ASCAP Members Pissed Off At ASCAP's Attack On Creative Commons

from the fundraising-for-whom? dept

Last week, we posted about how ASCAP was attacking EFF, Public Knowledge and (most bizarre of all) Creative Commons, as part of its fundraising drive. As we pointed out, this showed ASCAP's true colors. For an organization that presents itself as trying to supports artists' rights, it's downright ridiculous to attack a group like Creative Commons that only looks to give musicians more choices in what they do with their own rights. In following some of the reaction to the article, I saw a tweet from musician Eric Young, where he publicly declared plans to quit ASCAP over this fundraising appeal:

#FUCKASCAP #iQuit ... this is the 1st public anncmnt of my resignation from ASCAP. this is bullshit.

That left me wondering how other ASCAP members were feeling about this, and thankfully, Slashdot points us to a blog post on the Mind the Gap blog that discusses this issue (towards the end). In the comments, though, a number of ASCAP members express their displeasure with the organization.

Corey Dargel who also tweeted his displeasure and plans to quit ASCAP commented:

I think ASCAP should be ashamed of itself, and I am presently ashamed to be a card-carrying member of ASCAP. The language in that fundraising email is fear-based and reactionary. Furthermore, it is misleading and disingenuous. ASCAP portrays itself as a grassroots organization and calls attention to the "deep pockets" of Creative Commons, but in fact it is *ASCAP*, not Creative Commons, that's siding with corporate interests and "deep pockets."

A Rich T. explains his problems with the ASCAP campaign:

I'm the agent for my father, who was a studio musician, performer, music & songwriter from the late 50's until the late 80's, when he retired.

We've been fighting with ASCAP for 6 years to get the money they received for selling the rights to several of his early recordings to a overseas company.

He also handed out free "right to record" statements at the end of each live show back when the recording industry was pushing the "taping is stealing" propaganda.

he's totally against anything that would further criminalize fair use, and has asked me to help him write up a appropriately scathing letter to ASCAP on the subject.

ASCAP member sarah is upset at the fear mongering:

I got this letter yesterday; and all I could think was even if it was true, it wouldn't affect me -- seeing as how several songs I co-wrote have been airing regularly for over 2 years on TV (kid's show stuff, so I do mean regularly), yet I haven't seen a penny through ASCAP. I think they should worry about their own mission statement and get creators actually PAID.

And if I was actually getting my royalties, I would still think the letter was ridiculous and fear-mongering. But what else are they going to do -- let everyone know there's an issue that people need to thoughtfully and sensibly make up their own minds on? Of course not.

Musician Jeremy Jarratt also announced plans to quit ASCAP:

I'm a card-carrying member of ASCAP as well. At least, i was until i got their message. I'm disaffiliating myself as soon as i can figure out how. This is ingenuous at best, and an insult to anyone with even the remotest modicum of understanding of modern digital content distribution. It shows only how antiquated this whole entire game is.

ASCAP should change their moniker to ASSHAT: American Society of Socially-Harmful Attorneys and Treasurers.

Someone going by the name Bobkat who is a member of ASCAP admits that he generally likes ASCAP protecting his rights, but is disgusted with the tone of the letter and now very conflicted over how he feels about ASCAP:

I'm also a member of ASCAP, and I was digusted by the tone of the letter. I hold Creative Commons and the EFF in high regard, and painting them as some kind of enemy of musicians is ridiculous. As a musician, I don't feel like a small-time individual has many options; I have a pretty broad idea of fair use, myself, but if Kanye sampled my song and made millions off of it then damn right I would want a piece. Without the resources to hire a lawyer, who else but ASCAP could help me get my share? Yet at the same time, I don't completely trust that they're really always protecting my best interests; and in this case I believe they have amply demonstrated how clumsy and old-fashioned their philosophy is. What a crummy situation.

