Posts tagged copyright

Judge Rules it’s Illegal to Resell Digital Music Back in the days when I was a teenager, friends would share music with each other, trade tapes or vinyl or cd’s, and even head down to the local music store to buy and sell used music. Today, copyright — and rulings about copyright — makes our musical life much more difficult. Over the weekend a federal judge in New York ruled that it’s illegal to sell our mp3’s (PDF). The case involved a Boston startup called ReDigi, which bills itself as a marketplace for “pre-owned” digital products” and Capitol Records, one of the major American record labels. Via Ars Technica: For years, many a music fan has wondered what we first posited back in 2008: “Can I resell my MP3s?” After all, as we’ve pointed out in the past, nearly all digital good sales are really licenses rather than sales as conventionally understood. The question here is, can such a license be bought and sold to other users? On Saturday, a federal court in New York ruled in summary judgment within the case of Capitol Records v. ReDigi. The court decided that no, users do not have the right to resell digital music files, as doing so violates existing copyright law. ReDigi, the judge found, is also liable for secondary copyright infringement and likely will have to pay damages. As Slate notes, the judge’s decision is “is clearly influenced by” a 2001 US Copyright Office report to Congress that argued against digital reselling because digital objects don’t degrade over time like analog objects do: But isn’t the ability to create copies of works that don’t degrade over time, on balance, a positive development as opposed to something to be feared? Don’t the upsides of technologies that can allow information to be moved instantaneously and at negligible cost outweigh the downsides? The Copyright Office’s 2001 opposition to a digital first-sale doctrine was grounded in part on the legitimate concern that people might resell copies of digital works while also retaining them. The technology to ensure that the seller’s copy was deleted was deemed “not viable at this time.” However, that is no longer true. As indicated by ReDigi’s service—and by a digital resale patent from Amazon and a patent application from Apple—there are solutions that can help ensure that a single digital sale by a retailer doesn’t turn into multiple digital copies in the secondary market. Are these solutions perfect? Of course not. But do they represent good-faith efforts to harness technology in a way that respects the rights of owners of legitimately purchased content as well as those of copyright holders? Yes, they do. So, if you’re tired of those Justin Bieber mp3’s you once so enthusiastically bought and thought you could sell them for a few pennies a pop, you’re out of luck. I also don’t see how or why this ruling wouldn’t affect any digital “purchase” we make from books, to movies to software. And by purchase, check the terms and conditions, because what we really mean is license. We no longer own what we buy. — Michael

Judge Rules it’s Illegal to Resell Digital Music

Back in the days when I was a teenager, friends would share music with each other, trade tapes or vinyl or cd’s, and even head down to the local music store to buy and sell used music.

Today, copyright — and rulings about copyright — makes our musical life much more difficult.

Over the weekend a federal judge in New York ruled that it’s illegal to sell our mp3’s (PDF). The case involved a Boston startup called ReDigi, which bills itself as a marketplace for “pre-owned” digital products” and Capitol Records, one of the major American record labels.

Via Ars Technica:

For years, many a music fan has wondered what we first posited back in 2008: “Can I resell my MP3s?”

After all, as we’ve pointed out in the past, nearly all digital good sales are really licenses rather than sales as conventionally understood. The question here is, can such a license be bought and sold to other users?

On Saturday, a federal court in New York ruled in summary judgment within the case of Capitol Records v. ReDigi. The court decided that no, users do not have the right to resell digital music files, as doing so violates existing copyright law. ReDigi, the judge found, is also liable for secondary copyright infringement and likely will have to pay damages.

As Slate notes, the judge’s decision is “is clearly influenced by” a 2001 US Copyright Office report to Congress that argued against digital reselling because digital objects don’t degrade over time like analog objects do:

But isn’t the ability to create copies of works that don’t degrade over time, on balance, a positive development as opposed to something to be feared? Don’t the upsides of technologies that can allow information to be moved instantaneously and at negligible cost outweigh the downsides?

