Latest Intellectual Property Chapter Of TPP Agreement Leaked: Would Be A Disaster For Public Health

from the transparency-needed dept

For years, we've discussed the ridiculous and unnecessary secrecy concerning trade agreements negotiated by the USTR. The text of the negotiating documents and even the US's general position is kept secret until the very end, at which point concerns from the public and innovators no longer matter. Instead, the USTR relies on legacy industry "advisors" who are mostly interested in protecting what they have from disruption, change and innovation. For all the talk of how these agreements are "free trade" agreements, they tend to be anything but. They are focused on protecting a few industries against competition, disruption and innovation. The former US Trade Rep Ron Kirk was unusually honest a few years ago in admitting that these agreements would never get adopted if the public actually knew what was in them. A year ago, Wikileaks helped leak the "Intellectual Property" chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and now it's done so again with a more recent version of the chapter. Public Citizen has put together a thorough analysis, highlighting a key change: the US pushing to delay access to affordable treatments for cancer and other diseases, in direct contrast to the pledges of the Obama administration.

Large brand-name drug firms want to use the TPP to impose rules throughout Asia that will raise prices on medicine purchases for consumers and governments, and be in effect for the next several decades. With billions at stake, Big Pharma wants the TPP to be a road map for rules that will govern Pacific Rim economies for the next several decades.

A U.S. proposal in the text – to provide long automatic monopolies for biotech drugs or biologics, which includes most new treatments for cancer – contradicts the policies included in recent White House budgets and if adopted would undermine key cost savings touted by the administration. The past budgets have included a specific pledge to shorten the same monopoly periods so as to reduce cost burdens on Medicare and Medicaid.

If the TPP is ratified with this U.S.-proposed provision included, Congress would be unable to reduce monopoly periods without risking significant penalties and investor-state arbitration.

Thankfully, other countries appear to be pushing back on this proposal, but the US is always the 800-pound gorilla in these negotiations. Still, as Wikileaks summarizes, the US is pushing strongly for "drug-company friendly" language that undermines existing agreements under TRIPS. In particular, TRIPS has long allowed countries to authorize the production of cheaper generic drugs to deal with significant health problems. Big Pharma -- showing how it really feels about public health -- has been angry about this for years, and appears to be using TPP as a vehicle to try to undermine it. Of course, they know better than to kill off this provision entirely, but rather, are looking to undermine it. Wikileaks explains:

Also new in the May 2014 text is a "drug company-friendly" version of the TRIPS agreement for compulsory licensing of vital drugs patents. This is a diminished version of the TRIPS agreement that was present in the 2013 text. In theory, by issuing a compulsory licence, a government can authorise cost-cutting generic competition with patented drugs, in exchange for royalty payments to the patent holder. It is a key tool to promote affordable access to medicines. The new exceptions are set out here and here, having deleted the option for "Other Use Without Authorisation of the Right Holder" in the August 2013 text. The current global norms for justifying exceptions to patents are set out in the TRIPS agreement under either Article 30 or 31. Article 30 is a 3-step test that is restrictive in what it grants exceptions for, and is open to interpretation with regards to procedures for doing these tests. Article 31 (referred to in the August 2013 text and now gone) is the one generally used on all compulsory licensing for HIV and cancer drugs. Whilst it is more restrictive, it is limited to cases where patent holders are paid, so as long as a drug qualifies (as most HIV and cancer drugs do) it is possible to get an exception to the patent held by big pharmaceutical companies, breaking big pharma's monopoly on life-saving drugs.

However, the new version of the text of the TPP IP Chapter has deleted the option to use this assessment procedure, requiring many judgement calls on aspects such as how this might "prejudice" the patent holder. This will mean that the procedure is more restrictive and open to interpretation, and therefore lobbying and manipulation. In short, the TPP will greatly reduce the ability for creating more affordable drugs to save more lives, and increase the pharmaceutical industry's ability to retain monopolies.

Elsewhere in the document, we see that the US and Japan (who appear to be aligned a lot against everyone else) are pushing for the following:

For greater certainty, a Party may not deny a patent solely on the basis that the product did not result in an enhanced efficacy of the known product when the applicant has set forth distinguishing features establishing that the invention is new, involves an inventive step, and is capable of industrial application.

Consider this to be the "Eli Lilly clause." As you may recall, Eli Lilly is currently demanding $500 million from Canada under a corporate sovereignty ("investor state dispute settlement" or ISDS) tribunal, because Canada rejected some of its patents for not being any more effective than existing offerings. For most of us, it seems like a perfectly reasonable reason to reject a patent: your patented drug doesn't do anything to make it more useful than existing products. Canadian law agrees. But big pharma, like Eli Lilly flips out, because they want to produce new drugs that they can patent as old patents run out, hoping to trick people into wanting the new, much more expensive "new new thing" rather than the old, generic, cheaper offering that is just as (if not more) effective.

