Public Policy Connections: YouTube Sends Users To Copyright School: Should Content Owners Have to Go, Too?

 

YouTube Sends Users To Copyright School: Should Content Owners Have to Go, Too?

Google has faced mounting criticism from lawmakers and the entertainment industry for not doing enough to combat online copyright infringement, and on April 14 released a set of stricter copyright policies for YouTube online video users.  Copyright policy violators will be required to watch a "copyright tutorial" and pass a test before allowing them to continue using the service.

A posting by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) digs deeper into the issues, crediting YouTube for doing the right thing by jettisoning its one-size-fits-all three strikes termination policy, while also questioning  requiring users who receive takedown notices to go to “copyright school," and that school has a pretty misleading curriculum. EFF makes the point that if YouTube is going to ask users to learn more about copyright when they receive a takedown notice, they should require the same of right-holders whose takedowns are disputed. As we have been reminded all too often, many content owners are badly in need of copyright education.

Read POLITICO Pro news story: Google unveils 'copyright school"
Read EFF news story: YouTube Sends Users To Copyright School: Will Content Owners Have to Go, Too?
Read LA Times news story:  YouTube to require 'tutorials' for copyright offenders

Public Policy Connections: YouTube Sends Users To Copyright School: Should Content Owners Have to Go, Too?

©ollectanea

Excellent site to keep up date on copyright issues – I’ve added it to my reading list….HSM

©ollectanea

[kol-ek-tey-nee-uh]. Join the Center for Intellectual Property's Scholar, Peggy Hoon, in a discussion of current copyright issues.

©ollectanea

Center Releases New Guide to Navigating Copyright Law - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Center Releases New Guide to Navigating Copyright Law - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education 

Center Releases New Guide to Navigating Copyright Law

By Sophia Li

Communications scholars often fret over the legal nuances of using copyrighted material in their research, says Pat Aufderheide, a professor of communication at American University and director of its Center for Social Media. Ms. Aufderheide and Peter A. Jaszi, a law professor at American, hope to help researchers rest easy with a new guide to using copyrighted work—like political cartoons or screenshots from online games—in their studies.

Because of the "fair use" provisions of copyright law, copyrighted work can be quoted if it is being used for a purpose different from its original intent, according to the report, which was vetted by a committee of lawyers.

The report, released today, gives communications scholars four types of research-related situations as examples: analyzing copyrighted material, quoting it to illustrate a point, using it to spark discussion, and storing it in a collection. The situations in the report were based on 387 responses to a survey of communications scholars conducted in collaboration with the International Communication Association.

The center's guides establish what's acceptable for a field and tell scholars how to apply the law to the cases they encounter, said Ms. Aufderheide.

The center plans to continue producing similar documents for other groups, like an association of research librarians, that want clearer guidelines on using copyrighted works, she added.

Center Releases New Guide to Navigating Copyright Law - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Steinbeck and Guthrie Families Now Supports Google Book Plan - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

 Steinbeck and Guthrie Families Now Supports Google Book Plan - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Steinbeck and Guthrie Families Now Supports Google Book Plan

By MOTOKO RICH

Associated Press John Steinbeck

The families of the author John Steinbeck and the musician Woody Guthrie, which previously opposed the proposed Google Book settlement that would create a vast digital library of books, say that they now support it.

In a statement released Thursday by the Authors Guild, one of the parties to the settlement, Gail Steinbeck, the wife of Thomas Steinbeck, the author’s son, said “the majority of the problems that we found to be troubling have been addressed.”

The settlement of a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google after the company began scanning books from university libraries, was originally announced in October 2008. Since then, a widespread group of authors, academics, librarians, public interest groups, as well as the Justice Department, have raised an array of objections based on antitrust, copyright and class-action issues.

Ms. Steinbeck, who had received notice of the settlement shortly before a May deadline for authors to opt out of it, sent a letter back then to several influential authors outlining her concerns. Responding to her urging to “stop it in its tracks right now,” a group of authors that included the musician Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s son, asked the court for a four-month extension on the opt-out date. It was granted.

