Copyfraud: Techdirt Book Club Selection For April

from the get-reading dept

We'll have our discussion with Rebecca MacKinnon about her book soon, but as we've now hit April, I wanted to get people started on the second book we'll be discussing as a part of the Techdirt book club. This time it's Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law by law professor Jason Mazzone. This is a really fantastic book that came out last year, detailing how the overclaiming of rights is a huge problem these days. "Copyfraud" is a term that Mazzone came up with, but which has really caught on as a way to describe those who claim IP rights that simply don't exist.

As part of this, we're posting one of the chapters from the book (in two parts, starting with this post).

You can, of course, find the book at Amazon in hardcover or ebook form (those are both affiliate links, so we get a tiny cut if you buy via them) or get it from lots of other sources. It's also available to check out from many libraries. Stanford University Press also has some ebook rental options.

Since this came up with the last book, I'll address this head on: the ebook pricing on this book is kind of ridiculous. The Kindle offering is $15. The "rental" option from SUP is $7, but you only get to have the book for two weeks. I realize that these prices are not what most people here consider reasonable for an ebook (and I recognize that the idea of renting an ebook for two weeks at $7 will seem crazy to most folks). I spent some time discussing this with SUP, and they said that Amazon will not allow them to create a temporary discount via the Kindle store for just this group (though they tried), and said that they're a small, non-profit publisher, so purchasing the book would be about supporting their mission -- and they do publish some great books. I recognize where they're coming from, and also recognize that this will not satisfy many of you. For those who still want to participate in the discussion, there will still be this chapter that we're publishing, as well as Jason's original paper on Copyfraud. He was also recently on the Surprisingly Free podcast discussing the book.

For future books, we are looking for publishers and authors who actually understand why pricing ebooks at insane levels does them more harm than good, but that's a very small group of publishers, massively limiting our choices, and forcing us to avoid certain books that I believe are well worth reading. If people have suggestions for future books, we're more than happy to look them over.

In the meantime, read on for the first excerpt from Chapter 3 of Jason's book. Chapter 3 is all about Samples and Mashups, which is definitely relevant to what we usually talk about here.

Filed Under: copyfraud, copyright, jason mazzone

Major League Soccer Abusing The DMCA To Censor Controversial Clip Of Player Misconduct

from the copyfraud dept

Back in 2008, we wrote about how Major League Soccer (MLS) was abusing the DMCA to take down video clips which it had absolutely no copyrights over (the event was not filmed or broadcast by MLS) because it didn't like the content (showing a fight that broke out at the soccer match). It appears that MLS has not learned that you cannot abuse the DMCA just because you don't like what the clip shows, as it appears to have done it again. Big time soccer fan (and big time free speech lawyer) Paul Alan Levy noticed recently that a YouTube clip showing Houston Dynamo player Colin Clark calling a ball boy a "faggot" for not throwing the ball to him properly, had been taken down via a DMCA copyright claim from MLS.

As Levy notes, the controversy around what happened resulted in a widespread discussion among fans about the incident, including comparisons to the recent controversy over racist statements by fans in the UK. It also resulted in a public apology from Clark. And yet, still, MLS took down the video.

Levy reached out to the guy who posted the video and sent a letter on his behalf, pointing out that MLS clearly broke the law in not considering fair use before issuing the takedown. The letter lays out why the 20-second video (from a 2-hour match) was clearly, without a doubt, fair use, and how the takedown violates the clear language of the DMCA. He notes that the guy who uploaded the video is a big MLS fan (as is Levy), and they don't want to burden MLS with a lawsuit, but would like MLS to take the following steps:

1. Explain how it made the decision to issue a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube.
2. Promptly inform YouTube that it is withdrawing its takedown notice.
3. Express regret to Mr. Vega for the takedown notice.
4. Put procedures into place to ensure that fair use receives full consideration before any takedown notice is issued.
5. Disclose publicly both what procedures have been adopted, and what standards MLS is providing to its representatives to ensure that they give proper consideration to fair use before issuing takedown notices in the future.

Seems like an easy way out, but who knows if anyone at MLS will even pay attention enough to care.

Filed Under: abuse, copyfraud, copyright, dmca, takedowns
Companies: mls

Big Entertainment Companies Issuing Wrongful YouTube Claims On Public Domain Works

from the that's-depressing dept

As Congress is debating SOPA, it seems worth taking a look at how copyright holders are already abusing existing copyright law to take down content they have absolutely no right to. Cory Doctorow has a column concerning how the "real pirates" of YouTube may be the big entertainment companies, who have been using YouTube's ContentID system (not the DMCA) to "claim" a ton of public domain works:

FedFlix is a charitable project launched by Carl Malamud, a "rogue archivist" who raises funds to digitise and upload videos created at US government expense. Under US law, government creations are in the public domain and can be freely used by anyone, but the US government is remarkably lax about actually making its treasures available to the public that owns them.

Malamud's group pays the fees associated with retrieving copies from the US government – sometimes buying high-priced DVDs that the government issues, other times paying to have unreleased videos retrieved from government archives – and posts them to YouTube, the Internet Archive and other video sites, so that anyone and everyone can see, download, and use them.

Malamud's 146-page report from FedFlix to the Archivist of the United States documents claims that companies such as NBC Universal, al-Jazeera, and Discovery Communications have used ContentID to claim title to FedFlix videos on YouTube. Some music royalty collecting societies have claimed infringements in "silent movies".