The Copyright Office’s 2001 opposition to a digital first-sale doctrine was grounded in part on the legitimate concern that people might resell copies of digital works while also retaining them. The technology to ensure that the seller’s copy was deleted was deemed “not viable at this time.” However, that is no longer true. As indicated by ReDigi’s service—and by a digital resale patent from Amazon and a patent application from Apple—there are solutions that can help ensure that a single digital sale by a retailer doesn’t turn into multiple digital copies in the secondary market. Are these solutions perfect? Of course not. But do they represent good-faith efforts to harness technology in a way that respects the rights of owners of legitimately purchased content as well as those of copyright holders? Yes, they do.

So, if you’re tired of those Justin Bieber mp3’s you once so enthusiastically bought and thought you could sell them for a few pennies a pop, you’re out of luck. I also don’t see how or why this ruling wouldn’t affect any digital “purchase” we make from books, to movies to software. And by purchase, check the terms and conditions, because what we really mean is license. We no longer own what we buy. — Michael

The DRM Chair

Taking the lead from the Digital Rights Management embedded in our music, books and other things made from ones and zeros, Thibault Brevet and friends created the DRM Chair for the latest Deconstruction contest. 

Via Brevet:

The DRM Chair has only a limited number of use before it self-destructs. The number of use was set to 8, so everyone could sit down and enjoy a single time the chair.

A small sensor detects when someone sits and decrements a counter. Every time someone sits up, the chair knocks a number of time to signal how many uses are left. When reaching zero, the self-destruct system is turned on and the structural joints of the chair are melted.

Same as it Ever Was

Browsing through Time Magazine’s covers archive is an exercise in deja vu all over again.

Shown above are Internet-related covers from 1993 to 1996. Looking back years later, the memes and themes of our general interest technology reporting remain about the same. 

The Internet and those who spend a lot of time on it produces a weird, “other” culture. Porn’s an issue. So too cyberwar. Who controls the Internet? It’s been a question for some time now. 

Contemporary equivalents of the above covers?

Images: Selected Time Magazine covers, 1993-1996. Select to embiggen.

Seeds, Patents and Technology

The Supreme Court is hearing a case today involving a lawsuit brought by Monsanto against an Indiana farmer it accuses of violating the patent on its genetically modified seeds.

Some background, via The New York Times:

With his mere 300 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bowman said, “I’m not even big enough to be called a farmer.”

Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could have a huge impact on the future of genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medical research to software.

At stake in Mr. Bowman’s case is whether patents on seeds — or other things that can self-replicate — extend beyond the first generation of the products.

It is one of two cases before the Supreme Court related to the patenting of living organisms, a practice that has helped give rise to the biotechnology industry but which critics have long considered immoral. The other case, involving a breast cancer risk test from Myriad Genetics, will determine whether human genes can be patented. It is scheduled to be heard April 15.

What happened is that Bowman planted two fields, one with Monsanto seeds, the other with “commodity” seeds he bought from a grain elevator. These latter seeds are a general mixture that other farmers sell from their harvests. However, many of these commodity seeds are either Monsanto seeds, or those that are genetic derivatives of Monsanto seeds. Meaning, they’ve cross pollinated. Because that’s what plants do.

As the Times notes, agricultural groups are siding with Monsanto. So too universities fearful that a decision against the biotech firm could affect funding incentives for research.

Software makers are also looking on with interest. Note that the case centers on things that can “self-replicate”. Back to the Times:

BSA/The Software Alliance, which represents companies like Apple and Microsoft, said in a brief that a decision against Monsanto might “facilitate software piracy on a broad scale” because software can be easily replicated. But it also said that a decision that goes too far the other way could make nuisance software patent infringement lawsuits too easy to file.

Over in The Atlantic, Andrew Cohen notes that Monsanto has sued almost 150 farmers in 27 states. He goes on to write:

Monsanto says it is merely enforcing valid contracts, and protecting its hard-fought patents, and that it has a right to do so aggressively. However, the result of these attempts at market control, the [Center for Food Safety] noted, is “dramatic increases in the price of seeds. From 1995-2011, the average cost to plant one acre of soybeans has risen 325 percent; for cotton prices spiked 516 percent and corn seed prices are up by 259 percent.”

