the stuff that keeps the shareholders happy and the management bonuses flowing.

As Jeff Jarvis points out today

The realization of that myth – the myth of necessity – hit me head-on when I read an unselfconsciously narcissistic feature in The New York Times this week about the room where the 4 p.m. news meeting is held. Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has likened that meeting to a “religious ceremony.” The Times feature certainly acted as if it were taking us inside the Pope’s chapel: “The table was formidable: oval and elegant, with curves of gleaming wood. The editors no less so: 11 men and 7 women with the power to decide what was important in the world.”

Behold the hubris of that: They decide what is important. Because we can’t. That’s what it says. That’s what they believe.

I was trained to accept that myth: that journalists decide what’s important, that it’s a skill with which they are imbued: news judgment. I worked hard to gain and exercise that judgment. The myth further holds that no judgment of importance is more important than The Times’; that’s why, every night, it sends out to the rest of newspaperdom its choices. News isn’t news until it’s reported and it’s not important until The Times says so.

Our supply of news is dictated to us minute by minute, day by day. That doesn’t mean though that it is the only news out there. An incredible amount of new worthy things are going on everyday – from the bad to the good. Just because the large majority of it doesn’t make it through the editorial “money” filter doesn’t change the fact that those events or information isn’t news.

The news isn’t about the reporting of it. It isn’t about the people writing about it. News is about the event, the happening, the information. It is about the people who were involved with the event. It is about the people who made the happening happen. It is about the people who created the information.

What the new media, blogs, Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook (to a lesser degree) did was to allow the people responsible for creating the news to be the ones that distributed the news. Or as Dave Winer put it – “The new world pays the source, indirectly, and obviates the middleman”. No longer is our flow of news being dictated to us by the select few and what they think is important. We are getting to make those decisions now.

However being entrenched as our sole providers of what is important in the world isn’t something that the news industry will give up without a fight. Rather than try and find their way in a new world of news and information distribution that doesn’t flow through their gates, the industry is trying to bend and manipulate this new media into their way of doing business.

The news industry of the past is locked into the believing that if they aren’t the ones reporting the ‘news’ then it doesn’t exist. It is because of this belief that they then turn around and try and claim ownership of the ‘news’. Because they are the ones that paid someone to write about something that happened the industry figures that they have an ownership – a copyright – over it all even right down to barring online linking to that news or information.

In their effort to bend this new media way of getting our news the only thing the news industry is doing is hastening the breaking of their stranglehold on the distribution of the news. They still have all the same abilities to reports the news and the people who are a part of that news. All they are losing is the exclusive rights to distribute it – as they should.

News isn’t distribution and who controls it, news is what is happening in and around our lives except now we are the ones who can distribute it – as it should be.

Dustin Lance Black lawyers threaten to sue us despite not running the XXX pics

Duncan Riley — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:10:31 +0000

Lawyers representing Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black have today threatened to sue The Inquisitr for a screenshot of perezhilton.com we included in a post.

The shot we ran included one picture from the set of pictures published by Perez Hilton that showed Black having sex with another man. The picture, which constituted approx one third of the screenshot, showed Blacks head, but certainly nothing more or less.

Ironically in the post we discussed the issues surrounding the publication of the pictures, and why we weren’t interested in running them.

Black’s lawyers claimed copyright over the screenshot, claiming that Black owned ultimate copyright over the partial image. We objected on two grounds: the picture was clearly taken by a third party, and the lawyers provided no supporting evidence that copyright was held by Black. Second, as a screen grab from another site, the image as a whole constitute fair use under US copyright law, and fair dealing under Australian copyright law.

Despite filing a counter claim noting the valid objections and asking for a valid response, the lawyers continue to threaten this site and our host Media Temple without providing the evidence requested (and required under the DMCA), using terms such as “You act at your own peril” and “govern yourself accordingly.” I’m not going to play martyr over one image, so we’ve censored the shot by blacking out the bit they were upset about.

I will however this week consider lodging a complaint under Australian law for the coercive and threatening nature of their correspondence. I’ve dealt with DMCA claims in the past, both lodging them and receiving them, and this would have to be the most unprofessional, bullying correspondence I’ve seen yet.

One last thing: when we wrote about Dustin Lance Black I actually felt a bit sorry for the guy given what had been published elsewhere. That is no longer the case. Dustin Lance Black: not that you’ll probably ever read this, but if you do, we’re having a party the day you get hit by a bus. Your legal tactics only prove that you got your just desserts.

PS: Image above is used under CC license from Wikipedia: see here.

Here’s only one part of nearly a dozen emails.

Re: D. Lance Black / Copyright Violations – DMCA Notice

Dear Website Operator:

We are representatives/attorneys for D. Lance Black, and we are writing with respect to our client’s claims arising from violations of his intellectual property rights with regard to copyright infringement, as well as violations of his right of privacy and publicity. Mr. Black holds all rights, title, interest and copyright to the photographic materials, portions of which are posted on your website.

