Wendy Seltzer's blog

Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP

Wendy Seltzer — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:02:19 +0000

There's more than a hint of theatrics in the draft PROTECT IP bill (pdf, via dontcensortheinternet ) that has emerged as son-of-COICA, starting with the ungainly acronym of a name. Given its roots in the entertainment industry, that low drama comes as no surprise. Each section name is worse than the last: "Eliminating the Financial Incentive to Steal Intellectual Property Online" (Sec. 4) gives way to "Voluntary action for Taking Action Against Websites Stealing American Intellectual Property" (Sec. 5).

Techdirt gives a good overview of the bill, so I'll just pick some details:

Infringing activities. In defining "infringing activities," the draft explicitly includes circumvention devices ("offering goods or services in violation of section 1201 of title 17"), as well as copyright infringement and trademark counterfeiting. Yet that definition also brackets the possibility of "no [substantial/significant] use other than ...." Substantial could incorporate the "merely capable of substantial non-infringing use" test of Betamax.
Blocking non-domestic sites. Sec. 3 gives the Attorney General a right of action over "nondomestic domain names", including the right to demand remedies from (A) domain name system server operators, (B) financial transaction providers, (C), Internet advertising services, and (D) "an interactive computer service (def. from 230(f)) shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures ... to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order, or a hypertext link to such Internet site."
Private right of action. Sec. 3 and Sec. 4 appear to be near duplicates (I say appear, because unlike computer code, we don't have a macro function to replace the plaintiff, so the whole text is repeated with no diff), replacing nondomestic domain with "domain" and permitting private plaintiffs -- "a holder of an intellectual property right harmed by the activities of an Internet site dedicated to infringing activities occurring on that Internet site." Oddly, the statute doesn't say the simpler "one whose rights are infringed," so the definition must be broader. Could a movie studio claim to be hurt by the infringement of others' rights, or MPAA enforce on behalf of all its members? Sec. 4 is missing (d)(2)(D)
WHOIS. The "applicable publicly accessible database of registrations" gets a new role as source of notice for the domain registrant, "to the extent such addresses are reasonably available." (c)(1)
Remedies. The bill specifies injunctive relief only, not money damages, but threat of an injunction can be backed by the unspecified threat of contempt for violating one.
Voluntary action. Finally the bill leaves room for "voluntary action" by financial transaction providers and advertising services, immunizing them from liability to anyone if they choose to stop providing service, notwithstanding any agreements to the contrary. This provision jeopardizes the security of online businesses, making them unable to contract for financial services against the possibility that someone will wrongly accuse them of infringement. 5(a) We've already seen that it takes little to convince service providers to kick users off, in the face of pressure short of full legal process (see everyone vs Wikileaks, Facebook booting activists, and numerous misfired DMCA takedowns); this provision insulates that insecurity further.

In short, rather than "protecting" intellectual and creative industry, this bill would make it less secure, giving the U.S. a competitive disadvantage in online business. (Sorry, Harlan, that we still can't debug the US Code as true code.)

Jurisdiction:

United States

Subject Area:

Don't Believe the Twitter Anti-Hype: Innovative Platforms Allow for Failure

Wendy Seltzer — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:43:41 +0000

Don't believe the anti-hype around Twitter (cross-posted from Legal Tags). Twitter hype punctured by study, reports the BBC on a recent Harvard B school finding: The median user has written only one tweet, and "the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets." As though it sealed Twitter's fate, the BBC adds:

Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return. Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users failed to return the following month. "The Harvard data says very, very few people tweet and the Nielsen data says very, very few people listen consistently," Mr Heil told BBC News

Rather than taking the study as a condemnation, though, I'd suggest that the fact Twitter works despite the large number of "unproductive" users is a sign of success. More power to the Twitter team for creating a tool that allows so many people to try it so easily that the seemingly small percentage who get value out of it can find and continue using it. We should be celebrating what happens when infrastructure is cheap enough that we can accept that 60% just throw it away (even assuming all those non-tweeters aren't using the service to listen).