Similarly conflicted is Dennis Bathory-Kitsz who wrote a very long comment trying to explain both sides, but finally coming down on the side where he hopes ASCAP changes its stance (this one was long, so just some excerpts here):

I'm a longtime member of both ASCAP and EFF, and I find the whole situation painful.

ASCAP's broadcast and international royalty collections are poor (former is a lottery, latter is unenthusiastic) but their domestic performance royalties are good and appropriately scaled. I appreciate that, and also appreciate that their staff is actually fairly small.

That said, I have to say I'm always disappointed by ASCAP's rough behavior (even if they're not nearly as awful as the RIAA). Maybe it's a negotiating stance, but it just tastes bad....

....

I attended one of the first ASCAP committee meetings about internet music use back in 1995 (where I met folks such as Laurie Spiegel and Morton Subotnik for the first time). I suspect that the composers in attendance 15 years ago are disappointed if not disgusted by the bullying position ASCAP has been taking (revealed as much in the "Daily Briefing" emails they send out as in the recent letter).

So I hope ASCAP will rethink its position and arrive at a truly creative solution that acknowledges how culture (to which they're nominally allied) functions as opposed to a hard-line interpretation of the law. This is no easy task, as Congress has been doing the bidding of the real deep pockets in the past few decades.

Meanwhile, there were some similar comments found on the BoingBoing article on ASCAP's letter as well. For example, there is this comment from the musician Kemmler who posted the email he sent back upon getting ASCAP's fundraising pitch:

Dear Mr. Williams -

I'm not interested in supporting any initiative based on this sort of information-free screed. I've personally relied on creative-commons licensed materials to use in my own work, as well as a license which provides a convenient way to both promote and control the dissemination of my own work.

I also have a firm respect for the EFF and their efforts in protecting the interests of consumers and small business where they pertain to new media channels, the internet, or IP.

As a musician, and as an entrepreneur making my living selling equipment to studios and musicians, I obviously have a great deal to lose if the putative forces of "copyleft" somehow succeed in preventing music being paid for. However, I cannot condone, or fail to decry the practice of vilifying institutions like Creative Commons, which poses absolutely no conceivable illegitimate threat to ASCAP or its members.

If someone wants to license their materials under a CC license - that's their right. If someone wants to use CC-licensed material, and not pay ASCAP for some other material - that's also their right. Please grow up and get a grip.

Similar to some of the conflicted artists above, someone going by the name "BrooklynTwang" who appears to be the musician Rench posted a comment about how he supports ASCAP and what it does, but hates this fundraising campaign:

I am an ASCAP member. I hate this fundraising letter and I am telling them so.

You can tell them too, right here
http://www.ascap.com/legislation/legislation-form.html

Just FYI though regarding the ASCAP-is-corporate-assholes talk, I am not a rich rockstar but I make money licensing music for film, tv, and commercials. I am happy to give music away free to the public, but if some corporation is going to use it to sell crap, they should pay me. Not just the up front fee, but royalties for each time they run the ad/show/film. ASCAP makes them do that so they don't get away with shortchanging artists like me. Thats one thing that ASCAP does, and thats why I am a member. ASCAP is not just another corporation. They are a player in a complex position between artists and corporations. They are not the bad guys, they are just not as good as they should be these days. Next time we vote on the ASCAP board members I will grill the nominees about this.

That's not all either, but a quick sampling. I'm sure that this won't have a noticeable impact on ASCAP, which has 380,000 members, most of whom probably don't know or don't care much about the details of what it is ASCAP is misleadingly attacking. But ASCAP might want to be careful before continuing to attack organizations that actually do have musicians' best interests in mind. They might find that more and more will start to question ASCAP's motives as well. In the end, I doubt there was anything malicious in ASCAP's fundraising letter. It's just that the organization is so far out of touch with what's happening in the music world today that it actually thinks attacking these groups makes sense.