In September, the Justice Department laid out its concerns in a memorandum and in October, Google and its partners pledged to revise the settlement. The revised agreement was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in November, making it easier for other companies to license Google’s digital collection of copyrighted but out-of-print books and established the position of an independent fiduciary, or trustee, who would be solely responsible for decisions regarding so-called orphan works, the millions of books whose rights holders are unknown or cannot be found.

In an e-mail message to fellow authors cited in Thursday’s statement from the Author’s Guild, Ms. Steinbeck wrote that the revision “meets our standards of control over the intellectual properties that would otherwise remain at risk were we to stay out of the settlement.” She added that neither the Steinbeck nor Guthrie families would “initiate a separate lawsuit against Google.”

Steinbeck and Guthrie Families Now Supports Google Book Plan - Media Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com

Journalist, freelance and sci-fi authors groups take aim at Google book settlement | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Journalist, freelance and sci-fi authors groups take aim at Google book settlement | Technology | Los Angeles Times 

Journalist, freelance and sci-fi authors groups take aim at Google book settlement January 6, 2010 | 6:03 pm

Three national authors groups comprising more than 4,000 writers and journalists today decried the controversial agreement between Google and author-publisher groups that would allow the tech giant to sell access to millions of books online. In a letter to Congress, the three groups -- the National Writers Union, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America -- pointed to what they saw as the overly confusing and ultimately unfair rules that would govern what Google could do with the books if the settlement were to be approved in federal court. In language by turns wry and outraged, the writer groups accuse Google of inadequately explaining the terms of the agreement to the many authors it could affect, and the Authors Guild and publishing industry of fashioning a deal that favors current authors, while leaving less lucrative out-of-print authors behind. The deal does not cover books currently in print. "Think about it," the letter reads. "The existing competitive marketplace is best for the books that publishers care about. It's just the rest of us they want shoved into the straight jacket of the Book Rights Registry which they and the Authors Guild are proposing." If the settlement were approved, it would include the creation of a "Book Rights Registry" to oversee licensing and revenue claims for all books covered by the agreement -- many of which are out of print but remain copyrighted. Under its current terms, authors are automatically included in the settlement, and must "opt out" if they prefer that their books not appear in Google's search results. By the nature of older books, many authors are dead or difficult to find. Still, many authors have objected to being automatically included in the settlement process. "Are you opting in or opting out of the Google Books Settlement? If you dont know what that means or dont know what it means for you and your book youre in good company," read the letter. "No attempt was made to locate the vast majority of authors, and the rest were sent emails. Of those, how many thought they were email spam and deleted them unread?" Google declined to directly address the concerns expressed in the letter, noting instead that if it is approved, "the settlement will open access to millions of books while giving authors and publishers new ways to distribute their work online." The Authors Guild did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Find the full text of the letter embedded below.

Journalist, freelance and sci-fi authors groups take aim at Google book settlement | Technology | Los Angeles Times

Copyright Tips for Review Sites | PlagiarismToday

 Copyright Tips for Review Sites | PlagiarismToday

Copyright Tips for Review Sites By Jonathan Bailey " Jan 6th, 2010 "

Whether you are looking to start a review site or have been running one for years, copyright is an issue you are almost certainly going to bump into. This is especially true if you're going to be reviewing copyrighted works, such as books, games or movies, but is true for just about any review you do. Even those who review electronics, for example, have to look at the packaging, manuals and promotional material as copyrighted works. Fortunately, copyright law gives a great deal of leeway when creating reviews, as it should, but knowing where the boundaries are and how to keep your site legal is important. Perhaps even more importantly though, it is crucial to be aware of ways in which your content could accidentally become a target for copyright enforcement, often by automated systems. However, with some common sense, some simple precautions and some common courtesy, you should be able to avoid any and all issues pretty easily. With that in mind, here is what you need to be aware of. For the rest of the ....