A bunch of countries are pushing for the right to cancel a patent if it "is used in a manner determined to be anti-competitive," but of course, the US and Japan are completely against such a thing. Instead, the US and Japan say it should only be cancelled on grounds that would have been justified for refusing to grant the patent in the first place. In other words, most of the countries recognize that patents can be abused in anti-competitive ways and want to protect against that. The US and Japan, on the other hand, appear to be happy with enabling anti-competitive abuses with patents. That says something.

In the copyright section, it appears that US goes beyond existing US law in asking that "making available" be considered one of the exclusive rights protected under copyright law. Some US courts consider "making available" to be considered part of the "distribution" right, but others have disagreed (saying that the distribution right only covers works that have actually been, you know, distributed). While the legacy entertainment industry likes to pretend this is settled law and merely making available equals distribution, that's not entirely clear. No matter, in the agreement, the US (and Japan) push to require everyone to include "making available" as an exclusive right for copyright holders.

There was great fanfare a few years ago when the USTR announced that, for the first time ever, it would include some language about fair use to appease those who were concerned about how these agreements only ratcheted up the enforcement side of copyright, and not the public's rights. Except, when the details finally leaked, we realized the proposed language was actually about limiting fair use by putting a much stricter definition on it. That language is still in the agreement. There still appears to be debate about copyright term length, with at least some pushing to extend the copyright term, because, hey, copyright terms always expand. This comes despite even the head of the Copyright Office agreeing that copyright terms should be reduced.

The US is also looking to definitively kill off any chance of an Aereo-like solution (even if Congress were to pass a law in response to the Supreme Court), by saying that such a service shall not be allowed without authorization of the copyright holder. The agreement would also extend broken anti-circumvention rules that block non-infringing and perfectly reasonable uses. The US is (of course) pushing for more criminal copyright efforts (Vietnam and Malaysia are pushing back). The US, against pretty much everyone else, is also pushing for statutory damages to be a necessary option for civil copyright cases, despite the massive problems we've seen with statutory damages in the US and how it enables shady practices like copyright trolling.

There's a lot of debate about whether or not recording a movie in a theater should be a criminal act. The US, of course, is pushing for what appears to be an extreme definition where any recording should absolutely be seen as criminal. Other countries would like it to be more flexible, leaving it up to the countries to decide if they want to make it criminal. Singapore says the taping should be willful, and Mexico says it should only apply to a significant part of the film. The US doesn't care. If you accidentally record a bit of a movie? Go to jail.

There's a lot more in there, but, once again you can clearly see why the US remains so against any transparency at all in these negotiations. Having to actually answer for why they're only concerned with protecting the rights of the legacy copyright industry and pharmaceutical industries, while paying little to no attention to the impact on public health, knowledge and innovation, would apparently put a damper on their future job prospects.

Filed Under: copyright, criminal copyright, exceptions, fair use, japan, patents, public health, tpp, us, ustr

Lawyer Says It's Copyright Infringement To Use Her Own Blog Posts Against Her In Disciplinary Proceedings

from the court-says-hahahahahahah dept

Eugene Volokh points our attention to yet another bizarre copyright case, Denison v. Larkin, in which lawyer Joanne Denison argued that the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (IARDC) infringed on her copyrights by using portions of her own blog as evidence against her during a disciplinary proceeding. Not surprisingly, the court soundly rejected this particular interpretation of copyright law.

Basically, Denison created a blog about what she and some others believed was "courtroom corruption" concerning a particular 90-year-old woman. Some of those involved in the story filed a disciplinary complaint against Denison, "alleging professional misconduct in making false statements on her Blog." The complaint itself included "15 paragraphs of text" from the blog. Further, she claims that the IARDC "copied over 1,000 pages of the Blog and 'then incorporated [it] into further exhibits.'" She also sued Nextpoint, a company that the IARDC apparently used to save copies of the blog. The (rather patient) court goes through a full fair use analysis, finding (rather easily) that all four of the traditional "fair use factors" weigh heavily in favor of fair use. Based on that, it finds no direct infringement -- and without any direct infringement, the claims of contributory and vicarious infringement fail as well.

Amusingly, Denison tried to argue that the "commercial use" fair use factor weighed in her favor because "the IARDC sells its decisions to companies such as Lexis Nexis and Westlaw for paid or unpaid benefits." The court rather simply points out: "This statement is unfounded."