Included herewith is a DMCA Notice of Infringement for the post that appears on your website, which posts, displays and disseminates without authorization a photos (the “Unauthorized Photos”) which violates our client’s copyright. Our client has not authorized nor licensed the use of his copyright in conjunction with the creation, posting, dissemination or exploitation of infringed materials on your website. Accordingly, we request that you immediately remove the unauthorized posting and dissemination of the Unauthorized Photos pursuant to the following DMCA notice.

NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT

I, the undersigned, CERTIFY UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that I am the owner or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the owner of certain intellectual property rights, said owner being named Dustin Lance Black (”IP Owner”). I have a good faith belief that the materials identified hereto are not authorized by the above IP Owner, its agent, or the law and therefore infringe the IP Owner’s rights according to state, federal and/or US law. Please act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the listed material or items claimed to be infringing.

Infringed Work or Right: Copyright Violations
Item/Material – Website/URL Location(s):
http://www.inquisitr.com/26037/dustin-lance-black-photos/
http://www.inquisitr.com/wp-content/dustin-lance-black-photos.jpg

Thank you for your anticipated immediate cooperation and immediate compliance with US Copyright Law.

If you have any questions concerning this matter, I may be contacted at via reply to the listed address or at the above listed address and phone number.

If you fail to comply with this notice and expeditiously remove the infringing content, you will be held liable.

You act at your own peril.

Govern yourself accordingly.

This letter does not constitute a complete or exhaustive statement of all of my client’s rights, claims, contentions or legal theories regarding this matter. Nothing stated herein is intended as, nor should it be deemed to constitute, a waiver or relinquishment of any of my client’s rights or remedies, whether legal or equitable, all of which are hereby expressly reserved. This is a confidential legal notice and may not be published, in whole or in part.

Truthfully,

BARRY DALE JOHNSON
8409 Santa Monica Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069
p: 323.822.4813 | f: 323.822.4880 | c: 213.944.8303
bjohnson@id-pr.com

Music industry set to suck even more blood

Steven Hodson — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:56:39 +0000

Just as the newspaper industry is facing a collapse of their business model so to is the music industry. While it is the falling advertising spending on traditional print media that is severely hurting newspapers it is also the digital world that is biting into the profits of the music industry and their trade groups. As things like CDs begin to go the way of vinyl and cassette tapes the music industry is desperately struggling to find new ways to increase their profits.

Royalty payments have in the past been what the music businesses considers to be a secondary revenue stream. That is beginning to change not just in the US but right around the world as the music trade groups responsible for collecting royalties step up their ~~blood sucking~~ game. In the US we are seeing the introduction by Senator Conyers Jr. of a new bill in congress that would see a change in how royalties are paid in the United States.

Currently radio stations only make royalty payments to the songwriters, this law would change it so that radio stations would have to pay royalties to record companies and artists.

“The thing that draws people to radio is the music, and performers don’t get any of that” revenue, said Michael Huppe, general counsel at SoundExchange, an organization that collects royalties for record companies and artists when music is performed on U.S. Internet and satellite radio services, which are required to pay such fees.

Source: New York Times

Of course Huppe doesn’t acknowledge the incredible amount of free advertising that artists, and record companies, get because of all the free airplay they get. This move though is similar to one that is moving throughout the world as more music trade groups in different countries are pushing for more and higher royalty payments from an increasingly number of different types of businesses.

An example of this is a recent push by the Phonographic Performance Co. of Australia which has gone after nightclubs to increase their current royalty payments of 7 cents per person, per night, up to 84 cents this year and $1.05 in a few years.

“We looked at this and thought, 7 cents just doesn’t seem right, when people are paying 10 to 15 dollars to get in and at least 5 dollars for a drink,” said Stephen Peach, chief executive of Phonographic Performance Co. of Australia, which collects the fees. “Without music, there wouldn’t be a nightclub.”

As with Huppe in the US Stephan Peach seems to ignore the fact that all that music being played in nightclubs is free advertising for their represented artists and their ~~masters~~ record companies. In order to further increase their money collected Peach is recommending that similar organizations around the world follow their example and begin going after: fitness centers, restaurants, and television broadcasters.

I wonder if these idiots will ever figure out that all they are doing is killing the golden goose by this type of ~~blood sucking~~ behavior.

Hulu to release the UK from geotarding hell – how about the rest of the world?

Steven Hodson — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:08:03 +0000

I totally get that this whole geotarding thing can’t be placed directly at the feet of companies like Hulu and Pandora. I understand that they are having to play nice with rights holders around the world and some of them just don’t want to play nice at all. So it was good to hear today that Hulu looks to be cutting deals with all the players involved in television broadcasting in the UK and hopefully by September those lucky sods in the UK will be able to enjoy a great service.

However this still begs the question – what about the rest of us poor saps who will still find ourselves stuck behind the geotarding wall?

What really gets me riled up is that services like Hulu and Pandora don’t explain in plain English and not some legalese doubletalk as to why the rest of the world can’t use the service. We saw the same thing when Skype said that their App Store application for the iPhone would, or would not, be available in Canada but with limitations, like being able to make outgoing calls over VoIP. The strange part of this is that we can use Skype in Canada on our computers and buy Skype minutes with Canadian dollars.