Copyright Tips for Review Sites | PlagiarismToday

 

In the end though, if youre looking to set up a review site or are running one now, you probably have no reason to fear so long as you are acting in good faith. Reviews, commentary and criticism are highly protected under copyright law and, generally, the bar for infringement is higher than mere distribution. If youre aware of the potential issues and work to avoid them, you most likely have very little to fear.

Copyright Tips for Review Sites | PlagiarismToday

Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News

 Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News

Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google By Kevin Rawlinson 12:53

The family of Blade Runner's author claim Google nicked names for its Nexus One smartphone.

The family of Blade Runner's author claim Google nicked names for its Nexus One smartphone. The family of author Philip K Dick is threatening to sue Google for infringement of intellectual property rights over its new Nexus One mobile. Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of the American writer, says that many of the names of the phone's features are lifted directly from her father's book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and the 1982 film Blade Runner based upon it. The Nexus One's operating system is called Android and the rogue cyborgs in the book are called Nexus 6s. Ms Dick Hackett sent a letter to Google yesterday, the day after the phone's launch, demanding that the corporation change the name. "Google takes first and then deals with the fallout later. In my mind, there is a very obvious connection to my father's novel. People don't get it. It's the principle of it. It would be nice to have a dialogue. We are open to it. That's a way to start," she said. Google's new product is based on its Android technology, launched two years ago. The company hopes that the phone - a direct competitor to the Apple iPhone - will gain it a share in the mobile phone market.

Google claimed at the phone's launch on Tuesday that the Nexus name is used in the word's original sense - as a place where things converge. In Dick's book, set in a future San Francisco, the main protagonist, Rick Deckard -n played by the actor Harrison Ford in Blade Runner - is a bounty hunter, searching for renegade androids who have escaped their human masters and are trying to lead lives as humans. After some people left Earth to escape the fallout from a nuclear war which had ravaged the planet, the cyborgs were supposed to act as slaves.

In the past, the Dick family, along with the relatives of the writer John Steinbeck and musician Arlo Guthrie, son of US musician Woody Guthrie, has also attacked Google's Book section, on which users can search the text of books the company has scanned and uploaded. Google uses optical character recognition technology to convert the books into searchable text and stores them on its digital database. They said that the system was overly complicated and that copyright holders were being asked to make binding decisions. In 2008, Google agreed to pay around £78m (NZ$169m) to copyright holders after the American Author's Guild sued. The company also agreed to set up Book Rights Registry to distribute revenue to copyright holders. Another mobile phone company, Motorola, agreed to pay the director of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, George Lucas, for the use of the name Droid in their Android OS-powered smartphone. However, the Nexus One character is not trademarked by the Dick family. - THE INDEPENDENT By Kevin Rawlinson

Blade Runner author's family takes aim at Google - Gadgets - NZ Herald News

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica 

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers A study provides evidence that file sharing takes place with some very specialized media: the research papers published in scientific journals. By John Timmer | Last updated October 29, 2009 6:15 AM CT

The ease with which information can be spread through the Internet has exacerbated tensions among those who pay for, conduct, and publish scientific research. Many journals still require subscription or per-article payments for access to the research they publish, which often leaves the public, who funds a significant percentage of the research, on the wrong side of a pay wall. So far, however, there's been little evidence that the public has been interested enough in research to engage in the sort of widespread file-sharing that plague other content industries. But a new study suggests that may just be because nobody's looked very carefully.

The study, which was spotted by TechDirt, appears in an open-access journal, so anyone can read its entire contents. It describes the sharing of over 5,000 research papers on a site frequented by medical professionals, and the formal community rules that governed the exchange.

During the six months in 2008 that the author tracked the activity on the site, which was a discussion board focused on medical fields, it had over 125,000 registered users. Anyone could start an account, but many of the fora were focused on specific issues, such as those faced by nurses and residents. In addition to those, however, there was a section called the Electronic Library that contained a forum called "Databases & Journals—Requests and Enquiries."