In the end, it was an easy fair use win (and those are always handy), though this case appeared to be absurd from the start. So it's great to see the court make quick work of it without causing any trouble to fair use.

Filed Under: copyright, disciplinary proceedings, discipline, fair use, illinois, joanne denison

Domain Name Registration Triggers C&D From Instagram... Which Triggers A Weirdly Wonderful Backlash Filled With Duck Drawings`

from the domain-name-fun dept

If you're going to allow the corporate finger to rest heavily on the "Release the Lawyers" button, you need to be braced for the backlash. As backlashes go, this particular incident is light on one-star reviews and widespread excoriation. But it is dripping with sarcasm masquerading as wide-eyed innocence and shows just how quickly a handful of internet denizens can make someone wish they'd never bothered trying to "right" a "wrong."

A redditor registered the domain slutsofinstagram.com, as one does when presented with the available tools and the inclination to make snap judgements for the amusement of one's self and (hopefully) others. Shortly after that, the legal department of Instagram got involved, as one does when elbowing others for trademark breathing space and possessing the inclination to host photos without worrying about third-party hecklers.

The letter notes that slutsofinstagram.com "contains" the trademarked word "Instagram." It then talks about its 30 million users and being a "worldwide leader" in photo uploading and justifiably famous for doing so.

It also points out that it must police the internet for uses/abuses of its trademark, ensuring that consumers aren't confused and its mark remains tarnish-free. Finally, the letter notes that the registrant may not be familiar with trademark law, but that's the registrant's fault and he should immediately cease all use of the Instagram trademark, disable any site at that address and not attempt to trade/sell the domain name to another party.

That bit of officiousness prompted this completely ridiculous (but in the more positive sense) response:

Hi

Wow that sounds like you guys have a cool videogame. 30 million members. Holy moly! I was confused at first but you must be referring to my online fantasy series Slütsof in Stâgram. It's a really cool project I'm working on, you should check it out. It's about a magical goat and a duck princess who journey across the enchanted land of Stagram, many adventures are had…

I'm sorry if it sounds close to your company name but I don't think you own the alphabet, that would be funny imagine? Have a good day.

Two pages from slutsofinstagram were attached (completely SFW):


Soon, more images were posted, some by the site owner but many more from others, fleshing out the Stâgram world.




As the site owner notes, he has yet to hear back from Instagram. Some questions have been raised, like what kind of legal rep only signs her first name on a C&D and who the hell actually posts funny content to r/Funny? There's also a lack of clarity on the chicken-and-egg problem. Did this redditor create the site with artwork in place simply to troll Instagram, or did he actually have a more unsavory destination in mind before Instagram stepped in?

Either way, the resulting silence (if legit) is growing rather loud. The redditor apparently posted this in early August, even though it was only in the past few days that any attention has been paid to it. Instagram's purported actions have pretty much ensured this site will remain filled with hand-drawn ducks and goats (and Stâgram maps), rather than the more titillating content unwary surfers (and "Edith") may be expecting. So, in a way, it's still a win for Instagram, which won't have its name associated with the word "sluts." On the other hand, the content swiftly filling up slutsofinstagram.com definitely makes it a bit harder to legally claim this redditor should have to abandon his registered domain.

Filed Under: cease and desist, fair use, memes, slutsof, slutsof in stagram, stagram, trademark
Companies: instagram

Another Reason For Moving To Open Access: Encouraging Scientific Debates

from the it's-good-to-share dept

Techdirt has written often enough about how copyright is used to censor criticism. QuestionCopyright.org has an interesting post that offers a variation on that theme: copyright getting in the way of a scientific debate.

A band of researchers has been tirelessly trying to demonstrate that a body of scientific work which rests on a paper from over 10 years ago is completely wrong. The only problem is, their argument isn't being allowed to stand or fall on its merits -- instead, copyright restrictions are interfering with their ability to make their case at all.

The issue is that in order to make their case, the researchers need to re-use figures from one of the papers they are questioning. Unfortunately, fair use doesn't necessarily help here, because the journal publishing their new paper, Public Library of Science (PLOS) ONE, uses the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license for all its material. Fair use cannot be used to change the license under which the images are released -- only the copyright holders can do that, which means the latter are effectively able to block their republication in PLOS ONE:

[The publisher] Wiley has responded ... saying that while they'll allow re-use with no fee under standard copyright, they won't simply relicense the images to be compatible with PLOS ONE's non-restrictive distribution policy. (What Wiley actually says is that they are "unable to change [the images'] copyright status", which is simply false.) It isn't yet clear how this will be resolved. Offering the image at no fee for this one use is not a particularly helpful move on Wiley's part: the restrictions would still be quite onerous, because Wiley's one-off exception would not be passed along to PLOS ONE's readers — instead, they too would have to ask Wiley for permission if they wanted to use the figures in a scientific critique... and so on, ad infinitum.