All we got from Skype was that it was due to patent problems. This is slightly more than we get from Hulu or Pandora, who say it’s because they couldn’t come to copyright agreements. Well you know what? this is all pure and unadulterated bullshit.

We are supposed to be in an era where social media is the great equalizer but it seems sometimes that when it come to issues that cause companies to have to ‘legitimately’ geotard their products the power of social media gets forgotten. Much of the argument around the reasons for geotarding revolves around copyright issues or problems being able to target advertising properly. Well the second issue is just plain stupid and really shouldn’t even be a consideration.

The first though is something that can be changed – if the companies were honest with us as to exactly why they are having to geotard a country; or countries. Say for example the problem with Hulu being able to open up to Canada is due to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission) then tell us that. Or perhaps it’s because the monopolizing television and cable broadcasters are the ones causing the problems then tell us that.

Then bring the so-called power of social media to bear on the problem. Don’t hide behind neatly couched legalese. Call on the people – because I would bet dollars to donuts that if we knew exactly what the problem was there we would be able bring what pressure we can to see changes are made – or at least try our damndest.

Instead we are treated like mindless consumers with no voice in finding solutions to the problems which says a lot about what companies really think about this whole social media thing.

[picture courtesy of Telegraph Online because I live and Canada and wouldn’t be able to get a screenshot of a show playing on Hulu.]

Authors Guild blinks and gives Google a monopoly

Steven Hodson — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:59:18 +0000

Currently Google, as a part of its mission to index all the information in the world, has through its Book Search program scanned the text of some seven million books. Along the way though, they have also attracted a class action lawsuit for copyright infringement. The lawsuit has been brought to court by the Authors Guild, which at the point of the lawsuit had 8,000 members, and several publishing companies. Google’s argument against the lawsuit is that its scanning, indexing and snippet-providing was a fair and non-infringing use because it provided for a wider distribution and public access to those books.

Many copyright professionals expected that the Authors Guild v. Google case would be one of the most important tests of fair use to date. However the proposed settlement is extremely troubling in that it will in effect give Google total and absolute control over all orphan works and in-copyright but out of print books. While the settlement still has to be approved by the judge hearing the case the end result if approved would see Google get among other things, a license to display up to 20% of the contents of in-copyright out-of-print books which they would be able to runs ads alongside the displays. As well they would be able to sell access to the full texts of these books to institutional subscribers and individual purchasers.

Additionally the settlement that Google has arrived at with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers would if approved be settled as a class action on behalf of all book authors and publishers. By acceding to the certification of these classes through the settlement Google will get a license from all authors and publishers of books covered by the agreement – meaning nearly every in-copyright book ever published in the US – so that it can commercialize them through Book Search.

In effect Google ends up with a monopoly on the largest digital library of books in the world. It will have incredible freedom to set prices and conditions for Book Search’s commercial services. Google will also be the only service legally able to sell orphan books and monetize them through subscriptions. For book authors to be able to any part of the money they will need to be registered with the Book Rights Registry (BRR); which is initially being funded by Google to the tune of $34.5 million, who will be receiving 63 percent of the revenues generated by Google’s Book Search.

Because of the high cost to any of Google’s competitors to get into this game it is unlikely that they will

Virtually the only way that Amazon.com, Microsoft, Yahoo!, or the Open Content Alliance could get a comparably broad license as the settlement would give Google would be by starting its own project to scan books. The scanner might then be sued for copyright infringement, as Google was. It would be very costly and very risky to litigate a fair use claim to final judgment given how high copyright damages can be (up to $150,000 per infringed work). Chances are also slim that the plaintiffs in such a lawsuit would be willing or able to settle on equivalent or even similar terms.

Source: Pamela Samuelson – O’Reilly Radar

So for all practical purposes Google would now have a monopoly over the largest repository of books in the world. Cory Doctorow points out in his post about this news how this also gives Google a big leg up in even regular search over both Yahoo and Microsoft

But no one, not Google, not Santa Claus, should have this kind of leverage over the entire world of literature. It’s abominable. No one benefits when markets consolidate into a single monopoly gatekeeper — not even the gatekeeper, who is apt to lose its edge without competition to keep it sharp.

The publishers I spoke to about this were incredibly smug about it. Because the settlement gives them the power to keep new releases out of Google, they feel like they can use this to keep the company honest.

This is wrong.

New releases are the majority of the publishers’ business, but they’re not the majority of the market for books — and they’re only successful because of all the context created by the entire history of literature. If the publishers offer a sweetheart deal on searching new results to Yahoo, but can’t give Yahoo access to the orphan works and other catalog items to which Google alone has easy legal access, Yahoo’s search tool will never compete with Google’s. To understand why, imagine if Yahoo tried to compete with Google by offering a search engine that only indexed the last 30 days’ worth of web-pages: it’s true that most of the stuff I read on the web was written in the past 30 days, but the 40-50% of stuff I that wasn’t is often enormously important to me. In that world, I would have to flick constantly between searching Yahoo and Google to make sure I wasn’t missing stuff — and very quickly, I’d just default to Google.