Up to three times a day, users were allowed to submit a request for a published research article, accompanied by a link to the free abstract hosted at the journal's website. Other users would then download the full article and host it somewhere, providing a link in the discussion. If everything was set up properly, the site would track the number of downloads.

Over the course of six months, over 6,500 articles were requested, and over 80 percent of those requests were successfully filled. The articles received a mean of 4.47 views, with one attracting 177 downloads. The author found that the requests roughly paralleled the journal's impact factors, with Nature and Science coming out on top, followed by more specialized medical journals. Figuring an average cost of $30 a download (the price requested by many journals), the publishing industry was potentially losing $1.4 million a year due to the site, although it's unlikely that many of the downloaders would have actually exercised their option to buy an article.

According to the author, the site (which is never named) went inactive in early 2009, although its contents were indexed via Google prior to that point.

The author considers this behavior in the context of the Open Access debate, which has played out in Congress and research institutions. He also terms the file sharing behavior among people involved in the medical profession "ethically dubious," given it involves the distribution of copyrighted material.

There is, however, an alternate way of viewing this that the author doesn't discuss: at least some medical professionals are apparently unable to obtain the publications they feel are needed for their training or practice; given their job responsibilities, it seems unethical to withhold these materials.

In addition, it's worth noting that, although this sort of informal sharing would be obviated if all research was open access, it has a very different history from the formal open access movement. For many years, it was traditional for anyone publishing a paper to order a stack of what were termed "reprints"—essentially the journal article without the rest of the journal's contents—from the publisher, in order to share with colleagues or anyone who was interested, but did not have access to the journal. With the advent of digital publishing, this sort of service shifted to the emailing of PDFs—in a lot of ways, the file sharing seen here could be viewed as the next logical step in this publication sharing process.

In any case, the amount of sharing that goes on is undoubtedly much larger than the file exchanges observed in the study. Many authors are now choosing to simply place articles where anyone can find them, either ahead of print at places like the arXiv, or after, on their university's servers. Offers to share paywalled articles also occur in public forums that aren't dedicated to this exchange, at least based on some of the comments attached to Ars' science articles.

Many publishers are readily adapting to and, in some cases, embracing the increased demands for public access to research results. But there remain a number who are resisting the trend. The study suggests that publishers might do well to adopt some sort of formalized access system, or they may end up facing a growth in the sites that encourage the same sort of sharing that has caused the movie and film industries so much indigestion.

The Internet Journal of Medical Informatics, 2009. DOI unavailable.

Med students hoist P2P Jolly Roger to get access to papers - Ars Technica

URGENT! Intellectual Property Lawyer Marc Toberoff Goes After Disney/Marvel Deal & Other Studios For Jack Kirby Estate – Deadline.com

"sorry for not posting lately -- been busy with 3 other major projects, but this was too good...." Stephen

 

URGENT! Intellectual Property Lawyer Marc Toberoff Goes After Disney/Marvel Deal & Other Studios For Jack Kirby Estate