Rather than trying to force users to its model, Twitter has usually adapted to the customs its users have developed -- and has responded to feedback when it breaks some of those conventions (see #fixreplies). I'd go further and say a platform is only successful if it allows for failure and "unproductive" uses. If we were forced to justify our photo collection by its first picture or our word processors against the number of poorly-argued misspelled first drafts we've written, would we ever get to round 10, where something good emerges? Making failure cheap makes success possible. [I like the free network service Identi.ca and cross-tweet there. I credit the Twitter team with recognizing the value in openness along many other important dimensions.]

Jurisdiction:

United States

Content Type:

Text

Subject Area:

Twitter

McCain's YouTube Takedowns Inspire Fair Use Fervor

Wendy Seltzer — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:59:02 +0000

There's nothing like a misfired copyright claim to make a presidential campaign see the value of fair use. After finding several of its campaign videos removed from YouTube for copyright claims, the McCain-Palin campaign has fired off an eloquent defense of fair use -- and another illustration of where the DMCA's counter-notification process falls short.

The McCain campaign complains that its ads and web videos posted to YouTube have been removed on the complaint of news organizations whose footage was quoted:

[O]verreaching copyright claims have resulted in the removal of non-infringing campaign videos from YouTube, thus silencing political speech. Numerous times during the course of the campaign, our advertisements or web videos have been the subject of DMCA takedown notices regarding uses that are clearly privileged under the fair use doctrine. The uses at issue have been the inclusion of fewer than ten seconds of footage from news broadcasts in campaign ads or videos, as a basis for commentary on the issues presented in the news reports, or on the reports themselves. These are paradigmatic examples of fair use...

Of course the McCain-Palin team could counter-notify, but the DMCA's 10-14 business day waiting period makes that option next to useless, when "10 days can be a lifetime in a political campaign."

The campaign proposes an expedited process for political campaigns. EFF's Fred von Lohmann calls for a broader solution, to protect the bottom-up political expression of citizens, not just those who would be our leaders. We shouldn't have to battle bogus copyright claims to debate the debates. And we shouldn't exempt politicians from the effects of their laws, so perhaps their copyright misadventures can give them a bit more sympathy for the rest of us. Let's hope this fair use defense lasts longer than a DMCA waiting period.

(Ed.: YouTube has issued a response to McCain's letter, which is available here.)

(Cross-posted from Legal Tags)

Jurisdiction:

United States

Content Type:

Video

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eBay Shines in Tiffany Trademark Fight

Wendy Seltzer — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:28:54 +0000

In Tiffany v. eBay, decided today, the Southern District of New York gives helpful bounds to secondary liability for trademark infringement, saying eBay is not liable for its use of the term "Tiffany" nor for its sellers' sales of counterfeit goods. Judge Sullivan's careful analysis leaves the path clear for online marketplaces to flourish, putting enforcement burdens, where they belong, on trademark claimants.

First, the court finds eBay's advertisement, through "Tiffany"-keyed adwords on Google and Yahoo! searches, to be "nominative fair use." Some eBay sellers are offering genuine Tiffany merchandise, as trademark law recognizes is legitimate, and eBay has the right to use the brand name to identify them, rather than "absurd circumlocutions ... [such as] 'silver jewelry from a prestigious New York company where Audrey Hepburn once liked to breakfast.'" Even if search keywords are "use in commerce," therefore, the court finds them non-infringing.

Second, the court holds eBay not liable for the infringements of its users, under either direct or secondary liability theories. Instead, its contributory liability test looks much like the notice-and-takedown regime that the DMCA sets up for copyright: only specific knowledge of infringement can trigger liability, a "showing that a defendant knew or had reason to know of specific instances of actual infringement"; not the "generalized" knowledge of counterfeiting Tiffany would like to attribute to eBay. The court does not impose any prior monitoring obligation, implying only that a defendant must take appropriate steps after being notified of claimed infringement. (The court helpfully notes several times that Tiffany's "Notices of Claimed Infringement" are just claims, not proof, and that some listings have even been reinstated after incorrect claims.)