At this point in time the judge in the lawsuit still has to approve the settlement so our only real hope for Google not getting this kind of monopoly is that the judge sees the danger of a possible monopoly and goes against the settlement. Given that the majority of judges trying to deal with these new technological and legal territories don’t have a real understanding about them I’m not holding out much hope that the judge will understand the implications.

Chances are that Google will prevail and as a result will become our new literary gatekeeper with no-one in a position to keep them honest.

How WENN uses copyright threats as a sales tool

Duncan Riley — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:53:11 +0000

The rules relating to copyright in the United States are fairly clear, even if you don’t necessarily agree with them. At the core of US hosted content is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a system the details the use of copyright materials online, and puts in a place a notification system in regards to copyright material. The DMCA though can and is abused, particularly in regards to material that constitutes fair use.

We’ve received a number of takedown notices (may 5-6) in the nearly twelve months since we started The Inquisitr. Some have been fine (one case was a mistake in the images posted), some have been beyond stupid, like a takedown notice we received for an embed of a file hosted on a third party site from the IFPI; we swapped it out for a YouTube embed of the EXACT same thing and never heard a thing again.

The DMCA process is fairly clear cut: the notice must detail your ownership of a work, and a demand to take down said copyright materials along with swearing that the statement is true etc. In roles before starting this site I’ve actually been involved in using the DMCA against other sites, so I’ve seen both sides.

Then there’s content owners that don’t respect fair use, who are seemingly incapable of properly using the DMCA, and instead simply use copyright threats as a sales tool for their photo collection. Like WENN photography.

We used one photo in a post recently that was said to have been taken by a tourist at the Berlin Zoo of a woman being attacked by a Polar Bear. There was zero indication of rights ownership, and was part of a larger set of shots; the same photos also circulated through the mainstream media and blogosphere, again mostly without attribution.

Then we got this delightful email from WENN threatening us with half truths…before encouraging us to become a customer:

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT NOTICE – WOMAN MAULED BY POLAR BEAR.

Dear ALL @ inquisitir.com

It’s been noted that inquisitir.com is has posted WENN’s photo of a Woman being Mauled by Polar Bear taken in Berlin Germany.

If you are a client – please advise – and forgive this email.
However, we haven’t been able to find you in our database.

We take Copyright Infringement VERY seriously.

Unfortunately – you cannot just take photos from other sites on the internet – especially as it has WENN.com’s credit every place you look. Companies pay for photos.

That photo is being sold for thousands of dollars.
Would you like to purchase it? You can have it for $1,500.

Please immediately respond to this email.
If you do not wish to pay for the photo – if you do not take it down immediately – and it absolutely must be down within 24 hours – our attorneys will contact you.

Rather than this terse discussion – we’d really like you to be a WENN subscriber – where you can purchase “x” number of photos monthly and/or news feeds.

Finally – if you ARE a WENN client – again apologies…and remember – we protect your interests as well with other companies who may be poaching photos after YOU pay to post them.

Please contact me.
Thank you.

Joan Teitelman
Business Development Manager
WENN-NY
646-723-0780
www.wenn.com
joan.

The important parts to note:
1: it wasn’t credited to WENN everywhere.
2: Actually, fair use “provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work.” This idea that one image from a set of images can’t be taken under any circumstances is wrong, and it’s WENN’s effort to deceive recipients who simply may not understand the legalities of the issue.
3: under the DMCA, a takedown notice must come in a particular form. “Our attorneys will contact you” sounds like a threat, when there can be ZERO legal action until such time the DMCA notice is issued, and even then I’d need to file a counter-notice and not take the image down before this went to court. Safe Harbor provisions in the DMCA allow that image to be removed given that we didn’t know it belonged to WENN, even if we ignore the strong potential that it was used under fair use.

I took the image down (one image of a polar bear is not worth the fight) and instead replaced it with a still from German TV footage of the exact same incident.

I responded, noting the same concerns as I’ve just ran through, and also referenced the Wikipedia page on Fair Use. Notably I also told them that this idea that I had taken the photos “especially as it has WENN.com’s credit every place you look” was false and that if she wished to state this publicly she would be hearing from my lawyers (that point is important given the response.) My response was no more terse than the threat they issued me.

Their response:

Thank you for removing WENN’s photo.
Whether a photo is taken from a WENN set or not – it is still WENN’s copyrighted property.
That a WENN photo posted on your site – unknowingly or not – without paying for it – is not a falsehood.

Furthermore – website publishers pay for those photos.
Photographers get paid when the photos get sold.
WENN protects its clients and photographers’ rights.
How would you feel if you paid for photographs and someone came along and felt they could just take them for free?

This is a business – not a free for all.
Copyright Infringement: A serious matter.

Wikipedia: Not a legal resource on Copyright Infringement.
Are you aware that Wikipedia is made up of people posting things?