By Nikki Finke |

Specifically, the estate of Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, The Silver Surfer and Thor, has sent notices terminating copyright to publishers Marvel and Disney, as well as film studios that have made movies and TV shows based on characters he created or co-created, including Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. That's the news from the website bleedingcool.com, which covers all things comic book. Normally these kinds of lawsuits are run of the mill for Hollywood. But not when they're litigated by Marc Toberoff, who is the bane of Big Media. He's had so many victories they're hard to count, especially in he comic book arena on behalf of Superman creator Jerry Seigel against DC Comics and Warner Bros. Like that case, Kirby’s estate is looking to regain his share of copyright in the characters and their use in comics and other media. "Such claims, if found valid, would begin from 2014 and, as always, it's worth noting that Marvel/Disney will still own the trademarks of the characters in comics, and the studios in movies. The likelihood is that, if successful, the Kirby estate would enter into negotiation over terms to continue publishing comics based on his work," the website wrote. Other recent cases which Toberoff has won or settled lawsuits on Lassie, Get Smart, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Wild Wild West, and Smallville. On the Superman case, Warner Bros could have been draped in black mourning the loss of a shitload of Superman dollars because of U.S. District Court Judge Stephen G. Larson's ruling: "After 70 years, Jerome Siegel’s heirs regain what he granted so long ago — the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics, Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics’ corporate sibling’s exploitation of the Superman." Think about it: Siegel sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130, and his heirs got back ownership of the character in 1999 and could possibly lay claim to $50+ million of Warner Bros' and/or its DC Comics' cash. Can that happen in the Kirby case? The iron is that Disney CEO Bob Iger's ties to Marvel go back two generations to Kirby himself. That's because Iger's late great-uncle (his grandfather's brother) was illustrator/cartoonist Jerry Iger, who partnered with illustrator/cartoonist Will Eisner back in the 1930s to create the comic book packager Eisner & Iger Studios. And their first hire was Jack Kirby, who as you know later became the co-creator of many of Marvel's best known characters with then Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee. Lee, meanwhile, has been supportive of the Disney/Marvel deal (though he is fighting lawsuits of his own on other fronts.)

URGENT! Intellectual Property Lawyer Marc Toberoff Goes After Disney/Marvel Deal & Other Studios For Jack Kirby Estate – Deadline.com

How do I make my research papers openly available without leaving out peer-review? « eResources at the University of Bradford

 How do I make my research papers openly available without leaving out peer-review? « eResources at the University of Bradford

How do I make my research papers openly available without leaving out peer-review?

A range of Open Access journals are now available in most subject areas. These titles number in their thousands and are usually peer-reviewed. Some of the more well-known titles include those of BioMed Central (199 peer-reviewed titles) and the Public Library of Science (seven peer-reviewed science and medicine titles). A number of directories exist to list Open Access journals. One of more extensive lists is the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) which also facilitates searches across the journals. The multi-disciplinary and multi-lingual DOAJ covers over 4250 free, full-text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals.

In addition to Open Access journals the commercial publishers may offer paid open access options. this would allow authors to deposit their articles immediately in their institutional open access repositories upon payment of a fee. The same publishers may also permit authors to deposit after an embargo period without the payment of a fee. Where a publisher’s standard policy does not allow an author to comply with their funding agency’s open access mandate, paid open access options may enable an author to comply. Information about publishers’ paid options for open access are available at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/PaidOA.html. Guidance is also available from the Research Information Network (RIN) who have produced a briefing document called “Paying for open access publication charges”. This PDF is available from RIN web pages.

Authors are urged to consider the requirements set by their funding bodies (information about funder mandates are available directly from the funding organisation or e.g.  the JULIET database)  regarding open access to reseach outputs. In many cases researchers are expected to make research results available open on the web. This could be an Open Access journal or paid open access article in a commercial journal. Institutional repositories are a third option for releasing research materials to the free web.

Authors concerned about their rights to publish in traditional commercial journals need not worry. Making research available openly on the World Wide Web does not exclude the publication of articles in the author’s choice of journal. However, it worth noting that on occasion the publisher’s policy on self-archiving and placing published articles on the free web may clash with the funder’s mandate on open access. Bearing this in mind it is worth checking the prospective publisher’s copyright policy and the funder mandate prior to getting published.

More information on publisher policies are available via the RoMEO database or the Bradford Scholars web page at the University of Bradford. Alternatively,  you may choose to contact the repository team at Bradford for advise and assistance. Contact details are available at the Bradford Scholars homepage.