Filed Under: copyright, music
Companies: ascap, creative commons, eff, public knowledge

ASCAP Claiming That Creative Commons Must Be Stopped; Apparently They Don't Actually Believe In Artist Freedom

from the protectionism-all-the-way dept

About a year and a half ago, we reported on the news that ASCAP, who represents songwriters and publishers as a collection society, was holding strategy sessions on how to "counter" proponents of free culture, as if they were some sort of attack on ASCAP. Since then, we've actually noticed a growth in both the number of hilarious conspiracy-midned "attack blogs" from people tied to ASCAP, as well as an increase in the number of "anonymous" commenters on the site coming from IP addresses used by a few law firms that have connections to ASCAP. Funny that.

Now it appears they're stepping things up to stage two: they've sent around fundraising emails that specifically ask for money to fight Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge. What's amusing (but really sad) is that this proves that the rhetoric out of ASCAP about protecting "artists' rights" is bunk. Creative Commons does nothing whatsoever to undermine artists' rights. It merely offers them more options for how they choose to license their works. It's the sort of thing that ASCAP and the rest of the music industry should embrace. In fact, when confronted, many of these organizations often make the point that they have no problem with Creative Commons, and they're happy if artists choose to use CC licenses.

But ASCAP's blatant attack on Creative Commons (and EFF and PK; both of whom focus on consumer rights, but not undermining artist's rights at all) shows their true colors. They're not about artists' rights at all. They're about greater protectionism -- which is not (at all) the same thing.

Of course, all this makes me wonder why ASCAP members would support an organization that is, in fact, actively trying to diminish their options for licensing? ASCAP has a huge ulterior motive, of course. If alternative business models and things like Creative Commons become more widely used, the reliance on ASCAP diminishes, and ASCAP doesn't want that at all.

Below is the letter itself, which was posted by Mike Rugnetta:

Really sad day for ASCAP that it would stoop so low as to claim that giving creators more options and more business model and distributions options is somehow bad. Pretty much takes away all of its credibility.

Filed Under: creative commons, culture, free culture
Companies: ascap, creative commons, eff, public knowledge

More Filings Raise Concerns About Hot News And The First Amendment

from the speech? dept

We've already covered how Google and Twitter weighed in with concerns about the "hot news" doctrine. Then we covered how a bunch of big newspapers and newspaper groups begged the court not to take away "hot news." And, now, we get to the First Amendment arguments. We've been alerted to two more amici briefs, both of which ask the court to review "hot news" from a First Amendment perspective -- something that really hasn't happened before. The first is a very, very detailed brief from Citizen Media Law Project, the EFF and Public Citizen, which goes into great detail about why this is an important First Amendment issue: That brief doesn't take a specific position on the case itself, but merely asks the court to consider the First Amendment, and to make sure that any ruling does not cut off First Amendment protections. In some ways, it's the opposite of the newspapers' brief, which also refused to take a specific position on the case, but wanted to make sure that a First Amendment claim did not kill off "hot news."

The second one may be even more interesting. It comes from AHN, better known as All Headline News, which very clearly says the court should overturn the lower court's ruling. AHN has some direct experience here, as the AP sued it over "hot news" not so long ago, though the two sides eventually settled. So it, perhaps more than anyone else, has direct experience with just how much a "hot news" lawsuit can chill speech: The First Amendment arguments are the ones that resonate with me the most as well. Hopefully the court agrees.

Filed Under: first amendment, hot news
Companies: all headline news, citizen media law project, eff, public citizen

EFF, Public Citizen And ACLU Ask Judge To Quash Mass Subpoenas From US Copyright Group

from the standing-up-for-rights dept

While companies like Verizon apparently won't stand up to protect their users' rights against the ridiculous and overly broad mass copyright infringement lawsuit filings made by a group called US Copyright Group (really a DC-based lawfirm called Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver), Time Warner Cable is pushing back, but mainly on procedural issues -- not in any way to stand up for the rights of those being sued. Thankfully, it looks like the EFF, Public Citizen and the ACLU are trying to help out.

