stories filed under: "copying"
Eddy Grant Accuses Gorillaz Of Copying After Gorillaz Manager Threatens People For Copying...
from the where-to-start dept
So, the music press has been busy talking about the accusations from Eddy Grant that the band Gorillaz copied his old tune with one of their recent hits. You can compare the two songs here. There appear to be some similarities, but they're pretty different songs:Of course, it's a bit silly for Grant to be upset too. He wrote a song that was popular years ago, and now he wants free cash because some other band made a song that has some vague similarities?
Filed Under: copying, eddy grant, gorillaz, music
Tech Journalist Recommends Suing Google Over Spam Blogs?
from the uh,-tom,-what? dept
I like reporter Tom Foremski and have linked to his stories in the past. I've never met the man, but we've emailed a few times in the past. But everyone has those days when they write something they clearly haven't thought much about, and it looks like Tom had one of those days recently. Dark Helmet alerts us to a short blog post that Foremski did for ZDNet that is all kinds of awful. The main focus is on suggesting that you turn in colleagues using unauthorized software to the SIIA to try to claim a $1 million prize. This is a really sleazy process used by the SIIA and the BSA for years. Perhaps you can forgive Tom for not knowing much about how these organizations work, but plenty of other reporters have detailed how these organizations bully companies who can't figure out how to produce the exact evidence that these organizations demand as "proof." These organizations are just nasty, often harming small businesses just because they can't find their specific licensing agreement on a legitimately purchased software application. Encouraging this kind of behavior is not a good idea, Tom.And, of course, that claim that there's a "$1 million prize" is great for headlines, like the one Tom wrote, but the details always tell a different story. The real "prizes" are "up to $1 million." A few years back, we asked for proof that the BSA actually paid out a million dollar prize, and offered a similarly termed "up to $1 million" reward for anyone who could prove that the BSA paid someone $1 million. Of course, they couldn't, because these groups don't actually pay that much. In fact, in the year after we asked for proof of the $1 million prize, the BSA actually paid out a grand total of $136,000 to 42 different people -- an average of about $3,200. Putting the $1 million prize in the headline is playing into their bogus claims. It's the sort of thing that reporters shouldn't be doing. Let them put out their bogus press releases, but reporters should be debunking them.
Finally, in trying to explain why this is a good idea, Tom makes an odd and totally misapplied analogy:
I know that ZDNet for example, faces problems with its content being scraped and illegally being used on web sites that try to make money by running Google ads next to it. It's often difficult to stop that practice because it's tough to track down the owners.First off, we face the same "problem" here at Techdirt, with lots of sites scraping our content and putting it on other sites plastered with Google ads. Except, that we know it's not actually a "problem." Most of those sites get very little, if any, traffic, and search engines are smart enough these days to put the originator higher up in the results. The ad views on these sites aren't costing the original site any revenue. And, if they actually are getting any traffic, it doesn't take long for people to realize the original source and start going there instead. This isn't a "problem."
But if SIIA went after Google, because it profits from illegal use of copyrighted content, then that would go a long way to stamping out that practice.
Second, what the hell does scraping sites have to do with turning your colleagues in for using unlicensed software? The two are totally different situations and have nothing to do with each other.
Finally, if SIIA went after Google because it profits from illegal use of copyrighted content, the lawsuit would be thrown out of court as soon as Google's lawyers said "DMCA safe harbors." This is pretty basic stuff, and someone who's been a tech reporter for as long as Foremski should know better than to think that it's either legal or sensible to suggest that an organization sue a third party that profits off of the potentially infringing activity of someone else. As Dark Helmet noted with his submission:
This is 3rd party culpability, which is odd coming from a blogger and journalist. Has he ever ran a story about something illegal that was done? And did that publication have advertisements on it? So didn't he profit from the illegal activity? Shouldn't he have the FBI going after him for such illicit behavior?"Again, Tom usually does pretty good work, so I'm going to chalk this up to a rushed post without putting much thought into what he was saying.