How do I make my research papers openly available without leaving out peer-review? « eResources at the University of Bradford

Automated Copyright Settlement Letters Apparently A Lucrative Business | Techdirt

Automated Copyright Settlement Letters Apparently A Lucrative Business | Techdirt 

Automated Copyright Settlement Letters Apparently A Lucrative Business

from the pay-up-or-we'll-sue dept

We've covered a few different stories of companies that have been involved in what certainly has a lot of similarities to extortion: sending automated letters insisting that you're violating the law, and demanding payment to prevent a lawsuit. DirecTV was one of the first companies to put a big push behind such a revenue stream, but it was eventually shot down by the courts. The RIAA, of course, has used such a program for a while. More recently, we've seen some companies in Europe experiment with similar programs. The latest is Nexicon, a former cigarette retailer that's now rebuilt itself as an automated legal threat sender, scanning BitTorrent for what it believes is infringing content, and dashing off automated legal notices, demanding payment within 10 days, and suggesting that simply paying up is a lot cheaper than even contacting a lawyer. At what point do politicians realize just how badly the system is being abused? Or do they just let this sort of activity continue?
In the meantime, it looks like ACS:Law, which is one of the organizations that's been involved in a similar settle-or-we'll-sue letter sending campaign has been outed as sending bogus letters to people who had nothing to do with the content they're alleged to have infringed upon. The most amazing thing? The companies involved seem to admit it. In a letter used by multiple firms, they note that "We do not claim that your computer was used to commit the infringing act (although we do not exclude this possibility), nor do we claim that you downloaded our client's work. Our claim is that your Internet connection was used to make our client's work available via one or more P2P networks. The file may not, therefore, be on your computer." But they still want you to pay up, of course. It's guilty until proven innocent, because that's a lot more lucrative.

Automated Copyright Settlement Letters Apparently A Lucrative Business | Techdirt

The Associated Press: High court won't block remote storage DVR systems

The Associated Press: High court won't block remote storage DVR systems 

High court won't block remote storage DVR systems

2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hollywood studios and television networks lost their bid Monday for the Supreme Court to block the use of a new digital video recorder system that could make it cheaper and easier for viewers to record shows and watch them when they want, without commercials.

The justices decline to hear arguments on whether Cablevision Systems Corp.'s remote-storage DVR violates copyright laws.

For consumers, the action means that Cablevision and perhaps other cable system operators soon will be able to offer DVR service without need for a box in their homes. The remote storage unit exists on computer servers maintained by a cable provider.

Industry experts say the new technology could put digital recording service in nearly half of all American homes, about twice the current number. That's what has movie studios, TV networks and cable channels worried. DVRs allow viewers easily to skip past commercials.

The studios and networks contend that the service is more akin to video-on-demand, for which they negotiate licensing fees with cable providers.

The Obama administration, which urged the court not to hear the case, said the ruling by the federal appeals court in New York in favor of Cablevision was correct.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a judge's ruling that Cablevision, rather than its customers, would be making copies of programs, thereby violating copyright laws.

The Screen Actors Guild, songwriters, music companies, Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the NCAA all sided with the networks and studios in asking for high court review.

The case is Cable News Network v. CSC Holdings Inc., 08-448.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: High court won't block remote storage DVR systems

Media Life Magazine - Supremes open way for remote DVRs

Media Life Magazine - Supremes open way for remote DVRs 

Supremes open way for remote DVRs High court ruling frees Cablevision to offer service

By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Jun 30, 2009

It would seem like a splitting of hairs, but then so much of copyright and trademark law is just that.
Cablevision came up with a system allowing its customers to record TV shows, as they might with a DVR, but store them remotely on a Cablevision server.