Over at the FJP we have a few videos from an interview we conducted with Micha X Peled, a documentary director who’s latest film, Bitter Seeds, follows a crisis in India where the foreign monopoly on the local seed market has inflated prices and brought on massive local debt. The situation has become so dire that, on average, a farmer kills himself every thirty minutes. You can view those interviews here.

#InternetFreedomDay Visit the Internet Freedom Day web site for various resources and events; see why you should post Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” video even though it’s copyrighted; get a free copy of Marvin Ammori’s On Internet Freedom; and if you’re in San Francisco, join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and friends at an evening get together.  Image: Partial screenshot, InternetFreedomDay.net.

#InternetFreedomDay

Visit the Internet Freedom Day web site for various resources and events; see why you should post Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” video even though it’s copyrighted; get a free copy of Marvin Ammori’s On Internet Freedom; and if you’re in San Francisco, join the Electronic Frontier Foundation and friends at an evening get together. 

Image: Partial screenshot, InternetFreedomDay.net.

Because like the other cases brought against hackers across the country, the case against Aaron isn’t just about technology providing new means for people to act independently and enact democracy. It isn’t even really about justice and national security. It’s about a broader, systemic battle.

It’s about power.
danah boyd, Wired. Beyond Aaron Swartz: We Don’t Need Martyrs… But Changes.
Who’s Suing Who Yesterday we noted the case of a voice recognition startup called Vlingo that was sued for patent infringement and — even though exonerated — eventually had to sell itself to the very company that sued it. The anecdote is from a long, frustrating and very important investigation by the New York Times into our very broken patent system. Here, a visualization by the Times shows who’s suing who among the big players in the smartphone industry. If you select the image to enlarge it, you’ll see that just about everyone is suing everyone. Just follow the orange arrows as each “represents a lawsuit involving a mobile patent. In some cases, when multiple firms are plaintiffs or defendants, a single suit is represented with multiple arrows.” Better, view the original and set aside the time to read the actual article. It’s a highly readable and follows the how and why of current smartphone patent wars: The number of patent lawsuits filed in United States district courts each year has almost tripled in the last two decades to 3,260 in 2010, the last year for which federal data is available. Microsoft has sued Motorola; Motorola has sued Apple and Research in Motion; Research in Motion has sued Visto, a mobile technology company; and in August, Google, through its Motorola unit, sued Apple, contending that Siri had infringed on its patents. (Google dropped the suit last week, leaving open the possibility of refiling at a later date.) All of those companies have also been sued numerous times by trolls. And as you read, keep in mind that software patents are often “aspirational” rather than attached to a tangible product. That is, they describe broad concepts of an interface system, or a way to calculate payment, before they’ve ever been created. Another way to put it, they’re patents on ideas. In a weird analytical disconnect, Malcolm Gladwell once celebrated this practice in a New Yorker piece about a company called Intellectual Ventures. “As a result,” the Times notes about the current smartphone wars, “some patents are so broad that they allow patent holders to claim sweeping ownership of seemingly unrelated products built by others. Often, companies are sued for violating patents they never knew existed or never dreamed might apply to their creations, at a cost shouldered by consumers in the form of higher prices and fewer choices.” — Michael Image: Partial screenshot, Fighters in a Patent War, by the New York Times.

Who’s Suing Who

Yesterday we noted the case of a voice recognition startup called Vlingo that was sued for patent infringement and — even though exonerated — eventually had to sell itself to the very company that sued it.

The anecdote is from a long, frustrating and very important investigation by the New York Times into our very broken patent system.

Here, a visualization by the Times shows who’s suing who among the big players in the smartphone industry. If you select the image to enlarge it, you’ll see that just about everyone is suing everyone. Just follow the orange arrows as each “represents a lawsuit involving a mobile patent. In some cases, when multiple firms are plaintiffs or defendants, a single suit is represented with multiple arrows.”