Filed Under: blogs, copying, copyright, software, spam
Companies: google, siia
NBC, Defender Of All Things Copyright, Copies Blogger's Post Without Permission; Removes Her Name When She Complains
from the those-poor-corn-farmers dept
We'd love to get an explanation from NBC Universal General Counsel Rick Cotton on the following story. Cotton, of course, is the very, very, very strong defender of copyrights for NBC Universal. He was, of course, the main source for the propaganda "oh no piracy is killing the movie business" segment on 60 Minutes, and as we all know, he's been quite concerned about the poor, poor (yet, heavily subsidized) corn farmers hurt by "piracy." He's come out as a supporter of having ISPs spy on users to block the transmission of copyright works (which should be useful once Comcast takes over). And, finally he's also been involved in NBC's attempt to make it more difficult for anyone to watch the Olympics online, even though the evidence showed that the people who watched Olympics content online were more likely to then watch it on TV (ads and all) as well.So, with all that, you'd have to imagine that if he found out about a company associated with the Olympics copied someone's blog post without first getting their permission, he'd be pretty upset. But what if that company was NBC Universal? Reader JC points us to the news that NBC Universal's Olympics website has been caught copying a blog post and then when alerted to it, rather than removing the content, it just removed the writer's name. It looks like the attention this story has received has resulted in NBC Universal putting her name back on the story, but the story remains on the site. I'm assuming there must be more to this whole situation. According to the link above, the original site, Tourism Vancouver, says this is "an ongoing issue with the NBC Olympic site, and [it] has been battling them for some time over it." Surely, NBC Universal, as such a strong defender of copyright, wouldn't be in the business of copying others' content without permission? Even if it believed it had the right to use her content, removing her name after being alerted to the issue appears really sketchy. Perhaps there's an explanation that involves helping out those poor corn farmers?
Filed Under: copying, copyright, olympics, rick cotton
Companies: nbc universal
Plurk Overplaying Hand After Microsoft Code Copying; Meanwhile Status.net Says 'Take Our Code, Please'
from the take-the-publicity-and-go-with-it dept
Lots of people got a good ironic laugh from the news that Microsoft, which has repeatedly complained about "piracy" in China, got caught blatantly copying code from a small startup named Plurk. Microsoft blamed a vendor and shut down the service. Plurk, for its part, got a ton of free publicity, and apparently it doesn't want to give it up. It's sent out a statement to lots of media folks (and us) with absolutely nothing of substance, but which says that the company is still considering legal action, while going on and on about how its just a small company that can't even afford sales people or a marketing person to write this email. And yet, it thinks it wants to distract itself with a lawsuit against Microsoft? If it can't afford sales people, those lawyers might be a bit costly. Yes, Microsoft copied your code. Time to use that to your advantage, and whining about the legal action you might take doesn't get anyone else to actually care about your product.Meanwhile, another provider of similar software (though open sourced), Status.net took a smarter approach. Blaise points out that Status.net put up a blog post telling Microsoft to go right ahead and take its code. After all, it's open source (and they have a Chinese translation already). That's what you're supposed to do.
Filed Under: china, code, copying
Companies: microsoft, plurk, status.net
Microsoft Caught Copying Software Code In China...
from the piracy? dept
Lots of folks have been submitting the story of Microsoft's China operations being caught with its fingers in the cookie jar in directly copying the code from a small company called Plurk. This isn't just the look and feel that was copied, but it appears that some of the code itself was directly copied. Of course, this seems doubly amusing, since Microsoft has, in the past, been at the forefront of complaining about "piracy" in China -- even as the details have long suggested Microsoft benefited greatly from unauthorized copying of its software in China, by building tremendous lock-in and making Microsoft the defacto standard. Of course, when a Microsoft exec recently announced that "piracy" was no longer a threat who knew he meant because Microsoft had decided to go in the other direction and use it to its own advantage?Of course, I'm joking there. Microsoft continues to insist that piracy is a huge problem, and over in India, Dan alerts us that Microsoft has actually been fined for harassing "pirates" by trying to take them to court in the national capitol, instead of where the "piracy" actually happened:
According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of "money power" to "harass" defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.So, it's fine to try to bankrupt "pirates" as you're pirating software yourself? Of course, Microsoft will squirm out of this one just fine. It'll claim it was a mistake, probably throw some money at Plurk (who just got a ton of free PR) and move on, still claiming that "piracy" is bad, bad, bad and must be stopped (especially in China).
"When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power," Judge Dhingra commented on the case.