"[T]he fact remains that rights holders bear the principal responsibility to police their trademarks." Trademark holders are best situated to assess the provenance of their branded goods and to weigh the costs and benefits of enforcement. The marketplace benefits from a rule that leaves lawsuits to the endpoints, keeping intermediaries relatively safe and clear.

Finally, the ruling suggests that trademark law continues to function effectively in the Internet era. While trademark holders might like greater control, and (some) sellers might like greater leeway, trademarks serve as indications of origin even without enlisting intermediaries in the fight. Yet further reason why ACTA's proposed "update" to anti-counterfeiting trade law should not put liability on Internet intermediaries.

cross-posted from Legal Tags.

Jurisdiction:

United States

Subject Area:

Trademark

Privacy Falls into YouTube's Data Tar Pit

Wendy Seltzer — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:30:37 +0000

As a big lawsuit grinds forward, its parties engage in discovery, a wide-ranging search for information "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." (FRCP Rule 26(b)) And so Viacom has calculated that scouring YouTube's data dumps would help provide evidence in Viacom's copyright lawsuit.

According to a discovery order released Wednesday, Viacom asked for discovery of YouTube source code and of logs of YouTube video viewership; Google refused both. The dispute came before Judge Stanton, in the Southern District of New York, who ordered the video viewing records -- but not the source code -- disclosed.

The order shows the difficulty we have protecting personally sensitive information. The court could easily see the economic value of Google's secret source code for search and video ID, and so it refused to compel disclosure of that "vital asset," the "product of over a thousand person-years of work."

But the user privacy concerns proved harder to evaluate. Viacom asked for "all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewd on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website," including users' viewed videos, login IDs, and IP addresses. Google contended it should not be forced to release these records because of users' privacy concerns, which the court rejected.

The court erred both in its assessment of the personally identifying nature of these records, and the scope of the harm. It makes no sense to discuss whether an IP address is or is not "personally identifying" without considering the context with which it is connected. It may not be a name, but is often one search step from it. Moreover, even "anonymized" records often provide sufficiently deep profiles that they can be traced back to individuals, as researchers armed with the AOL and Netflix data releases showed.

Viewers "gave" their IP address and username information to YouTube for the purpose of watching videos. They might have expected the information to be used within Google, but not anticipate that it would be shared with a corporation busily prosecuting copyright infringement. Viewers may not be able to quantify economic harm, but if communications are chilled by the disclosure of viewing habits, we're all harmed socially. The court failed to consider these third party interests in ordering the disclosure.

Trade secret wins, privacy loses. Google has said it will not appeal the order.

Is there hope for the end users here, concerned about disclosure of their video viewing habits? First, we see the general privacy problem with "cloud" computing: by conducting our activities at third-party sites, we place a great deal of information about our activities in their hands. We may do so because Google is indispensable, or because it tells us its motto is "don't be evil." But discovery demands show that it's not enough for Google to follow good precepts.

Google, like most companies, indicates that it will share data where "We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request." Its reputation as a good actor is important, but the company is not going to face contempt charges over user privacy.

I worry that this discovery demand is just the first of a wave, as more litigants recognize the data gold mines that online service providers have been gathering: search terms, blog readership and posting habits, video viewing, and browsing might all "lead to the discovery of admissible evidence" -- if the privacy barriers are as low as Judge Stanton indicates, won't others follow Viacom's lead? A gold mine for litigants becomes a tar pit for online services' user.

Economic concerns, the cost of producing the data in response to a wave of subpoenas, or reputational concerns, the fear that users will be driven away from a service that leaves their sensitive data vulnerable, may exercise some constraint, but they're unlikely to be enough to match our privacy expectations.