But over on the Scholary Communications blog at Duke University, Kevin Smith doesn't think that's the case:

the claim that you cannot include material used as fair use in a CC-licensed article is bogus. In fact, it happens all the time. I simply do not believe that no one who publishes in PLoS journals ever quotes from the text of a prior publication; the ubiquitous academic quotation, of course, is the most common form of fair use, and I am sure PLoS publishes CC-licensed articles that rely on that form of fair use every day. The irony of this situation is that it points out that PLoS is applying a standard to imagery that it clearly does not apply to text. But that differential treatment is not called for by the law or by CC licenses; fair use is equally possible for figures, illustrations and text from prior work, and the CC licenses do not exclude reliance on such fair uses.

The solution, he suggests, is the following:

I think there is a way forward here, which is for PLoS to agree to publish the article with all of the borrowings under fair use or by permission clearly marked, just as they would do if those borrowings were all in the form of textual quotations.

Others -- including PLOS -- may disagree. In any case, what this episode highlights is that bridging the two worlds -- journals published under traditional licenses, and those using ones from Creative Commons -- is not straightforward. Relying on fair use as Smith suggests may not be an acceptable solution for some researchers wishing to publish in open access titles, since they might be unhappy about the lack of legal certainty. With open access, that's simply not an issue, since the license is explicitly designed to allow sharing -- and thus healthy scientific debate -- as a matter of course.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: copyright, creative commons, debate, fair use, open access, science

Seventh Circuit Court Upholds Fair Use Win, But Does So With Some Convoluted Reasoning And Bad Assumptions

from the desire-to-mock-politicians-largely-unaffected dept

Another small win for fair use, courtesy of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. There's some history behind the disputed derivative artwork, but that history -- while illuminating -- has nothing to do with the plaintiff or defendants. It does, however, explain why this item came to be, and is integral enough that the Court's decision recounts it during its very brief confirmation of the lower court's decision. [pdf link]

While a student at the University of Wisconsin in 1969, Paul Soglin attended the first Mifflin Street Block Party, whose theme (according to Soglin) was “taking a sharp stick and poking it in the eye of authority.” Now in his seventh term as Mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, Soglin does not appreciate being on the pointy end. He wants to shut down the annual event. For the 2012 Block Party, Sconnie Nation made some t-shirts and tank tops displaying an image of Soglin’s face and the phrase “Sorry for Partying.” The 54 sales, on which Sconnie Nation cleared a small profit, led to this suit, in which photographer Michael Kienitz accuses Sconnie Nation and its vendor of copyright infringement.

The original photo, which was taken by Kienitz and downloaded from Soglin's website, is shown below, along with Sconnie Nation's t-shirt design.


Sconnie Nation admitted that the photo from the site was the starting point, so there's no question the rights belong to the photographer. But the photographer also admitted that he "gave" the photo to Soglin to use on his website (rather than licensed) and make freely available for download. These facts don't necessarily excuse the alleged infringement when applying the four-factor Fair Use test, as the court does here.

There’s no good reason why defendants should be allowed to appropriate someone else’s copyrighted efforts as the starting point in their lampoon, when so many non-­copyrighted alternatives (including snapshots they could have taken themselves) were available. The fair-­use privilege under §107 is not designed to protect lazy appropriators.

As the court points out, the fair use protection for parody exists to prevent copyright owners from shutting down any uses that might make them (or their subjects) look less than dignified (something the photographer promised to his subjects despite having no legal way to prevent situations like this from occurring).

But the fact that the appropriators could have started anywhere doesn't make this infringement (even if the court labors under the misimpression that the world is loaded with copyright-free images). Stacking the t-shirt up against the other prongs of the Fair Use defense, the Seventh Circuit Court finds the plaintiff's claims wanting.

A t-­shirt or tank top is no substitute for the original photograph. Nor does Kienitz say that defendants disrupted a plan to license this work for apparel. Kienitz does not argue that defendants’ products have reduced the demand for the original work or any use of it that he is contemplating.

The court notes that Kienitz could have claimed that this lampooning would diminish photographic work for other dignitaries, seeing as he promised to keep their dignity intact when licensing, but those claims were never raised during this case's trip through the court system.

The court also points out that significant transformation took place during its trip from the website to Nation's t-shirt. The original photo was stripped of its background, was "posterized," re-colored and altered enough that the defendants could have achieved the same effect by "using a snapshot taken on the street." The court notes that the defendants made a small profit (which doesn't instantly negate a Fair Use defense -- although the court's wording here seems to indicate it does) but that is mitigated by the "political purposes" of the design. And even if Kienitz had decided to claim that the parodic work would harm his photography business in the future, the court says that "by the time the defendants were done, almost none of the copyrighted work remained."