Read the Copyright Infringement Law: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. U.S. Copyright Office Summary (DMCA).
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

I’m certain you weren’t unhappy your site probably enjoyed a great deal of traffic from that photo.
Needless to say on our end – there are many – many – publishers who have become WENN subscribers after they receive our note.

I thought you’d also like to know I’ve had communications with many people who also took the Polar Bear photo; nice exchanges I might add. They immediately took them down.
No need to be rude.

Trust me – we’re way too busy – working with our clients – to be running around telling people that the Inquisitor illegally posted our photo.
Fact – too busy to write this note.

Any further correspondence on this issue will immediately be sent to our attorney.

Guess they’re so use to people rolling over to their threats and becoming customers that they were taken by surprise

The most delightful part is the schooling over Wikipedia: “Are you aware that Wikipedia is made up of people posting things?” and quoting the DMCA when they never sent a DMCA notice, instead a menacing letter than finished with a sales pitch. Also note they constantly refer to photographs (plural) when we’re talking about one image.

But here’s the kicker: they admit in the response that legal threats are a standard sales tactic for WENN: “Needless to say on our end – there are many – many – publishers who have become WENN subscribers after they receive our note.”

If anyone out there is a lawyer, one thing I’d love to know: is it illegal in the United States to use coercion in this form for the sale of a good? That is: we’ll hold a gun to your head, but if you sign up as a customer, you’ll be ok? Would love to know. I also wonder if they have an office here in Australia; the site is published in the United States, but the attempt was made against me in Australia. Very tempted to head down to the local police station to ask the question.

Secret ACTA International Copyright Treaty leaked to Wikileaks

Duncan Riley — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:57:02 +0000

A discussion draft of a secret ACTA International copyright treaty has been leaked to Wikileaks.

The treaty, between the European Union, United States, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Australia and Japan was agreed upon in 2008, but despite requests across member nations, no Government so far has released any of the details.

The copy at Wikileaks is an early discussion draft, which parts missing and comments left by the various signatories, but what is there paints a disturbing picture of international co-operation on the issue of intellectual property.

The core of the document details how each party should deal with intellectual property matters, including costs, complaint process and legal standards. Where it goes further is with the introduction of set rate penalties based on types of infringement, and further makes no clear distinction (that I could see) between a commercial piracy outfit, and a kid at home downloading a movie on BitTorrent.

While international co-operation on issues such as these isn’t out of the ordinary, it’s the secrecy around the document that has caused alarm so far; and it turns out that it was justified. The net effect of this treaty is to overrule local laws and to increase the severity of intellectual property/ copyright laws in signatory nations. Maybe not police stat level, but in places like Australia and parts of the EU which don’t have as strict an interpretation of copyright (for example, you can legally rip a DVD in Australia), this document could force local laws to be changed.

You can read the full document via the links page on Wikileaks here.

Court case could force one strike and you’re out on downloaders in Australia

Duncan Riley — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 09:46:07 +0000

The copyright case against Australia’s second largest ISP iiNet went to court today with an interesting twist: the entertainment industry wants iiNet to disconnect customers accused of illegal downloading as soon as they are notified.

The action against iiNet was filed in the Australian Federal Court by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network. The studios claim iiNet in effect “authorized” customers’ copyright infringement by failing to disconnect them when notified of the infringements by the movie studios.

iiNet told the court that they were was not required to act on a “mere allegation of copyright infringement” and that the case was “like suing the electricity company for things people do with their electricity”.

Asher Moses in the Sydney Morning Herald notes “if iiNet loses, all ISPs could be forced to disconnect customers identified by the movie studios as illegal downloaders.” Not three strikes and you’re out as is the case in France, or as recently proposed in New Zealand, but one accusation and you’re gone. Australia is starting to look more and more like China and Iran every day.

Only idiots like the Authors Guild could believe in this kind of crap

Steven Hodson — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 05:26:12 +0000

We are pretty use to the crap that the RIAA and the MPAA like to spread around like fresh manure on a cow field but as of this week they have been joined by yet another trade organization that proves just how far out in left field they idiots are when it come to protecting their little fiefdoms. Yes the trade organizations for authors; the Authors Guild, has proven just how little they understand technology, the Internet and copyright in this day and age.

John Paczkowski quotes from a press release from the Guild in a post today

“[The Kindle's text-to-speech function] presents a significant challenge to the publishing industry,” the group said in a statement released Thursday. “Audiobooks surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2007; e-book sales are just a small fraction of that. While the audio quality of the Kindle 2, judging from Amazon’s promotional materials, is best described as serviceable, it’s far better than the text-to-speech audio of just a few years ago. We expect this software to improve rapidly….we recommend that if you haven’t yet granted your e-book rights to backlist or other titles, this isn’t the time to start. If you have a new book contract and are negotiating your e-book rights, make sure Amazon’s use of those rights is part of the dialog. Publishers certainly could contractually prohibit Amazon from adding audio functionality to its e-books without authorization, and Amazon could comply by adding a software tag that would prohibit its machine from creating an audio version of a book unless Amazon has acquired the appropriate rights. Until this issue is worked out, Amazon may be undermining your audio market as it exploits your e-books.”