Better, view the original and set aside the time to read the actual article.

It’s a highly readable and follows the how and why of current smartphone patent wars:

The number of patent lawsuits filed in United States district courts each year has almost tripled in the last two decades to 3,260 in 2010, the last year for which federal data is available. Microsoft has sued Motorola; Motorola has sued Apple and Research in Motion; Research in Motion has sued Visto, a mobile technology company; and in August, Google, through its Motorola unit, sued Apple, contending that Siri had infringed on its patents. (Google dropped the suit last week, leaving open the possibility of refiling at a later date.) All of those companies have also been sued numerous times by trolls.

And as you read, keep in mind that software patents are often “aspirational” rather than attached to a tangible product. That is, they describe broad concepts of an interface system, or a way to calculate payment, before they’ve ever been created. Another way to put it, they’re patents on ideas. In a weird analytical disconnect, Malcolm Gladwell once celebrated this practice in a New Yorker piece about a company called Intellectual Ventures.

“As a result,” the Times notes about the current smartphone wars, “some patents are so broad that they allow patent holders to claim sweeping ownership of seemingly unrelated products built by others. Often, companies are sued for violating patents they never knew existed or never dreamed might apply to their creations, at a cost shouldered by consumers in the form of higher prices and fewer choices.” — Michael

Image: Partial screenshot, Fighters in a Patent War, by the New York Times.

We were on the brink of changing the world before we got stuck in this legal muck.

Michael Phillips, founder of a voice recognition software company called Vlingo, on being sued in 2008 for patent infringement.

At the time, Vlingo was in partnership discussions with Apple and Google but both stopped negotiations because of the suit.

While Vlingo was eventually exonerated, it cost the company $3 million in legal fees and they eventually agreed to be bought by the company that sued them.

The New York Times, The Patent, Used as a Sword.

In the smartphone industry, according to the article, ”as much as $20 billion was spent on patent litigation and patent purchases in the last two years — an amount equal to eight Mars rover missions.”

Building a Company On Top of a Platform? Watch the Copyright and Read the Fine Print

There are a number of stories about tech startups building products and services around a platform like Twitter only to have the floor drop out under them when the platform decides to change access to its APIs.

Less talked about are content creators and companies that utilize, grow and depend on such platforms as an integral part of their business.

Enter The Cool Hunter, which grew its Facebook presence to 788,000 fans, relied on content posted there to engage audiences and drive people back to its site, and did all this successfully until… the floor dropped out under them.

Facebook deleted the fan page for what it alleges were repeated copyright violations.

In a blog post, Cool Hunter founder Bill Tikos claims innocence and expresses the overwhelming frustration he’s had trying to get hard answers to the basic question he’s trying to ask: What have we done wrong?

Eight weeks ago, our Facebook (FB) page (facebook.com/thecoolhunter) with all of its content and our 788,000 fans – resources we have created and nurtured meticulously over the past five years - was gone.

Not blocked or invisible, but completely gone. Disabled. “Page does not exist.” No explanation, flimsy warnings, no instructions on what to do next. None of our numerous attempts to rectify the situation and resurrect the page have worked.

And because we suspect there are other businesses in the same bind, we are writing this to seek help and encourage open conversation. This is not a minor problem. This is a huge issue and potentially fatal to businesses. We feel that FB must change its one-sided, secret policies and deal with us, and others like us, openly and fairly.

Tikos claims that there were only two copyright infringing instances, writing, “But even if FB disagrees with the images we posted, are two images enough to kill our account with no chance of recourse?”

The Next Web reached out to Facebook for clarification and was told that there were “repeat” infringements and that the social network reviewed the material. That is, it wasn’t an automated process. Furthermore, Facebook claims to have given The Cool Hunter multiple warnings.

While we can’t arbitrate a he said, she said case, this is a broad warning to brands operating on platforms to interact with their audiences.