While "lazy appropriators" were smacked around a little, and the false assumption that making money negates Fair Use defenses was given a little credence, it's another win for transformative creations, even if it's one that is skewed to statutory factors rather than the concept of fair use itself.

The decision is also a bit strange in the fact that it points out the significant transformation of the original Soglin photo, while at the same time dismissing the transformative use arguments raised by the Supreme Court (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music) and the much broader Second Circuit Court decision in Cariou v. Prince. The judge raises both cases by name but then points out that "transformative use" isn't one of the four factors under consideration and posits that entertaining the Cariou defense could undermine rights holders' control over derivative works.

The Second Circuit has run with the suggestion and concluded that “transformative use” is enough to bring a modified copy within the scope of §107. See, e.g., Cariou v. Prince, 714 F.3d 694, 706 (2d Cir. 2013). Cariou applied this to an example of “appropriation art,” in which some of the supposed value comes from the very fact that the work was created by someone else.

We’re skeptical of Cariou’s approach, because asking exclusively whether something is “transformative” not only replaces the list in §107 but also could override 17 U.S.C. §106(2), which protects derivative works. To say that a new use transforms the work is precisely to say that it is derivative and thus, one might suppose, protected under §106(2). Cariou and its predecessors in the Second Circuit do not explain how every “transformative use” can be “fair use” without extinguishing the author’s rights under §106(2).

By making this argument, the court conflates two distinct terms -- transformative use and derivative works (Section 106(2)) -- making transformative use slightly weaker, at least in this venue. Instead, the court focuses on the four statutory defenses, mainly those that could negatively affect the creator's future earnings. In doing so, it arrives at the correct conclusion, but leaves a muddied blueprint in its wake for future rulings to follow.

Filed Under: 7th circuit, copyright, fair use, madison, paul soglin, sorry for partying, transformative use, wisconsin

David Letterman Mocks The Eagles Over Refusal To License Their Music

from the well-deserved dept

Rob Hyndman alerts us to this amusing story about David Letterman mocking the Eagles and their ridiculous policy on licensing their music. Don Henley, in particular, has quite the history of being really, really angry about anyone daring to want to enjoy his music. Just a few months ago, he was angrily attacking some other musicians for daring to do cover songs (leading to this epic response).

That brings us back to the recent Letterman show. Apparently, the Eagles were performing in NY and Dave was talking to an audience member who was excited to go to see the band. So Dave wanted Paul Shaffer to play some Eagles music. That resulted in a discussion between some of the show's staff, in which one claimed that the band wouldn't even give them a number for how much the music would cost as they have a "flat no policy for television," while another claims that you could "play three lines" without getting sued (which is a potentially dangerously naive view of fair use). There's a bunch more debate, before Dave asks the show's director in the control room, Jerry Foley, what to do. Foley says "play the music and see what happens" leading to much cheering. Letterman and Shaffer go back and forth debating which song to play... before Letterman finally realizes that the Eagles' music just isn't worth it:

"You know what? I'm not that interested anymore..."

When you make listening to your music a chore, don't be surprised when some people decide it's just not worth it.

Filed Under: david letterman, don henley, fair use, licensing, music licensing, the eagles
Companies: cbs

Big Win For Fair Use (Even When For Profit), Big Loss For 'Hot News' & Fox

from the good-news dept

Well, here's a nice surprise. The Federal Court in the Southern District of NY has issued another very nice ruling on copyright issues relating to fair use. As we'd mentioned last year, Fox had sued the company TVEyes claiming copyright infringement. TVEyes is a media monitoring company that records tons of TV and radio, creates transcripts of it all and makes it searchable for internal use. Customers include the White House, Congress and a variety of news services, including the NY Times. Fox is Fox. It insists that what TVEyes is doing is infringement and that it violates the hot news doctrine (the silly, obsolete, court-made law that says news reporters have some non-copyright proprietary right to breaking news they first publish).

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, however, is not buying Fox's argument. Why? Fair use. The Court goes through the typical four factors test and finds them to pretty squarely put TVEyes' usage into the "fair use" camp.