What it boils down to is that his Guild; which is suppose to be acting on behalf of it’s member authors, says that by creating an audio version of a book you are in fact creating a whole new product that is totally based on a copyrighted book. In other reports on this the Guild has even gone to the point of suggesting that any verbal or audio reproduction of a book is and infringement on a copyright and there for illegal.

As nuts as it might sound, a parent reading a bedtime story to their kids would fall under the Authors Guild classification of breaking a copyright and therefore subject to criminal prosecution. You just couldn’t make this type of bullshit up but somehow I am not the least bit surprised. I’m just flabbergasted that more of an uproar hasn’t happened over this.

In my opinion these Author Guild jerk offs should return to the rocks they crawled out from under and quit trying to come up with harebrained ideas that will only hurt the actuall authors they say that they represent.

YouTube Now Blocks Copyright Material First, Asks Questions Later

Duncan Riley — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:28:29 +0000

We’ve had some interesting run-ins with YouTube before over copyright. In December USA Today claimed copyright of a Digg demonstration video we uploaded, and given YouTube seemingly ignores complaints, USA Today to the best of our knowledge is still gaining revenue from a video that had nothing to do with them.

But usually copyright claims happen after a video is already on the site, with YouTube following the DMCA safe harbor provisions to take videos down that are subject to claims. But not any more.

We regularly receive pitches from various people, including reps for movie companies. On January 23 we received an email from one of our regular PR contacts (and we’re always grateful for the emails, even if we don’t always run them) for the upcoming film Sunshine Cleaning. The email included links to private downloads for the movie, including a trailer and poster. I downloaded the trailer this morning, ran it through iMovie for processing, then uploaded it to YouTube so we could run it on The Inquisitr. Note that the trailer had been sent so we could run it on the site, so we had permission to do so from an authorized representative of the copyright owner.

Imagine then my surprise that after the clip had finished prcoessing, YouTube immediately identified it as being in breach of copyright and didn’t allow it to go up.

I was then redirected to an option where by I could lodge a dispute to the claim; the end result in the picture above.

To YouTube’s credit the movie was quickly included again, but the process still begs the question: why has YouTube seemingly abandoned the DMCA process in favor of blocking material upfront, and automatically presuming that the uploader isn’t authorized to share the material?

No doubt the MPAA and RIAA will be happy with YouTube’s now authoritarian stance on copyright, but as a user it completely stinks, and offers no fair and due process in these matters. Once upon a time we would have expected better from Google/ YouTube, that’s obviously no longer case.

Valkyrie Producers May Be Sued Over Hitler Globe; Copyright Law Gone Mad

Duncan Riley — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:57:39 +0000

The producers of Valkyrie, Tom Cruise’s newest movie based on the plot during World War Two to kill Hitler may be sued for using a reproduction of the famous Hitler Globe.

The globes, produced in the 1930’s were given to high ranking officials in the Third Reich, with one Globe said to be kept at Berchtesgaden (The Eagles Nest), the Bavarian Country home of Hitler. Most were destroyed during the war, but the Berchtesgaden Globe was retrieved by American soldiers.

Art collector Robert Pritikin acquired the globe in 2007 and filed a copyright claim over reproductions, ostensibly to stop neo-Nazi’s creating copies, and this is where the problem for Valkyrie lies: they didn’t seek permission from Pritikin to use the globe reproduction first.

According to Page Six, the Globe is actually up for sale, the Pritikin is said to be hoping the matter will be resolved without going to court…or better still Tom Cruise will buy the globe.

Sadly though it’s a case of copyright law gone mad. This is a work created in the 1930’s by a German company that no longer exists; that an art collector can claim copyright over the work in 2007 when the work, under both US and German law should be in the public domain is scary within itself. Worse still though, the copyright claim means that an historical event, and portrayal of that event based on facts, is now limited by copyright law, even events that occurred over 60 years ago. Imagine for example a copyright claim over parts of the US Civil War, the US War of Independence, or the Battles of World War One? That we despise Hitler is irrelevant: history needs to be free so that we are able to remember it freely, copyright law has no place here at all. It’s yet another sickening example of how copyright law has been corrupted by greed and blatant disregard for the common good.

Pirate Party Polling 21% in Sweden

Duncan Riley — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:17:17 +0000

The Swedish Pirate Party, the party set up to tackle copyright reform in Sweden has scored 21% in a nationwide poll.

As TorrentFreak points out, the figures are even more remarkable among men aged 18-29, where The Pirate Party polls a staggering 55%. If an election was to take place today, The Pirate Party would poll higher than the Greens, resulting in over 19 seats in the Swedish Parliament.

The Party, founded in 2006 aims to reform copyright laws, not abolish them. Their platform includes all non-commercial copying and use being completely free, and the encouragement of file sharing and p2p networking. They don’t however believe that copyright should be abolished, instead reformed so that copyright remains in place for a maximum of 5 years, as opposed to the death plus 70 years as is usually the case today.