We need the law to supply protection against unwanted data flows, to declare that personally sensitive information -- or the profiles from which identity may be extracted and correlated -- deserves consideration at least on par with "economically valuable secrets." We need better assurance that the data we provide in the course of communicative activities will be kept in context. There is room for that consideration in the "undue burden" discovery standard, but statutory clarification would help both users and their Internet service providers to negotiate privacy expectations better.

Is there a law? In this particular context, there might actually be law on the viewers' side. The Video Privacy Protection Act, passed after reporters looked into Judge Bork's video rental records, gives individuals a cause of action against "a video tape service provider who knowingly discloses, to any person, personally identifiable information concerning any consumer of such provider." ("Video tape" includes similar audio visual materials.) Will any third parties intervene to ask that the discovery order be quashed?

Further, Bloomberg notes the concerns of Europeans, whose privacy regime is far more user-protective than that of the United States. Is this one case where "harmonization" can work in favor of individual rights?

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Video

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DMCA "Repeat Infringers": Scientology Critic’s Account Reinstated after Counter-Notification

Wendy Seltzer — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:30:26 +0000

The Scientology critic known as “Wise Beard Man” returned to YouTube this week after successfully filing counter-notifications to copyright claims that had earlier been made against his account. The takedown and delayed return illuminate another of the lesser-known shoals of the DMCA safe harbor, the 512(i)(1)(A) “repeat infringers” consideration.

As Mark Bunker, the critic, describes it, he had initially set up a YouTube account under the name XenuTV, where he posted clips including commentary on Scientology. Some of these clips came from other sources, and two of them attracted DMCA takedown requests from Viacom, for “Colbert Report” clips in which Stephen talked about Scientology. These might well have been fair use, or he might have chosen to remove them, but as Bunker says, “Before I could act on the takedown notices and remove the offending clips, the accounts were canceled.”

Bunker began using a second YouTube account, XenuTV1, posting only clips of entirely his own material. His advice to the “Anonymous” critics made him a sort of elder statesman to the movement, and his account attracted over 10,000 subscribed viewers.

In April, however, this second account was abruptly canceled. Apparently, YouTube had discovered that it was Mr. Bunker’s second, after a canceled first, and interpreted the DMCA to compel termination of this second account.

The provision they were invoking was 512(i)(1)(A), which sets some conditions for service provider eligibility for shelter in the DMCA safe harbor:

“The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider—
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers”

Now the DMCA does not define “repeat infringers,” and no cases have yet done so, so it’s left to ISPs to determine how to do so. Copyright claimants urge that two takedown notices make someone a “repeat infringer” whose account must be terminated (let’s hope it’s just the account, and not the subscriber himself!). In contrast, noted copyright scholar and attorney David Nimmer suggests that the provision should be construed strictly, to require “repeat infringer” sanctions only against those who have more than once been found liable for copyright infringement after legal proceedings. Nimmer, Repeat Infringers, 52 J. Copyright Soc’y 167 (2005). Nimmer also notes that unless “repeat” is limited to the service at issue, all the major motion picture studios would be ineligible for online posting accounts, since all have had multiple copyright infringement judgments rendered against them. Nor does the DMCA define “appropriate circumstances" for account termination, so mitigating factors might well be raised against the termination of any particular account. The DMCA pre-condition is open to interpretation.

It appears, however, that YouTube determined that the two Viacom notices (Feb. 2, 2007, and Jan. 15, 2008) levied against Mr. Bunker’s XenuTV account marked him as a “repeat infringer.” Therefore, to maintain safe-harbor eligibility, YouTube felt compelled to terminate the second account, XenuTV1, upon recognizing that it was the same individual. Notwithstanding a complete absence of copyright claims against the XenuTV1 account, YouTube apparently concluded the risks of continuing to host the marked "repeat infringer" were too great.