1. Purpose and character of the use: Goes to TVEyes following a very long discussion. Even though it's a "for profit" company, the court says that its transformative and fits with the stated purpose of fair use. The court relies heavily on the recent book scanning decisions that found that scanning full books to make searchable indexes is transformative fair use. That's good. It also points to the recent Swatch v. Bloomberg case, in which a full transcript of an investor call was considered fair use, even if for commercial reasons. The court admits that the Meltwater case may be the one that goes against this, but notes that it's basically the only one (adding emphasis to our belief that Meltwater was decided incorrectly). The growing consensus appears to be that indexing content to make it more findable is transformative fair use, and the court agrees in this case:

   I find that TVEyes' search engine together with its display of result clips is transformative and "serves a new and different function from the original work and is not a substitute for it." ... In making this finding, I am guided by the Second Circuit's determination that databases that convert copyrighted works into a research tool to further learning are transformative. TVEyes' message, "'this is what they said' -- is a very different message from [Fox News'] -- 'this is what you should [know or] believe.'" ... TVEyes' evidence, that its subscribers use the service for research, criticism, and comment, is undisputed and shows fair use as explicitly identified in the preamble of the statute.

   
   
2. The nature of the copyrighted work: Here the judge finds neither side wins the fair use debate. Basically, he says "where the creative aspect of the work is transformed, as is the case here, the second factor has limited value."
   
   
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used: Once again, neither side wins. The court says, yes, obviously, TVEyes is using all of Fox's TV content, but rather than taking the simple way out, recognizes (as other courts have) that this is really not about the total amount used, but the amount used in relation to the amount necessary to use. And thus, in this case, using everything is necessary, given what TVEyes is trying to do. As the court notes, "TVEyes' service requires complete copying twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."
   
   
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for the value of the copyrighted work: This one goes to TVEyes again. As the court notes, the economic harm here has to be based on whether or not TVEyes is acting as a substitute, and not based on any economic harm created by the transformative use (i.e., not from a market that Fox isn't serving). The court notes that Fox speculates that people might use TVEyes to avoid watching Fox directly, but has no evidence to support that: "Fox News' allegations assume that TVEyes' users actually use TVEyes as a substitute for Fox News' channels. Fox News' assumption is speculation, not fact. Indeed, the facts are contrary to Fox News' speculation." More specifically:

   First, none of the shows on which Fox News' suit is based remain available to TVEyes subscribers; TVEyes erases content every 32 days. Second, in the 32 days that these programs were available to TVEyes' subscribers, only 560 clips were played, with an average length of play of 53.4 seconds and the full range of play being 11.5 seconds to 362 seconds. Of the 560 clips played, 85.5% of the clips that were played were played for less than one minute; 76% were played for less than 30 seconds; and 51% were played for less than 10 seconds. One program was not excerpted at all. The long term TVEyes statistics are consistent with the specific statistics of the 19 programs. From 2003 to 2014, only 5.6% of all TVEyes users have ever seen any Fox News content on TVEyes. Between March 31, 2003 and December 31, 2013, in only three instances did a TVEyes subscriber access 30 minutes or more of any sequential content on FNC, and no TVEyes subscriber ever accessed any sequential content on FBN. Not one of the works in suit was ever accessed to watch clips sequentially. The record does not support Fox News' allegations. Fox News fails in its proof that TVEyes caused, or is likely to cause, any adverse effect to Fox News' revenues or income from advertisers or cable or satellite providers.

   It goes on in that nature for some time. And then concludes: "No reasonable juror could find that people are using TVEyes as a substitute for watching Fox News broadcasts on television. There is no history of any such use, and there is no realistic danger of any potential harm to the overall market of television watching..."

Given all that, the victory goes in a landslide to TVEyes on fair use grounds -- with one exception:

However, I do not decide the issue of fair use for the full extent of TVEyes' service, TVEyes provides features that allow subscribers to save, archive, download, email, and share clips of Fox News' television programs. The parties have not presented sufficient evidence showing that these features are either integral to the transformative purpose of indexing and providing clips and snippets of transcript to subscribers, or threatening to Fox News' derivative businesses.

So that part of the case is likely to go forward (though it may wait while Fox appeals the other part).

The court also tosses out the hot news claim, saying that it's preempted by the copyright claim, and Fox News' attempt to double dip via hot news won't be allowed. It cites a case that says if you're just reposting factual information, it's covered by the Copyright Act. The court notes for TVEyes to run afoul of the hot news doctrine, it would need to be "free riding" in a manner designed to "scoop" Fox's efforts, rather than accurately covering what Fox is broadcasting. "TVEyes is not a valuable service because subscribers credit it as a reliable news outlet, it is valuable because it reports what the news outlets and commentators are saying and therefore does not "scoop" or free-ride on the news service."