Those three organizations filed an amicus brief with the court in the Time Warner Cable case, where they point out that there are multiple reasons why the subpoenas should be quashed. Among the many problems with the process used by USCG are the ideas of suing thousands of people in a single lawsuit and all in Washington DC. Obviously, this makes it easier and cheaper for Dunlap, but it's not how the legal system is supposed to work. First, it only makes sense that each lawsuit should be filed individually, as each involves different circumstances. Second, they should be filed in the proper jurisdiction, not in DC. As the briefing notes:

This Court cannot consider this case unless it has personal jurisdiction over the Doe Defendants, and it is Plaintiff's burden to show that such jurisdiction exists. The Constitution imposes that burden on every plaintiff as a fundamental matter of fairness, recognizing that no defendant should be forced to have his rights and obligations determined in a jurisdiction with which he has had no contact. These requirements "give[ ] a degree of predictability to the legal system that allows potential defendants to structure their primary conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will not render them liable to suit." World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297 (1980).

Plaintiff has not met this burden. Instead, the very information upon which Plaintiff relies as a basis for seeking the identity of the Doe defendants -- their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses -- indicates that few, if any, reside in this District. If, as it appears, the vast majority of the Doe defendants do not have sufficient minimum contacts with this jurisdiction to satisfy due process, the Court should quash the subpoena for information about out-of-district defendants.

....

Requiring individuals from across the country to litigate in this District creates exactly the sort of hardship and unfairness that the personal jurisdiction requirements exist to prevent. It requires the individuals urgently to secure counsel far from home, where they are unlikely to have contacts. In this particular instance the hardship is very clear. When the underlying claim is a single count of copyright infringement, the cost of securing counsel even to defend a defendant's identity is likely more than the cost of settlement, and possibly even more than the cost of judgment if the Defendant lost in the litigation entirely.

As for lumping all of the lawsuits into a single filing, the brief shows that courts have rejected this approach in the past as unreasonable and should do so again here:

There is little doubt that Plaintiff's joinder of more than 4,500 defendants in this single action is improper and runs the tremendous risk of creating unfairness and denying individual justice to those sued. Mass joinder of individuals has been disapproved by federal courts in both the RIAA cases and elsewhere. As one court noted:

Comcast subscriber John Doe 1 could be an innocent parent whose internet access was abused by her minor child, while John Doe 2 might share a computer with a roommate who infringed Plaintiffs' works. John Does 3 through 203 could be thieves, just as Plaintiffs believe, inexcusably pilfering Plaintiffs' property and depriving them, and their artists, of the royalties they are rightly owed. . . .

Wholesale litigation of these claims is inappropriate, at least with respect to a vast majority (if not all) of Defendants.

BMG Music v. Does 1-203, No. Civ.A. 04-650, 2004 WL 953888, at *1 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 2, 2004) (severing lawsuit involving 203 defendants).

Rule 20 requires that, for parties to be joined in the same lawsuit, the claims against them must arise from a single transaction or a series of closely related transactions. Specifically:

Persons . . . may be joined in one action as defendants if: (A) any right to relief is asserted against them jointly, severally or in the alternative with respect to or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences; and (B) any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 20. Thus, multiple defendants may be joined in a single lawsuit only when three conditions are met: (1) the right to relief must be "asserted against them jointly, severally or in the alternative"; (2) the claim must "aris[e] out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences"; and (3) there must be a common question of fact or law common to all the defendants. Id.