Notably, 512(i) is a general precondition to the safe-harbor. Failure to “adopt[] and reasonably implement[]” a repeat infringers policy in one instance could be used against a provider as an argument to deny it the benefits of safe-harbor protection in an entirely unrelated case. YouTube’s risk calculation in responding to Mr. Bunker’s accounts, therefore, was not merely whether Viacom would sue over the Colbert clips Mr. Bunker had posted and YouTube removed, but whether entirely different copyright holders, complaining about other accounts’ postings, would invoke a failure to remove Mr. Bunker’s account as non-compliance with the DMCA's eligibility requirements and seek to hold YouTube liable for other users' infringements.

Mr. Bunker’s story concludes successfully, however, thanks in part to Viacom’s good sense. YouTube invited Mr. Bunker to file counter-notifications (form) for the Viacom clips, and he did so in mid-May, asserting that the “mistake or misidentification of the material” was in not recognizing its use as fair. Viacom’s acceptance of the counter-notifications allowed YouTube to remove the “infringer” stain from Mr. Bunker’s account. For his part, Mr. Bunker says he was supported in his counter-notifications by the public messages of support and group effort to contact YouTube and Viacom to lay the groundwork, including those of VictoireFlamel and The Masked Analyst, who has a series of videos explaining the DMCA and counter-notification. Bunker reports that Viacom’s attorneys said they “wouldn’t be hard-nosed about fair use clips.”

Ten to 14 days after the counter-notification, therefore, when Viacom did not go to court to press its original copyright infringement claims, YouTube allowed the XenuTV accounts’ reinstatement.

While Mr. Bunker's story ends happily for fair use, another story this week illustrates the danger of taking DMCA notifications as the mark of “repeat infringement”: University of Washington researchers reported getting DMCA takedowns against their laser printers, allegedly for sharing copies of “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones.” MPAA agents sent DMCA notices without any verification that material was available from the accused IP addresses, much less that the materials infringed copyright. Meanwhile, universities report that they get DMCA takedowns alleging infringement by “shared folders” even when filters such Audible Magic make sharing impossible by blocking any transmission of files.

If the DMCA as a whole is to have any coherence, providers shouldn’t lose DMCA protection or subscribers lose their hosting based on such flimsy allegations.

Jurisdiction:

United States

Content Type:

Video

Subject Area:

Air Force DMCA-Bombs YouTubed Ad

Wendy Seltzer — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:24:38 +0000

Over at Wired's Threat Level blog, Kevin Poulsen reports on a new DMCA overreach: the U.S. Air Force complained (via outside counsel) about his posting of their recruiting video. The post, Poulsen says, was initially made at the Air Force's invitation.

If the government created this work, then the DMCA claim is improper. Works of the U.S. government are not copyrightable. But the statute allows the government to receive copyright assignments, so if an independent contractor created the video, still available at the Air Force's (non .mil) site, the government could meet that technical requisite of the DMCA.

The DMCA also requires that the notifier assert the posting was unauthorized. Poulsen's article, however, says the Air Force sent Wired the ad and "thanked THREAT LEVEL for agreeing to run it." That doesn't quite square with the DMCA-required statement that the notice-sender "ha[s] a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above has been authorized by the U.S. Air Force, its agents, or the law."

Even if the Air Force's DMCA claim is truthful, however, it's still a policy overreach. Wired posted the video in order to report on government recruiting efforts; the video's dissemination is part of that First-Amendment protected discussion, whether it happens on or off government websites. The DMCA makes it too easy to takedown first, think later.

Jurisdiction:

United States

Content Type:

Video

Subject Area:

Here Comes Another Takedown

Wendy Seltzer — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:56:59 +0000

Earlier this month, comedy group The Richter Scales released a funny music video, "Here Comes Another Bubble." The video showed a montage of Silicon Valley images over a sound-track adapted from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," lampooning the Web 2.0 bubble that seems near bursting again. The video must have touched a nerve, as well as a funny bone, because it got wide linkage and discussion and became the week's top-rated video.