Facebook does have a granular copyright process where holders can file notices that their content or trademarks have been infringed. It works like the takedowns on YouTube. Yes, there are great flaws in that process. Namely, the false copyright claims by major copyright holders (takedowns of NASA’s public domain Curiosity footage comes to mind) and the long process a poster goes through to prove his or her content is legitimate.

Still, having one content object removed is better than having the entire history of your interaction on a platform disappeared.

As The Next Web points out, Facebook is clear about its copyright policies in both its terms and conditions, and in its Community Standards.

Painful as it is, here’s a reminder to read the fine print. — Michael

When SOPA-PIPA blew up, it was a transformative event. There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days. People were dropping their names as co-sponsors within minutes, not hours…

These bills are dead, they’re not coming back. And they shouldn’t… I think we’re better served by sitting down [with the tech sector and SOPA opponents] and seeing what we agree on.

Chris Dodd, CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, during a talk at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club earlier this week. Dodd was a US Senator for 30 years before becoming the MPAA’s top lobbyist.

Ars Technica, MPAA chief admits: SOPA and PIPA “are dead, they’re not coming back.”

After 7 Years of Litigation, Google, Publishers Cut Deal

Via the BBC:

Google has settled a seven-year legal spat with the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

The row blew up in 2005 over Google’s plan to scan and digitise books for a vast digital library.

The AAP said that the project could involve massive copyright infringement because it could make available digital copies of copyrighted works.

The settlement lets US publishers decide which works should, or should not, be in Google’s library.

This settles one of the main objections to the library project which planned to scan every book unless publishers and authors specifically objected…

…As part of the deal Google has also agreed to provide digital copies of the works that publishers and writers make available for the library.

FJP: That was a long time coming.

Bipolar Thoughts on Copyright and Patents

Two things came across my feed today. They’re unrelated to one another but demonstrate just how far apart people are who think about these things.

Patents first, via Slashdot:

“The most recent call for curtailing patents comes not just from an unexpected source, the St. Louis Fed, but also in its most basic form: total abolition of all patents. Via the Atlantic Monthly: a new working paper (PDF) from two members of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, Michele Boldrin and David Levine, in which they argue that while a weak patent system may mildly increase innovation with limited side-effects, such a system can never be contained and will inevitably lead to a stifling patent system such as that presently found in the U.S. They argue: ‘…strong patent systems retard innovation with many negative side-effects. … the political demand for stronger patent protection comes from old and stagnant industries and firms, not from new and innovative ones.”

And flip all of that entirely on its head and we have a former US copyright chief arguing that disruptive media technologies should require congressional approval before being allowed to come to market.

Via Techdirt:

One of the reasons why we live in such an innovative society is that we’ve (for the most part) enabled a permissionless innovation society — one in which innovators no longer have to go through gatekeepers in order to bring innovation to market. This is a hugely valuable thing, and it’s why we get concerned about laws that further extend permission culture. However, according to the former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, under copyright law, any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval and a review to make sure they don’t upset the apple cart of copyright, before they’re allowed to exist. I’m not joking.

Oman’s opinion become known when he filed an amicus brief (PDF) in a case where television networks are suing Aereo, the Barry Diller-backed startup that creates a device that lets you stream TV to your networked screens.

While neither position is policy, and copyright and patents are two entirely different things, these two articles show the fierce legal battles going on between potential disruptors and the potentially disrupted.

Google said it had received copyright removal requests for over 4.3 million Web addresses in the last 30 days, according to the company’s transparency report. That is more than it received in all of 2009.

Amy Chozick, New York Times. Under Copyright Pressure, Google to Alter Search Results.

The News: Beginning next week Google will update its search algorithms to prioritize Web sites with “legitimate” content over those that have been identified as having multiple, valid complaints over copyright infringement.

Copyright should be shorter in duration, more balanced, more comprehensible, and normatively closer to what members of the public think that it means or should mean.

Reforming Copyright Is Possible - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)

FJP: Yes. This.