Filed Under: china, code, copying, india, piracy
Companies: microsoft, plurk
Dilbert Explains Why Just Copying Others Is A Dumb Business Model
from the the-wisdom-of-dilbert dept
One of the common claims that is brought up by patent system defenders when we discuss the idea of a greatly limited or eliminated patent system is that it doesn't make sense for anyone to innovate, because others will just copy them. Of course, historically we have plenty of evidence that this isn't true -- and it makes sense if you think about it logically. Just copying something doesn't give anyone a reason to buy from you -- and depending on the product, copying them will take time, combined with the additional time to even let people know you've got a product in the market. By that time, the real innovator may be much further ahead. Steven points out that a recent Dilbert cartoon makes this point perfectly:
Researchers: Copying And Imitation Is Good For Society
from the it's-damn-important dept
When we talk about intellectual property issues, many maximalists on both the copyright and patent side of things have this inherent sense that "copying" is "bad." Not just "bad," it's downright immoral. You hear words like "freeloading," "parasites," "pirates," "thieves," "copycats," etc. Yet, time and time again, when we look at industries or societies where there is less (or no) intellectual property protection, we notice something interesting: while there is definitely a lot of copying going on, it hasn't proven bad for overall innovation, and at times it's been shown to be very good for overall innovation. When we've talked about things like the chemical industry in Switzerland in the late 19th century (which was not covered by patents), there were certainly many chemical companies who focused on copying -- but there were also many who were quite innovative, and the overall impact to the economy was very strong.The same is true if we look at the fashion industry, which does not have copyrights. It thrives without copyright protection in part because of all that copying. The copying serves a few very useful functions: first, it helps "perfect" the offering, as each "copyist" may improve on it a bit. Second, it helps diffuse the new idea throughout society, by offering it up in many places and ways that the originator was unable to. Third, it offers an element of price differentiation (the wealthy want the original/official version and pay more for it, others want the cheaper knockoffs). Fourth, it actually helps to validate the original idea (if there's a knockoff, the original must be cool). Finally, it stimulates additional brand new creativity from the original creator, who must realize that he or she cannot rest on any laurels, and needs to get to work on the next great design.
Copying serves an important function in getting new concepts out there.
And, now some researchers have started to look into it, and actually have built a model that shows society is likely better off when copying is the norm. Aaron deOliveira alerts us to the research on this, which tries to model societies with creators and innovators, and finds that society is served best when 30% of the population is involved in creating new goods, while 70% is focused on copying. Now, you can read through the full research and quibble with the methodology, but the basic premise is sound, and has been borne out in real life, in situations where copying was widely allowed. Hopefully there will be more research done in this arena, to see if this sort of modeling can be refined a bit more to take more factors into account. But, for now, this is a good place to start, and a reminder to those who seem to think that "copying" is somehow bad, that it serves a valuable part in the overall ecosystem of building and distributing innovative offerings.
Lily Allen: It's Ok To Sell My Counterfeit CDs, Just Don't Give My Music For Free
from the confusion dept
Dark Helmet alerts us to the news that our good friend Lily Allen is back in the news discussing file sharing again. Tragically, it does not appear that she's used her "time off" to better understand copyright issues very much. Unlike nearly everyone else who complains about copyright infringement, she's apparently "all for" infringing on her copyrights, just so long as you pay someone -- even if it's the guy on the street selling the counterfeit CDs. Seriously:"If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for £4 I haven't a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind of value on my music."Yes, so while some musicians have said they're fine with non-commercial file sharing, but are against anyone selling their unauthorized works, Ms. Allen seems to have taken the opposite approach. Counterfeit all you want, just as long as you profit from it. Yeah. Someone should explain to her the difference between price and value, and also the benefits of word of mouth marketing. But, it doesn't seem like she's much interested in actually understanding this stuff, so if you want to help her understand, maybe go set up a shop selling burned copies of her CDs, and see what happens.
Of course, if we take this seriously, it shows how little she's thought this through. Her earlier complaint was that when people file share, they don't provide money back to the artists and the labels. Of course, when counterfeiters are selling on the street, the same thing is true, but suddenly it's okay? At what point does the world realize that Ms. Allen doesn't know what she's talking about?
Filed Under: cds, commercial use, copying, copyright, counterfeiting, infringement, lily allen
Murdoch's The Times Accused Of Blatant Copying, Just As It Tells The World You Should Pay For News
from the oooops dept
Just this week, James Harding, the editor of The Times (of London), a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, tried to explain why the news is worth paying for, as the paper starts to put up a new business model to get consumers to pay for news. Unfortunately, Harding apparently didn't get the message himself. As pointed out by Mathew Ingram, just days after making the case for paying for news, The Times has been accused of publishing an article that it copied without permission from a blog.You can't make this stuff up.
Yes, just as Rupert Murdoch is calling aggregators (sites that simply summarize and link to stories) parasites (even as he owns a bunch of aggregators himself), one of his papers didn't aggregate, it flat out copied, without permission, a blog post that was written by Edgar Wright as a tribute to Edward Woodward, who recently passed away. The Times eventually put up a "clarification" online that had a link to the original site, but that hardly explains the original copying -- especially during the very week that they're trying to convince the world that news should be paid for....
Filed Under: blogs, copying, edgar wright, james harding, paywalls, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.