Then, it was removed from YouTube, "due to a copyright claim by a third party."

Photographer Lane Hartwell says she objected to use of her photograph of Valleywag's Owen Thomas, so she sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube. Hartwell says she owns copyright in the image and did not license its use. In response, YouTube appears to have disabled the video pursuant to its copyright policy (perplexingly, it did not identify the "third party" sender of the complaint.)

Now, the video is back, in a revised version that omits Hartwell's photograph.

To me, the original situation seems to lie near the blurry edge of copyright's fair use exception. The Richter Scales would argue that their use was "transformative," using the photograph to comment on the bubbly scene the photographer chose to depict; commentators on Silicon Valley foibles might be unable to get permission for photos used to skewer the establishment. Hartwell, by contrast, tells us that "Photography is my livelihood. It’s how I pay my bills. I’m not treating the band any differently than any other group that uses my work without my permission." She sells or licenses her work to magazines and others who want to use photo illustrations, and sees no reason to treat the Richter Scales differently.

Is the momentary use of Hartwell's photo an unfair substitute for something she should have had the right to license, or a fair use the law should license irrespective of the copyright holder's wishes? I'd be inclined to find the use fair, as transformative commentary, but I couldn't guarantee that a court would agree with me.

The DMCA harbors no such ambiguity, however. The moment someone claims an infringement, the law encourages the service provider to act "expeditiously" to remove the offending material. The strict penalties in copyright's "property rule" nature support that response: One who can prove copyright infringement can often get both an injunction and stiff statutory damages. Acting individually, the parties might stand firm or be pushed by the costs of legal uncertainty to settle their differences, but the service provider in the middle changes the calculus.

The intermediary service provider rarely wants to risk outsize damages or get into negotiations with copyright claimants and small content-posters, and so tends to take down rather than face even a remote chance of liability. If, on the other hand, intermediaries' secondary liability were limited as it is for defamation, content creators would be freer to make and defend fair use arguments. A liability rule or compulsory license, enforcing rights through payment rather than removal, could leave these items in the public view.

Absent copyright reform, we're stuck with the likelihood that clever montages -- which depend on pulling content from many sources -- get popped even more quickly than tech bubbles.

Jurisdiction:

United States

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Best Buy Apologizes for Cease-and-Desist Blooper

Wendy Seltzer — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:26:55 +0000

Yesterday, Best Buy sent a cease-and-desist letter to Scott Beale of Laughing Squid for reporting on an "Improv Everywhere" prank and their sales of T-shirts mocking the Best Buy logo. Best Buy claimed the post infringed its trademarks and copyrights by "promoting" sales of a T-shirt that mocked the Best Buy logo. Laughing Squid promptly posted the C&D, where it was picked up by BoingBoing and Slashdot. But Best Buy seems to have learned from the hubub, and sent its apologies a day later:

We appreciate your clarification of the nature of your posting. We do object to sales of T-shirts or other products bearing a logo which violates our trademarks or copyrights or other misuse of our logo in commercial ventures. However, we do not object to fair and accurate reporting of facts, and respect the First Amendment rights of Laughing Squid and other bloggers to provide articles or commentary on current events. Now that we have a better understanding of your website, we regret sending you the demand letter.

It's good to see a company recognize the distinction between reporting and trademark infringement and drop its threats. We have to say, though, the T-shirts give "trade dress" claims a whole new meaning.

Jurisdiction:

United States

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Subject Area:

Chilly Weekend: Black Friday Prequel and Public Domain Music Scores

Wendy Seltzer — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:17:35 +0000

If it's fall, these must be cease-and-desists for Black Friday ads. This year, they seem to be coming earlier than ever, as Wal-Mart sends pre-notifications against future posting. I put my analysis into a Chilling Effects Weather Report

Meanwhile, Michael Geist has the low-down on the overbroad copyright demand (PDF) that has shuttered the International Music Score Library Project. Despite vetting all submitted music for public domain status in Canada, where he runs the site, the IMSLP operator got a complaint that he was making scores available to jurisdictions where they were still under copyright -- talk about misusing disharmony.