TV networks, which are generally opposed to all things DVR, objected and filed a lawsuit, arguing that Cablevision's remote DVR storage system violated their copyright protection of the shows they produce--and in a way that a TiVo device or similar home DVR device does not.
The networks, including CNN, CBS and Fox Networks Group, along with the Motion Picture Association of America, won the first round in federal court but then lost on appeal, when last August the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the lower court's decision.
Yesterday the networks lost again when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The effect is to enable Cablevision and other cable systems to broaden their offerings to consumers, allowing them to record and store programs without having to buy a home DVR device.
The networks worry that thus enabled, more and more viewers will use the service with the intent of zipping though ads on the recorded shows as they might with a TiVo device. About a third of homes now have some sort of DVR device.
Cablevision halted the rollout of its remote DVR service three years ago but now plans to introduce a version of it this summer, and presumably other cable systems will follow.
The network's beef with the remote system is that in effect it empowers a third party, the cable operator, to become a distributor of content that belongs to the networks. By contrast, the home DVR-recorded show is clearly for personal use and as such is not for distribution.
In any case, as copyright holders, the networks must be diligent in bringing legal challenges whenever they believe their copyright protection is being challenged, lest they open a floodgate of similar incursions.
And it becomes all the more critical as more and more content goes online or is offered on demand.
But they have a practical aim as well. Their long-term intent is to reach terms with cable systems such as Cablevision to restrict the ease with which users are enabled to skip ads.
What effect all this will have on ad-skipping is hard to say.
Numerous studies have been done on DVR usage and ad-skipping, and a number have concluded it occurs far less often than one might expect.
More to the point though, to skip an ad using a DVR device requires watching the ad as it’s speeded through to know when the program resumes. The effect is that the skipped ad gets more attention than if the viewer simply left the room.

Media Life Magazine - Supremes open way for remote DVRs

Has the Pirate Bay given up piracy? – SciTechBlog - CNN.com Blogs

Has the Pirate Bay given up piracy? – SciTechBlog - CNN.com Blogs 

Has the Pirate Bay given up piracy?

 

The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site used by millions to exchange movies and music, is reportedly being sold to the Swedish company Global Gaming Factory X AB for nearly $8 million.

 

A blog posted on thepiratebay.org Tuesday morning says rumors of the sale are true:

We’ve been working on this project for many years. It’s time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody… The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets.

The Pirate Bay and its founders have been under legal attack from copyright owners for years. While the Web site does not host copyrighted content, it does host millions of torrent files which enable peer-to-peer file-trading. Many of these torrent files point to copyrighted material.

In April four of the Website’s co-founders were convicted of collaborating to violate copyright law and sentenced to one year in jail as well as ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages to several major media companies.

A press release from Global Gaming Factory suggests, following the sale, the Pirate Bay is done with piracy:

Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners. The responsibility for, and operation of the site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled for August 2009.

There are hundreds of competing Websites that offer copyright infringing torrents, but it appears the Pirate Bay, which once claimed a spot on the Web’s top 100, will no longer be among them. The site claims more than 3.5 million registered users.

The news made Pirate Bay one of the top trending topics on Twitter Tuesday morning, with many tweets mourning the sale. “The Pirate Bay walks the plank for new biz model,” said one Twitterer.

Will the sale of the Pirate Bay mean an end to free copyrighted material for all? And can Global Gaming Factory monetize a site that is based on piracy?

Has the Pirate Bay given up piracy? – SciTechBlog - CNN.com Blogs

Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent

 Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent

Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement

Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly big Ts uncrossed when they obtained the rights to offer some songs to their members. From the lawsuit: “In order to transmit, perform, reproduce and deliver any sound recording of any musical work via ‘on-demand streams’ or ‘limited downloads’ defendants must first obtain not only the rights for the sound recording itself but also the rights for the underlying musical composition which is embodied on said sound recording.”

MCS Music America wants the tracks taken down and is also asking for damages—either “actual damages and profits derived by the defendants” or $150,000 for each act of copyright infringement (That could add up since it takes 90 pages for MCS Music America to simply list all the songs that it says have been misappropriated—and MCS Music America says that a separate act of copyright infringement took place each time one of those songs was downloaded or streamed).

TechDirt, which first reported the lawsuit, says it’s an indication of “just how incredibly confusing and impossible copyright law has become” since the three companies obviously did take the time to obtain some rights to the songs. Representatives from Yahoo, Microsoft and RealNetworks had no comment.