Joinder based on separate but similar behavior by individuals allegedly using the Internet to commit copyright infringement has been rejected by courts across the country. In LaFace Records, LLC v. Does 1-38, No. 5:07-CV-298-BR, 2008 WL 544992 (E.D.N.C. Feb. 27, 2008), the court ordered severance of lawsuit against thirty-eight defendants where each defendant used the same ISP as well as some of the same peer-to-peer ("P2P") networks to commit the exact same violation of the law in exactly the same way. The court explained: "[M]erely committing the same type of violation in the same way does not link defendants together for purposes of joinder." LaFace Records, 2008 WL 544992, at *2. In BMG Music v. Does 1-4, No. 3:06-cv- 01579-MHP, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53237, at *5-6 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2006), the court sua sponte severed multiple defendants in action where the only connection between them was allegation they used same ISP to conduct copyright infringement.

The brief also takes issue with the evidence that Dunlap presents in the USCG filings:

Moreover, Plaintiff provides no specific evidence other than its summary declarations to establish that its investigation was done for each Doe. And such evidence ought to be readily available, including screen shots showing the IP addresses of the Doe defendants so the Court can see that the addresses submitted to the Court match those discovered during the investigation, copies or real-time capture of the activities of the "proprietary technologies" used, and shots of the P2P server logs that to which Plaintiff apparently had access. Without those, the declarations merely describe downloading activity in general, and fail to provide the Court with real information linking each of the individuals sued to the alleged infringement.

This is a big concern because Dunlap and USCG are seeking to reveal private information based on incredibly flimsy evidence:

Robust protection for the right to engage in anonymous communication -- to speak, read, view, listen, and/or associate anonymously -- is fundamental to a free society. See, e.g., Talley v. California, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) (recognizing the First Amendment right to communicate anonymously); McIntyre v Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334 357 (1995) (same; "Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."); Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965) (recognizing the First Amendment right to receive ideas in privacy). This fundamental right enjoys the same protections whether the context for speech and association is an anonymous political leaflet, an Internet message board or a video-sharing site. See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 870 (1997) (there is "no basis for qualifying the level of First Amendment scrutiny that should be applied to" the Internet).

Courts in this District have recognized that First Amendment protections extend to the anonymous publication of expressive works on the Internet even where, as here, that publication is alleged to infringe copyrights. In re Verizon Internet Servs. Inc., 257 F. Supp. 2d 244, 260 (D.D.C.), rev'd on other grounds, 351 F.3d 1229 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (hereinafter "Verizon"); see also UMG Recordings, Inc., v. Does, No. 06-0652 SBA, 2006 WL 1343597, at *2 (N.D. Ca. March 6, 2006) (citing Sony Music Entm't, Inc. v. Does 1-40, 326 F. Supp. 2d 556, 564 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)). As the court in Sony noted:

Arguably, however, a file sharer is making a statement by downloading and making available to others copyrighted music without charge and without license to do so. Alternatively, the file sharer may be expressing himself or herself through the music selected and made available to others. Although this is not "political expression" entitled to the "broadest protection" of the First Amendment, the file sharer's speech is still entitled to "some level of First Amendment protection."

326 F. Supp. 2d at 564 (quoting Verizon) (citations omitted). The Sony court continued: "Against the backdrop of First Amendment protection for anonymous speech, courts have held that civil subpoenas seeking information regarding anonymous individuals raise First Amendment concerns."

No one is arguing that a legitimately filed lawsuit shouldn't entitle USCG to get the right to an individual's information. The issue is that not nearly enough evidence is presented in these cases, and what is presented is done in a way that does not allow an individual to protect their First Amendment rights. This destroys the basic balance that the courts have established to permit such lawsuits to go forward.

The filing is an important one, and it's unfortunate that it had to come from three public interest groups rather than the ISPs themselves. In an email from Verizon PR, in response to a question on this issue from reporter Dave Burstein, Verizon PR gave the "we're just following orders" response, and tries to suggest it goes above and beyond by giving their customers a week or less of notification to fight this on their own. Verizon (and Time Warner Cable) could be making these same arguments on behalf of their customers, and it's a shame that they have not and, in fact, have handed over information on such flimsy proof in such questionably filed lawsuits.