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Text

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Has Common Sense Flown the Coop: Copyright doesn't protect book prices

Wendy Seltzer — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 09:36:51 +0000

The Harvard Crimson has been reporting on the Harvard Coop’s silly claims of “intellectual property” against those who come to the bookstore to compare prices. It’s escalated all the way to calling the cops, who wisely refused to throw students out of the store.

A terrific clinical student at the Berkman Center helped us to write an op-ed on the limits of copyright, which the Crimson ran today:

We’re not sure what “intellectual property” right the Coop has in mind, but it’s none that we recognize. Nor is it one that promotes the progress of science and useful arts, as copyright is intended to do. While intellectual property may have become the fashionable threat of late, even in the wake of the Recording Industry Association of America’s mass litigation campaign the catch-phrase—and the law—has its limits.

Since the Coop’s managers don’t seem to have read the law books on their shelves, we’d like to offer them a little Copyright 101.

Copyright law protects original works of authorship—the texts and images in those books on the shelves—but not facts or ideas. So while copyright law might prohibit students from dropping by with scanners, it doesn’t stop them from noting what books are on the shelf and how much they cost.

CrimsonReading.org does students a real service by helping them to compare prices efficiently. Harvard should support them in their information-sharing efforts, rather than endorsing the Coop’s attempts to cut off access to uncopyrightable facts.

Jurisdiction:

Massachusetts

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Text

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DMCA Truth Can Be Stranger than Science Fiction

Wendy Seltzer — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 19:22:43 +0000

Author Denise McCune posts a great account of the workings and failings of the DMCA's notice-and-takedown procedures.

As Cory Doctorow has also reported on BoingBoing, the VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America sent an error-filled takedown complaint to text-sharing site Scribd, causing removal of many non-infringing postings including reading lists suggesting great science fiction, and Cory's own novels, which he's CC-licensed for free redistribution.

The DMCA safe-harbor is most charitably described as an intricate dance for all parties involved: the copyright claimant, the ISP, and the poster. When the dancers are synchronized, its notice, takedown, and counternotice steps give each party a prescribed sequence by which to notify the others of claims and invite their responses. That's why the DMCA requires the claimant to identify the copyrighted works, specify alleged infringements with "information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material," and state good faith belief that the uses are unauthorized. When a copyright claimant misses one of those key elements, he starts stepping on toes.

The service provider isn't obliged to respond to deficient notices, but if a notice contains all the right formal elements -- even if it's factually wrong about copyright ownership or copying -- the service provider must choose between taking down the material or losing its DMCA safe-harbor and facing potential lawsuits. Posters who believe their material is non-infringing or fairly posted can counter-notify and even file their own lawsuits for misuse of copyright claims, under sec. 512(f). I share McCune's hope that the brouhaha will help the SFWA to help authors express all their copyright interests, including that of free sharing:

I hope the SFWA's lawyers are sitting down with Andrew Burt and explaining how the DMCA actually works, so that actual, legitimate violations of copyright (on Scribd and on other sites) can get dealt with swiftly and promptly and the people who have asked SFWA to be their copyright representative can get infringing uses of their material removed. I'm also glad to see that the SFWA ePiracy Committee has suspended operations until they can investigate further -- and, hopefully, come up with an effective process and procedure that benefits both fair and/or transformative use while also protecting the rights of copyright holders to have control over where and how their material is posted -- whether that control is a more traditional "nobody gets to use this, period" or a Creative Commons-style authorization of transformative work.

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United States

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Text

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Exclusive Rights: The Wrong Goal for NFL

Wendy Seltzer — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:51:01 +0000

The NFL just doesn't know when to stop. The Washington Post reports on a new NFL policy limiting journalists' use of video online:

In a move designed to protect the Internet operations of its 32 teams, the pro football league has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry unlimited online video clips of players, coaches or other officials, including video that the news organizations gather themselves on a team's premises. News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team's facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports.