In the end, it's a good ruling for fair use (and against hot news), though it seems likely that Fox will appeal.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, fox news, hot news, media monitoring, sdny
Companies: fox, tveyes

Automattic Rejects Series Of Bogus Janet Jackson Takedown Attempts By Using Janet Jackson Song Titles

from the automattic-wins-the-internet dept

Via Parker Higgins we learn that Automattic (better known as the Wordpress people) have added singer Janet Jackson to their "Hall of Shame" for sending totally bogus takedowns. Apparently, her people made the wacky claim that this post on "what would your WWE smackdown name be?" represented trademark infringement. It doesn't. The only place it even mentions Jackson is in showing a picture of Sacha Baron Cohen with the following explanation:

Costume and entrance: Picture Sacha Baron Cohen in, what else? his movie The Dictator. Elaborate General’s outfit, hat, etc. He walks in flanked by half a dozen sexy female soldiers inspired by the Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation video.

Uh, yeah. That's not trademark infringement. It's not copyright infringement. It's not anything but someone writing.

The other takedown is equally problematic. It claims the following image is copyright infringement: As you can clearly see that's using a photo of Jackson's famous "wardrobe malfunction" from the Superbowl many years ago, and applying the Things Tim Howard Could Save meme to it. Marginally funny. But not copyright infringement. Not only does Jackson not hold the copyright on that image, it's obvious fair use for whoever does hold the copyright.

Still, Automattic's lawyers had some fun with their response, noting that they "tried to use as many Janet Jackson song titles as possible" in the response (while also noting they hope that doesn't lead to another takedown demand):

It seems like you believe the use of the trademark “Janet Jackson” is reserved all for you, but we were hoping you’d be open to some feedback because your attempt to control every use of the mark is pretty nasty. If you read up on nominative use, you’ll discover that it doesn’t really matter that “Janet Jackson” is used on this site. If you believe there are any other alleged infringements, would you mind submitting a notice again via our trademark form?

http://automattic.com/trademark-policy/

So excited to work with you going forward

Nicely done.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, janet jackson, takedowns, trademark, wordpress
Companies: automattic

English Premier League Apparently Wants Fans To Hate It Even More: Threatens To Pull Down Vines And Animated GIFs

from the because-the-premier-league-is-stupid dept

There's a line of thought that appears sometimes in copyright debates that simply leaves me completely... flabbergasted. It's the idea that you have to go after and stop infringement because it's infringement, period. Even if you point out that stopping the infringement is costly and probably counterproductive, there's this belief that "infringement must be stopped at all costs." I've even had explanations where people insist that even if stopping piracy harms a market, it still must be stopped "because it's piracy." People who fear that infringement hurts markets -- I can understand, even if the evidence doesn't always support it. But people who insist that it must be stopped, no matter what the cost, are simply people I cannot understand at all.

And yet that seems to be happening with the English Premier League. No doubt, the Premier League has something of a history of ridiculous overreaction to intellectual property issues, including suing YouTube because people had uploaded clips of games. This was a few years after threatening to sue the fans themselves.

The latest is that the Premiere League has warned fans that it's going to shut down any attempts at sharing Vines or animated gifs of goals. The reasoning seems to be purely about "it's the law!"

In an interview with Newsbeat, Dan Johnson, director of communications at the Premier League, said: "You can understand that fans see something, they can capture it, they can share it, but ultimately it is against the law."

"It's a breach of copyright and we would discourage fans from doing it, we're developing technologies like gif crawlers, Vine crawlers, working with Twitter to look to curtail this kind of activity."

As for the fact that this might piss off fans? The Premier League doesn't care. At all.

He added: "I know it sounds as if we're killjoys but we have to protect our intellectual property."

Actually, no, you don't "have to protect" your intellectual property. In fact, if it's stupid to do so -- pissing off fans and angering the very people who pay the bills, it seems like a bad idea. But the Premier League doesn't seem to care about that at all. It's just taking the "we must protect our IP" view of it all. Because.

Of course, there's a strong argument that, here in the US, the use of such things would be clearly fair use. Unfortunately, however, the UK doesn't have fair use, and the entertainment industry has fought hard against allowing it, saying it would harm innovation.

So, the end result is the Premier League "protects" its intellectual property, pisses off fans, and basically misses out on pretty much any chance for remaining fans to bring other non-fans to the sport. It doesn't make any sense, but, again, it seems to come from a mindset that just is incomprehensible to me.