Filed Under: copyright, first amendment, jurisdiction, lawsuits, subpoenas
Companies: aclu, eff, public citizen, us copyright group

EFF Fighting For Whistleblower's Privacy Rights, Following Sham Lawsuit

from the 4th-amendment,-where-are-you? dept

The EFF is helping out in a case to look at whether or not you have an expectation of privacy in your email. The details of the case itself are really quite stunning, so I'll just repeat the EFF's summary:

The whistleblower, Charles Rehberg, uncovered systematic mismanagement of funds at a Georgia public hospital. He alerted local politicians and others to the issue through a series of faxes. A local prosecutor in Dougherty County, Ken Hodges, conspired with the hospital and used a sham grand jury subpoena to obtain Mr. Rehberg's personal email communications. The prosecutor then provided that information to private investigators for the hospital and indicted Mr. Rehberg for a burglary and assault that never actually occurred. All the criminal charges against Mr. Rehberg were eventually dismissed. Hodges is currently running for Attorney General of Georgia in the Democratic primary.

Mr. Rehberg filed a civil suit against the prosecutors and their investigator for their misconduct, but the appeals court erroneously ruled that he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his private email.

Scary stuff. And it gets worse, too, as apparently the court gave "immunity to county prosecutors and their investigators for manipulating and fabricating "evidence" and defaming Mr. Rehberg as a felon in comments to the press."

This seems like a massive abuse of power to punish a whistleblower, using emails obtained via questionable means. Bad news all around.

Filed Under: privacy, whistleblower
Companies: eff

Should YouTube Allow Artful Nudity?

from the but-think-of-the-commenters... dept

The EFF and the National Coalition Against Censorship are apparently asking YouTube to consider changing its policy with regards to nudity. Apparently, it will allow nudity if the video is from a film or TV show -- but not if it's user generated videos made for YouTube. Separately, YouTube suggests it will allow nudity with "some educational, documentary and scientific content, but only if that is the sole purpose of the video and it is not gratuitously graphic." The problem, according to the EFF and NCAC, is that there is no exception for work that is artistic in nature, and apparently YouTube recently removed the videos of a well-known artist, Amy Greenfield, for violating the "no nudity" policy. Now, this isn't actually a "censorship" issue, since YouTube is a private site, and not the government. So, honestly, I don't see any problem with YouTube deciding that it doesn't want that particular content on its site, but there is a separate issue raised here -- which is that, once again, the real issue is Google's lack of customer service -- something we've seen a lot of lately. One of the complaints is that Greenfield's videos were taken down with no recourse and no method for her to communicate with folks at YouTube to talk about getting them back online.

Filed Under: nudity, video, youtube
Companies: eff, google, ncac

Time To Change (Or Ditch) The USTR Special 301 Process That Pressures Other Countries To Adapt US IP Laws

from the get-rid-of-it dept

A few days ago, you may remember, I posted the comments I submitted to the USTR on the Special 301 report, where I pointed out the value of allowing countries to set their own intellectual property policy, rather than forcing everyone to follow US faith-based intellectual property policy. Traditionally, the Special 301 process was a way for industry lobbyists to get the US gov't to put countries they didn't like on a special "watch list," that would lead US diplomats, who didn't even understand the lack of factual basis for the report, to start putting pressure on other countries to change their intellectual property policies to make them more draconian (funny, isn't it, that they only went in one direction?). Basically, lobbyists would submit the details of countries whose IP policies they didn't like, and the USTR would basically turn around and put out a list based on what was submitted, with little effort to actually look at the situation. This year, at least, the public was able to submit comments (such as mine, linked above), but it's unclear how much of an impact that will have.