Music Firm Sues Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real Networks Over Copyright Infringement | paidContent

RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News

 RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News

RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case

by Greg Sandoval

Note: See Usenet.com's reaction at "Usenet.com says RIAA 'whittling down' Betamax case."

The Recording Industry Association of America has prevailed in its copyright fight against Usenet.com, according to court documents.

In a decision that hands the RIAA an overwhelming victory, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the music industry on all its main theories: that Usenet.com is guilty of direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement. In addition, and perhaps most important for future cases, Baer said that Usenet.com can't claim protection under the Sony Betamax decision. That ruling says companies can't be held liable for contributory infringement if the device they create is "capable of significant non-infringing uses."

Baer noted that in citing the Betamax case, Usenet.com failed to see one important difference between it and Sony. Once Sony sold a Betamax, an early videotape recorder, the company's relationship with the buyer ended. Sony held no sway over what the buyer did with the device after that. Usenet.com, however, maintains an ongoing relationship with the customer and does has some say in how the customer uses the service.

Usenet.com's lawyers could not be reached Tuesday evening.

The two-decade-old Usenet network was one of the early ways to distribute conversations and binary files, long before the Web or peer-to-peer networks existed. Usenet.com is a company that enabled users to access the Usenet network.The RIAA filed suit against Usenet.com in October 2007, accusing the company of encouraging customers to pay up to $19 a month by enticing them with copyrighted music.

The case is highly unusual because of Baer's many findings of discovery misconduct by the Usenet.com side. The rules of discovery in a civil case requires both sides to exchange information. The RIAA produced evidence, however, that Usenet.com destroyed evidence or failed to produce witnesses on multiple occasions.

The RIAA accused Usenet.com of intentionally destroying the contents on seven hard drives that contained employee-generated data; providing false information; and attempting to prevent employees from giving depositions by sending them to Europe.

The judge found the evidence credible but denied the RIAA's motion to hand it a victory based solely on the misconduct. Instead, the judge sanctioned Usenet.com "from asserting (the company's) affirmative defense of protection under the DMCA's safe harbor provision."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provides refuge to Internet service providers from being held responsible for criminal acts committed by users. Without that and without the Betamax decision, Usenet.com was a sitting duck.

In a brief note posted Tuesday to RIAA.com, the trade group for the music industry said: "We're pleased that the court recognized not just that Usenet.com directly infringed the record companies' copyrights but also took action against the defendants for their egregious litigation misconduct."

RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case | Digital Media - CNET News

The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research | Techdirt

The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research | Techdirt 

The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research

from the don't-ask,-don't-tell dept

Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I've heard similar stories from other professors I know, but this one is worth reading. Shieber points out the importance of academics getting their research published in journals, but how annoying it is that most journals require those academics to give up all sorts of rights -- including the right to distribute their own research on their websites. However, he notes that most published academics simply ignore this rule, and you end up with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Even though they're legally prevented from putting up a PDF of their work on their website, they do so anyway, and journals just look the other way.
Shieber, however, finds this situation to be a bad thing, and instead adds an amendment that at least grants him the right to publish his own research on his own website. It seems pretty ridiculous that this should even be an issue at all. He notes that most journals haven't had a problem with this -- which is surprising, but good to hear. He did run into one publisher, however, who fought him on it, and after lots of back and forth, his paper was pulled. The reasoning that the journal gave didn't make much sense, and Shieber shows how wrong they are (for example, they claim that if professors published the works on their website, demand for journal subscriptions would go down -- but Shieber did a quick look, and found that about 80% of those who published in the same journal had posted the content anyway, and it hadn't killed off the journal, so arguing against him seemed pointless). Eventually, he was able to convince the journal to change its policies and got his paper published, but it delayed publication for a while.
It's really unfortunate that journals still think that locking up such content makes sense. The idea that researchers shouldn't be allowed to share their own research with the world because some journal needs artificial scarcity for its business model is something that needs to be put to rest.

The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research | Techdirt