Filed Under: animated gifs, copyright, fair use, fans, football, soccer, uk, vines
Companies: premier league, twitter

Twitch Begins Silencing Videos With Audible Magic: Making Everyone Worse Off, Because Copyright Law Sucks

from the not-how-to-do-it dept

As a whole bunch of people on my Twitter feed are letting me know, video game streaming company Twitch* (read disclosure below!) has announced that it has turned on Audible Magic to begin silencing "Video on Demand" videos that make use of copyright-covered music -- including in-game music. This only covers the video on demand (stored) videos, rather than the live streams that Twitch is probably most well known for. As Twitch's General Counsel Boo Baker explains:

We’ve partnered with Audible Magic, which works closely with the recorded music industry, to scan past and future VODs for music owned or controlled by clients of Audible Magic. This includes in-game and ambient music. When music in the Audible Magic database is detected (“Flagged Content”), the affected portion of the VOD will be muted and volume controls for that VOD will be turned off. Additionally, past broadcasts and highlights with Flagged Content are exportable but will remain muted.

The Audible Magic technology will scan for third party music in 30 minute blocks — if Audible Magic does not detect its clients’ music, that portion of the VOD will not be muted. If third party audio is detected anywhere in the 30-minute scanned block, the entire 30 minutes will be muted.

This, quite reasonably, has many folks up in arms -- with Felicia Day making the point in the most humorous of ways: "So Twitch has become a silent movie company now?" That's because pretty much every video game has some music, and it's unlikely (at best) that users of Twitch cleared that music. In the past, we've seen some similar issues with YouTube's ContentID system flagging similar "Let's Play" videos on that site.

Really, what this seems to demonstrate is the failure of the "one-size filter fits all" world that the legacy content industry lives in. The music and movie industries have long demanded such filters, sometimes arguing (though failing) that the current DMCA requires filters like Audible Magic or Content ID. US copyright law currently does not require such a thing, though you know that the industry is pushing hard to get that into any copyright reform bill. And, for all the problems of ContentID (and there are many), it's the kind of solution that you can see often does make sense in a YouTube world (though it has way too many false positives).

However, when it comes to Twitch, this kind of solution seems to make no sense at all. People are not going to Twitch to hear music. They're going to see video games. In fact, this kind of solution on Twitch seems inherently counterproductive for just about everyone. These days musicians want their music in video games because it's fantastic for those musicians, both making them money and giving them a ridiculous amount of exposure. There are even entire discussions for indie musicians about how to get their music into video games because it's such an important promotional avenue.

Those musicians aren't hurt by Twitch videos. They're hurt by silent Twitch videos, meaning fewer people hear the music.

A fairly strong case can be made that in-game and ambient video game music on Twitch is fair use. It seems to be clearly transformative in the same sense that scanning whole books to create a searchable index is transformative fair use or that a book of magazine covers of movie monsters is transformative fair use, or that a book of concert posters is transformative fair use. In each case, while the entire work is used, and the original may have been licensed, the use here is for an entirely different purpose.

And yet, with this move, Twitch seems to be inherently stating that fair use for the audio is an afterthought, rather than a key component to what it's doing.

Given the various lawsuits against other video sites, it's quite likely that Twitch was facing serious legal pressure to make this move. As we've noted, the music industry has repeatedly made arguments in other lawsuits that such filtering was necessary. Just recently, video site Vimeo announced it, too, was using Audible Magic. And, for years, legacy content players have insisted that using such a tool was required.

But it's not. There's nothing in the law that requires a site to do this. And even if you can make the case that it makes sense for general interest user-generated video sites, that's simply not the case with Twitch, whose whole purpose is to stream video from video games. It's yet another case of taking a broad maxim ("video sites should use automated filtering to silence or take down "copyrighted" material") to extreme and ridiculous ends where it doesn't make sense at all.

In other words, it's another example of the pressures and risks of today's copyright laws getting in the way of a useful innovation, leading to a result that is actually worse for everyone.

From a pure "avoiding liability" position, you could see why Twitch would make this decision. Assuming that some recording industry lawyers were pressuring the company, arguing that continuing to allow those videos without a fingerprinting solution put it at risk of losing its DMCA safe harbors. Because that's the kind of argument an RIAA or an ASCAP might make. And this is really a big part of the problem with copyright law today (and especially statutory damages). Even if Twitch believes that not having such a tool is okay, it might still get taken to court and could face a massive judgment if a court decides the other way. Thus, all of the ridiculous incentives of copyright law today push Twitch to make use of this solution that, without any question, makes everyone worse off. It harms musicians. It harms Twitch. It harms video game fans. It harms Twitch's users. It harms video games. Who does it benefit besides Audible Magic and maybe some lawyers?

Copyright remains totally broken.

* Disclosure: As you may know, just a couple of weeks ago, Twitch announced that they were providing matching donations for our net neutrality crowdfunding campaign, something we are quite thankful for. That said, the company's support of that effort doesn't change our views at all on this being a dumb move that harms everyone.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, filtering, fingerprinting, lets play, music, streaming, video games
Companies: audible magic, twitch