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All posts tagged "copyright"


Monday, July 11, 2011

ISPs Agree to Serve Up Six Strikes

Posted by Hooch Tan in "Digital Home News" @ 01:00 PM

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...cement-plan.ars

"American Internet users, get ready for three strikes "six strikes." Major US Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won't filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth "strike," you won't necessarily be "out.""

The music and movie industry have had a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Well, maybe mostly hate. Since the Internets have come along, you would think that piracy is rampant and that the entertainment industry is in dire straits. In response, there have been lots of attempts to protect their revenue stream, from Digital Rights Management, to lawsuits, to online services. The latest effort to stem the tide sees a new partner, the ISP, act as a middleman. ISPs have acted as a relay before, but not in this great capacity. The measures seem much more reasonable than other attempts, like France's ill-fated "three-strikes" law, but I have worries that there is can be abuse and too open a system for mistakes. That the alerts and violations can be audited by an independant reviewer goes a long way to mitigate that concern, that there is a filing fee seems unfair. At least unless, if the reviewer finds the complaint issuer at fault, they are the ones to pay the fee.

Tags: riaa, copyright, isp, mpaa

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Uploading Unauthorized Video To YouTube Could Eventually Cause You Some Legal Issues

Posted by Brad Wasson in "Digital Home Talk" @ 05:00 PM

http://www.digitaltrends.com/entert...on-be-a-felony/

"If you're considering uploading a movie or TV show to YouTube, go ahead and get it out of your system now, because pretty soon, such an act could land you behind bars with a felony count on your rap sheet - at least if Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) get their way."

While there is nothing imminent at this point in time, you've likely been thinking this idea was not far off. The proposal for this future bill is focused on increasing the penalties associated with streaming unauthorized content. The issue has been studied by Victoria Espinel, President Obama’s US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. Currently, related laws state that “reproducing” and “distributing” copyrighted content are felony offenses. Streaming, on the other hand, is still considered a “public performance,” which carries lesser consequences. It seems significant new deterrents will be in place, including up to a five-year jail sentence and fines. Hit the Read link for a more detailed discussion of the proposed bill.


Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Microsoft, Yahoo, RealNetworks Sued Over Music Copyrights

Posted by Adam Krebs in "Digital Home News" @ 10:46 PM

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10276724-27.html

"The suit appears to have been initiated by Music Copyright Solutions (MCS), which claims to administer copyrights for more than 45,000 compositions. MCS is named as the lead plaintiff, along with a number of songwriters including Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad fame. These folks allege that Microsoft, Yahoo, and RealNetworks improperly licensed the rights to more than 200 compositions that they offered as on-demand streams or limited downloads via the Zune Marketplace, Yahoo Music, and Rhapsody. Surely these companies paid somebody for the rights to offer these songs. But there's a catch, which TechDirt pointed out earlier Tuesday: these companies may have licensed the rights to the recordings, but that doesn't mean they licensed the rights to the compositions (also known as publishing rights)."

Credit: ars technica

Chalk this one up to another ridiculous abuse of broken music copyright system. The plaintiffs are demanding $150,000 for each violation (for each recorded song - the six Greatest Hits versions of Conway Twitty's "Fifteen Years Ago" would consitute $900,000 in damages alone) or the amount the companies earned from streaming these songs, whichevever is more. This sets a disturbing precident in downloadable music, where none of these companies can afford to lose the case. If all damages are awarded, the 200 violations could end up costing somewhere in the range of billions of dollars, which is why a settlement for far less money is likely to occur. But this case, and the similar trial against Jammie Thomas-Rasset (where the defendant was ordered to pay $80,000 in damages per song) raises the point: if the penalties are so outrageously high that they aren't going to be enforced, why bother having them on the lawbooks in the first place? Everyone deserves to be paid for their work, but today's broken copyright system clearly misses the point in many ways. It's time to get with the 21st century and abandon the sheet music-based system of years past.


Friday, May 22, 2009

YouTube Promoting iTunes Songs for Sale

Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Talk" @ 11:00 AM

I don't know how long YouTube has been doing this, largely because I don't use YouTube as a music discovery service very often, but I think this is a great idea. From what I can tell, it doesn't look like the video I saw this in was an official Tokio Hotel account - it looks like a fan upload. Instead of YouTube taking out their heavy copyright club, they instead use it as a promotion for people to buy the song. Clever move! Rather than turing the fans into "copyright criminals", YouTube (and the copyright holders) are taking this opportunity to turn this into an opportunity to sell people the song. This is the way it should be done. Bravo YouTube!


Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Copyright Police May Seize Laptops, MP3 Players

Posted by Suhit Gupta in "Digital Home News" @ 06:00 AM

http://www.9to5mac.com/orwellian_nightmare

"iPods, iPhones, laptops and other digital devices could be seized by customs officials worldwide under a new top-secret copyright policing deal being worked out between the G8 nations, reports claim. Nations including Canada, the US and various European states (including the UK, which sits on the G8) are secretly agreeing a new pan-global state police deal in which information held on iPods and other devices could be subject to investigation by customs officials tasked with a new role, as copyright police. Dubbed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), signatory nations will form an international coalition against copyright infringement. The deal’s up for discussion at the next G8 meeting in Tokyo in July, It creates rules and regulations to govern private copying and copyright laws, and posits the founding of an international regulator, “that would turn border guards and other public security personnel into copyright police,” reports Ottawa Citizen, the National Post and other Canadian media outlets."

C'mon, you know you can see it now - this menacing guy who looks like he just walked off the set of Terminator could be greeting you at your friendly neighborhood airports. I understand the point the G8 is trying to make but honestly, how are they going to enforce this. The whole idea behind laptops and portable media players is to make them 'portable'. I guess you didn't know that they were portable but they are leashed within the country where you live. I honestly don't even know what to say here except that I am outraged by how ridiculous international travel has become and this will simply add on to the discomfort.

Tags: copyright

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