Pirate Party’s have been setup or are currently being setup throughout the world. Here’s the links for the United States, United Kingdom (currently offline), and Australia if you’re interested in joining.

Australian ISP iiNet sued over customer copyright infringement

Duncan Riley — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:44:12 +0000

Australia’s second largest ISP iiNet has been sued by the film and television industry over copyright infringement by its customers.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the companies are seeking a ruling that iiNet infringed copyright by failing to stop users from engaging in illegal file sharing over BitTorrent. They are seeking an order to force iiNet to prevent its customers from engaging in copyright infringement over its network. An industry spokesman said that damages would be sought.

Mark White, iiNet’s chief operating officer, said the company did not support piracy but it could not disconnect customers just because the movie industry claimed they engaged in illegal downloading.

In an interesting angle, the Herald reported Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association saying that the case may involve use of safe harbor provisions under the Australian-US Free Trade Agreement

“This is a very important test case for the internet industry in Australia. It will test the effect of the safe harbour provisions that were introduced with the US free trade agreement, which provides immunity for ISPs in certain circumstances such as transmission, hosting, caching and referencing activities.”

Disclosure: I am an iiNet customer.

Those poor silly deluded French RIAA wannabes

Steven Hodson — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:57:25 +0000

It never ceases to amaze the lengths these pseudo protectors of musician rights will go to in order to push their broken agenda down the throats of everyone. The delusions they suffer under about how they have the rights based on bad copyright laws. Not to mention the backing of entertainment corporations that don’t even realize that they are playing a game of Russian roulette with half the bullets still in the chambers.

This dreamworld that they are living in was made quite apparent today; with the help of an equally screwed up French court decision, as the Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF) has decided that the time has come to start suing non-French file sharing applications. Now that would be laughable enough but they have also decided to go after the open source source code and file repository Sourceforge. It should be mentioned that this is the premier repository of the vast major of open source software projects around the world.

This apparently doesn’t bother the SPPF or the French courts that both Sourceforge and the developers behind the file sharing software being sued are well beyond the French legal jurisdiction. As Ernesto over at TorrentFreak writes

Interestingly, SPFF is also going after Sourceforge, the open source development website, because it hosts the P2P application Shareaza. Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds”

Michael Masnick also points out another incredibly obvious point

Now that it’s been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What’s troubling is that even beyond an “inducement” standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.

All I can say is what a bunch of dumb shits the SPPF is for even going down this road and the decision by the French court in this case show exactly how deeply out of touch they are with how the Internet and software works. Not to mention that they aren’t smart enough to see through the total stupidity of the argument in the first place.

Copy-right: RIAA loses in court, Bush comes out against insane copyright law

Duncan Riley — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:22:21 +0000

Lots of good news on the copyright front this Thursday. The RIAA has taken a big blow against its first ever copyright win in court, and the Bush administration finally got something right, opposing moves to take copyright enforcement to the government.

In the case law front, the original judge who ruled in the case of RIAA vs Jammie Thomas last year over copyright has called a mistrial based on his flawed instruction to the jury over the level of proof necessary for the RIAA to prevail. In the original trial, Judge Michael Davis told the jury that the recording industry did not have to prove anybody downloaded the songs from Thomas’ open Kazaa share folder, saying that they could find unauthorized distribution (copyright infringement) if Thomas was “making copyrighted sound recordings available” over a peer-to-peer network “regardless of whether actual distribution has been shown” reports Wired. The good news is that he had second thoughts, and the RIAA’s success rate in court now reverts to 0.

On the Government front, despite previous strong support from a senate committee, the Bush Administration has come out against a law backed by the recording industry that would have seen copyright enforcement pursued by the Government, and the addition of a copyright czar within the administration.

In what CNet refers to as a veto threat to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Keith Nelson, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Lily Fu Claffee, the Commerce Department’s general counsel argued that the administration was “deeply concerned” that the proposal would divert resources from criminal prosecution to civil enforcement, and create “unnecessary bureaucracy.” Further, the bill was “objectionable on constitutional grounds” because it would create an “IP coordinator” inside the White House, the organization of which is traditionally a presidential prerogative.

In a polarized society, will moderate viewpoints die?

Duncan Riley — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:41:10 +0000

The term red states, blue states introduced America and the world to the notion of a polarized society, one that rallies around what makes us different over the common ground. Polarization in politics isn’t new, but today the middle ground appears weak, a notion of the greater good replaced by one of a blind ideological viewpoint of us and them.

Sadly the new media and technology sector are moving in the same direction. Extremism on both sides is creating an us and them divide where moderate thought is drowned out by the fanaticism on either side.