Now this policy isn't copyright-based -- the NFL doesn't have copyright in the un-fixed statements of its players and coaches -- but good old real property law. The NFL teams own their facilities, and with them have the right to exclude people physically, as trespassers. So the NFL is telling sportswriters, who depend on physical access to gather the background for their stories, they'll be barred at the gates if they use more than 45 seconds of video online.

Houston Chronicle columnists John McClain and Anna-Megan Raley show the absurdity of this policy by trying to complete interviews in 45 seconds, stopwatch in hand. Even stopping at 45 seconds, they apparently violate the policy if the video is not removed after 24 hours and doesn't link to nfl.com!

While the football league may be within its legal rights on this one, its policy still reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium. The league depends on independent journalists to do the research that keeps people following the sport between games, and journalists have turned to the Internet to dig deeper than they could in print or time-constrained TV. Readers go to sportwriters' websites and blogs precisely for perspectives they don't get from the official NFL.com website. Limiting the richness of media available on these sites is more likely to alienate fans and journalists than to drive traffic to NFL.com. Just look where the Olympics is.

Sometimes rights to exclude are best left un-exercised. By contrast, the National Hockey League has taken a better course, striking deals with YouTube, Sling Media, and Joost to permit people to see hockey when and where they want. Perhaps it's time for the Houston Chronicle team to battle global warming and pick a new sport!

Thanks Scott!

Jurisdiction:

United States

Subject Area:

Chilling Effects and PerezHilton.com

Wendy Seltzer — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:28:06 +0000

As David posted, celebrity gossip site PerezHilton.com has battled ISP takedown over claimed copyright infringement. A key problem, the Houston Chronicle reports, is that site-owner Mario Lavanderia is already disputing those claims in federal court, where a judge refused to grant an injunction. Instead, as the judicial process properly works, Lavanderia must be proven a likely infringer before his speech is silenced.

The DMCA, however, offers copyright claimants an easy route around the niceties of judicial process -- make it too much of a nuisance for an ISP to deal with an accused infringer as a client, and get his site removed. And this underscores the precarious nature of our reliance on private infrastructure. Even though the DMCA insulates ISPs from liability once they've received counter-notification, copyright claimants can still shower them with complaints, and ISPs are still free to bow to risk aversion and refuse to do business with challenging customers. Those who challenge powerful copyright interests find themselves without practical ways to speak, even while they assert their legal rights.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Los Angeles photo agency X17 Inc. sued Lavandeira in federal court last year, asking for $7.6 million in damages. The suit claimed Hilton used 51 photographs without permission, payment or credit, including images of a pregnant Katie Holmes, Kevin Federline pumping gas and Britney Spears.

A federal judge denied the company's motion for an injunction against the site, although the lawsuit continues, as does another filed on behalf of several other photo agencies. A lawsuit filed by Universal Studios claiming the site posted a stolen photo of Jennifer Aniston from the film "The Break-Up" is also pending.

X17 co-owner Brandy Navarre said the company has sent more than a dozen notices to the Australian Web hosting company Crucial Paradigm in the past two weeks, demanding that copies of copyrighted photos on the Perezhilton.com site be removed. "They quickly realized it wasn't worth taking on this liability just to host this one client who was a repeat infringer," Navarre said Thursday.

Tuesday, Crucial Paradigm sent a strongly worded letter to the company that represents Lavandeira, saying it had received numerous complaints of copyright violations and warning that one more complaint would result in the site being taken offline.

"Please note that with any other provider this would have been done a long time ago, and moving your site to another provider will not solve this issue," the letter read. "Continued abuse is leaving us more liable each day, which we can't afford."

PerezHilton.com appears to have found a new host in short order, but other critics with fewer resources often find themselves chilled well short of any judicial decision on the merits of their defenses.

Jurisdiction:

United States