In the meantime, EFF and Public Knowledge have teamed up to ask the USTR to change the process and, at the very least, stop taking the word of industry lobbyists as if it were gospel. They also suggested that the USTR be more flexible in allowing countries to set their own IP policy -- noting, amusingly, that the US itself famously didn't implement its "international obligations" in the Berne Treaty for decades, because the country felt differently about certain aspects of copyright law. Hell, even today we're not in full compliance with Berne. But for some reason the USTR acts as if other countries need to fall in line with US IP policy, even as we've chosen to go in a different direction when we felt it was warranted.

Of course, the best thing to do isn't to change the Special 301 process, but to ditch it entirely. It serves no reasonable purpose and has been abused by industry representatives for years. It puts a strain on US relations with other countries, and harms the ability for other countries to craft IP policy in the way that they feel will best serve culture and innovation.

Filed Under: copyright, eff, public knowledge, special 301, ustr
Companies: eff, public knowledge

Four More Inducted Into The Streisand Effect Hall Of Shame

from the i'm-so-proud dept

It seems that my legacy is going to be the fact that I coined the term "The Streisand Effect" five years ago, and it's now become part of the culture. It's great to see the concept take off, though, and it's pretty exciting to see the EFF update the takedown hall of shame it announced last year, with four new entries, exclaiming: "Hello Streisand Effect!" For the record, here are the EFF's four latest inductees:

• Peabody Energy, for issuing outstandingly spurious trademark claims against a spoof site criticizing their "clean coal" group;
• Yahoo, for an impressive attempt to return a cat to the bag after a leak of its guide to snooping services for law enforcement was posted to a whistleblower site;
• Perez Hilton and the Miss Universe Organization for endeavoring to stop a non-profit from airing an ad commenting on a public same-sex marriage controversy initiated by their videos; and
• Universal Music Group, for attempting to muzzle online criticism of the rapper Akon.

Filed Under: hall of shame, streisand effect, takedowns
Companies: eff

This Is Why We Worry About Net Neutrality Regs: Loopholes For RIAA/MPAA

from the be-careful-what-you-wish-for dept

We've mentioned a bunch of times that while we support the concept of net neutrality (and think any ISP that goes away from it is making a big, big mistake) we're quite worried about the unintended consequences of having it put into law. As a perfect example of why we should be worried, the EFF is putting together a petition to protest the "copyright loophole" that's already in the proposed FCC rules:

Buried in the FCC's rules is a deeply problematic loophole. Open Internet principles, the FCC writes, "do not... apply to activities such as the unlawful distribution of copyrighted works."

For years, the entertainment industry has used that innocent-sounding phrase -- "unlawful distribution of copyrighted works" -- to pressure Internet service providers around the world to act as copyright cops -- to surveil the Internet for supposed copyright violations, and then censor or punish the accused users.

From the beginning, a central goal of the Net Neutrality movement has been to prevent corporations from interfering with the Internet in this way -- so why does the FCC's version of Net Neutrality specifically allow them to do so?

This is what we worry about. It's great that the EFF is catching this particular loophole, but as more lobbyists get their hands on net neutrality regulations, they're going to slip in more and more loopholes like this that will turn what may have great intentions into something else entirely.

Filed Under: copyright, lobbyists, loopholes, net neutrality, petition, regulations
Companies: eff, riaa

EFF Looks To Bust Bogus Podcasting Patent; Needs Prior Art

from the help-'em-out dept

Back in July, we wrote about how a company named Volomedia had gleefully announced that it had patented podcasting. The patent itself (7,568,213) seemed ridiculously broad, obvious and covered by prior art. On top of that, it was difficult to see how it passed the current (though, perhaps not for long) "Bilski" test for what can be patented.

It looks like the EFF has decided to be proactive about this and is looking for prior art with which to bust this particular patent. In the comments on our original post about this, reader Marcel de Jong, noted that Dave Winer described audio enclosures for RSS in a blog post in January of 2001 -- nearly three years before this patent was filed. Hopefully that is rather compelling prior art, but if anyone has any more info, please send it over to the EFF.

Filed Under: obviousness, patents, podcasting, prior art
Companies: eff, volomedia