Copyright

I’d consider myself a moderate on copyright. The notion of allowing inventors and creators to profit from their work is enshrined in the US Constitution, and copyright law itself dates back to England before that. I believe that copyright as it was originally intended is a noble cause that encourages development and creativity. And yet today that original notion of copyright has been poisoned by the greed of big media and music, geared not to offering some just reward for creators, but in lining their own pockets for the rest of time. Copyright laws that once lasted 20 years have been replaced by the life of a creator + 70 years, a move that only benefits big business at the loss of the public domain. Worse still is the use of DRM and other artificial restraints, that seek to take copyright to new levels of stupidity, where those who buy the rights to use copyright protected items are limited in how they privately use them. It’s the ultimate greed tax imposed by law makers beholden to the next campaign contribution from those with an interest in profiting from those laws.

But lets take the other side, one that calls for the complete abolition of copyright law with a notion that intellectual property is imaginary property. If find it very easy to sympathize with their call, and there is no argument that Creative Commons and the Public Domain give to the greater good. But in a world without copyright, where we would be free to take and use as we please without the need for some compensation, what incentives would there be for creators to create if they are unable to profit from their creations?

I’m not talking music, which is an interesting adjunct, as the music itself can be used as a promotion tool for things like concerts. I’m talking real inventions, world changing inventions. It is not unreasonable to state that those who create should have some path to reward. That I believe was the intention of the founding fathers of the United States Constitution.

Every time I mention my anti-DRM stance or mention the latest BitTorrent tracker, I’m howled down by some as being an extremist against copyright. Likewise for even arguing here briefly in favor of some copyright and patent protection, I’ll be labeled an extremist in the other direction. In a polarized world, there is scant room for moderation.

I’d note also that I understand why those calling for the abolition of copyright take their position: the corporate greed of copyright holders has driven an extreme reaction in itself (and not unjustly), but the harder path is to take a moderate line and not simply become a reactionary.

Mainstream Media

I don’t believe that mainstream media will completely die out. I believe that broadcast television as a distribution medium is dead because the television companies are the least prepared for the changes the internet is quickly delivering, and that secondly the notion of a one size fits all broadcast medium is an antique concept that logically will be replaced when an alternative of custom choice on demand or custom mixed content when the technology is cheaply and widely available. I believe that newspapers are in deep trouble, and that within 10-20 years 5-10% will be left in the Western world, but I don’t believe they’ll die out completely, even if the notion of media on print itself will cease to be in a digital age. There will always be a place for quality journalism, and the smart print publications are switching online now in a big way, looking at ways of keeping their business going well into the future when print newspapers themselves are dead. The New York Times will be available in 2030, but it will be a website only.

The old media is still today struggling to come to terms with this change, and love nothing more than to lash out at the new media creators that are offering their first serious competition. I attend conferences to be told by media hacks that bloggers are nothing but conflicted amateurs, incapable of creating quality media, and that the only way to define premium content is by how much is charged for it. It would be unfair of me to say that it is all in the space, and there are many fine and smart people in media who understand the changing face of journalism and their need to adopt to the times, but the extreme hates the bloggers, hates the YouTubers and Facebookers, and anyone else who dares share their opinion in a space that until 10 years ago was the elitist domain of the mainstream media.

The flip side are those who say that mainstream media is dead, that they will all cease to exist, and the quicker the better. That their number will thin is a given, but to suggest that they will die out is another matter. I touched on newspapers, but the companies behind television and radio aren’t completely stupid either. Hulu may be georetarded and DRM infested, but it is the first considerable step away from the broadcast television model into a new age of media on demand. The Disney’s of this word may have vested interests in television, but they are production companies first and foremost and they will follow the crowd where ever it goes. Comcast offers shows on demand today via the cable box.

Again I sympathize with the mainstream media is dead meme, and when I’m attacked by the fanatics on the other side it is far easier to switch towards the us and them model than try to argue some common ground and a moderate view, and quite honestly I wouldn’t be greatly displeased if a lot of those walls came tumbling down tomorrow, after all this false idea that journalism isn’t biased compared to a biased blogosphere does need to die, because it is a grand delusion by those in the media who believe they are beyond contempt. However, the moderate view sees a major restructure in the media landscape, but not a complete wipeout, based on trends and numbers we are already seeing.

Likewise, there is really not a lot of difference between the top of blogging and old media. Many blogs I’ve dealt with would have stricter editorial standards than large chunks of print. Newspapers themselves are embracing blogging in a big way, further blurring the lines. I’d argue that “blog” as a term in itself is probably growing towards redundancy; there are news sites and those which indulge in editorial and opinion. That they are owned by News Corp or a blog network should not be the first criteria upon which to judge either of them.

Conclusion

I feel that I’m probably barking up the wrong tree, because many reading this simply won’t understand that there is a common ground, a middle ground in many of these debates, like they are unable to see it in politics. I saw someone on FriendFeed the other day (apologies but I don’t recall who it was) say that he was unfollowing and possibly blocking McCain supporters because they were McCain supporters. There was some suggestion that some had been annoying him, but he’d decided none the less to block them all because he believed them to be stupid, and not worthy of a place in his feed. This extreme need to block others with differing opinions, to look to the negatives over the positives, to ignore the common ground and instead focus of the extremities would appear to be more and more the norm. Moderates are the dying breed, and we will be all worse off for the polarity we are left with.