I've embedded that full report below as well. As Doctorow notes, under the ContentID system, getting too many strikes can get you in trouble, but there apparently is no way to defend yourself by saying "this work is in the public domain." The closest may be that it's fair use, but fair use doesn't apply to the public domain (fair use is an exception to copyright law, but there's no copyright on public domain material).

There are two issues here. One is the general over-claiming of material by others. That's generally known as copyfraud and should be punishable, but rarely is. The second, perhaps bigger, point is how this ContentID system -- the kind of pre-monitoring system that the entertainment industry has been trying to foist on every user-generated-content site for the past few years -- isn't always so benign. It can clearly catch perfectly legitimate things, and that's a problem if we're trying to encourage the free flow of information.

But, of course, nothing gets done to fix any of this because, as Cory notes, "there is no organized lobby for the public domain." And that's sad. Because, realistically speaking, Congress should be the lobby for the public domain, as they're supposed to (I know, don't laugh) represent the interests of the public.

Filed Under: carl malamud, copyfraud, copyright, copyright abuse, public domain, takedowns

How The Entertainment Industry Is Killing Copyright

from the this-isn't-copyright dept

Law professor Jason Mazzone very kindly sent me a copy of his new book, Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law. It's sitting on my desk and is the next book I'm planning to read. However, he's also written up a fantastic post over at TorrentFreak, that describes how copyright has been privatized by the entertainment industry. He has two key examples of this:

1. Diminished copyright exceptions via contract: Thanks to the digital era, the entertainment industry likes to claim that you no longer purchase content, you merely "license" it. Thus, they're able to establish their own rules to govern what you do with the content, rather than relying on the boundaries of copyright law. As such, for the most part, many have tried to (a) claim copyright/control over more than they have a right to (b) deny you any fair use exceptions and (c) deny you your first sale rights to resell the products you "bought." In other words, by claiming that the sale is a "license" rather than a "sale," companies are effectively able to wipe out the important limitations on copyright.
2. Regulatory capture: The article highlights how copyright policy these days appears to be almost entirely driven by the entertainment industry, who is merely one beneficiary of the law -- but not the intended beneficiary (that would be the public). He uses the examples of the recent "voluntary" (at the strong urging of the White House) agreement between ISPs and the entertainment industry, as well as SOPA, which he notes just takes those "private" powers to extend copyright law even further:

   The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the companion bill to the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act, would further privatize adjudication and punishment. Title I of that law (dubbed the E-PARASITE Act) creates a “market-based system to protect U.S. customers and prevent U.S. funding of sites dedicated to theft of U.S. property.” It achieves this by empowering copyright owners who have a “good faith belief” that they are being “harmed by the activities” of a website to send a notice to the site’s payment providers (e.g. PayPal) and Internet advertisers to end business with the allegedly offending site.
   
   The payment providers and advertisers that receive the notice must stop transactions with the site. No judicial review is required for the notice to be sent and for the payments and advertising curtailed—only the good faith representation of the copyright owner. Damages are also not available to the site owner unless a claimant “knowingly materially” misrepresented that the law covers the targeted site, a difficult legal test to meet. The owner of the site can issue a counter-notice to restore payment processing and advertising but services need not comply with the counter-notice.
   
   There is also a catch: a site owner who issues a counter-notice automatically consents to being sued in U.S. courts (a strong disincentive for sites based abroad). With few checks at all, SOPA gives copyright owners a sharp tool to disrupt and shut down websites. Based on their past conduct, there is no reason to think that copyright owners will use this tool with any measure of restraint.

After thinking about this article for a little while, it finally hit me what's going on. While the entertainment industry and its supporters keep claiming that they're "strengthening copyright," nothing could be further from the truth. All of this is about the industry killing copyright. They're wiping out everything that's actually important about copyright law.

Think about it: the beneficiaries of copyright law are supposed to be the public. The mechanism is through limited-time, government-granted monopolies. But all that matters in copyright law is if the public is benefiting. Things like fair use and the first sale doctrine were added to copyright law to make sure that copyright law benefited the public. But when you look at the two situations described by Mazzone, you realize that everything the industry is doing is to make sure that copyright law no longer benefits the public at all, but rather all of the benefits accrue solely to a few gatekeepers. They're not strengthening copyright law at all, they're killing it. They're making it something entirely different than what it's intended to do... and in the process they're harming the public.

Filed Under: contracts, copyfraud, copyright, entertainment industry, fair use, first sale, privatization

News Agency Seems To Think It Can Copyright The Hells Angels Logo

from the copyrfraud dept

We've been seeing various news agencies try to claim copyright on any images they post lately, and Christian Tremblay points us to yet another such case. This one comes on a French Canadian story from Canoe.ca. Honestly, the story itself is meaningless here, but what caught Tremblay's attention was that the image at the top, of the Hells Angels' logo, appears to have a © notice claiming that the logo's copyright is held by the news agency Agence QMI: That, of course, is a form of copyfraud, but since no one ever seems to get accused of such things, and the courts don't seem to care, news agencies and others can get away with such false copyright claims.

Filed Under: copyfraud, copyright, hell's angels
Companies: agence qmi

Did The FCC 'Rebroadcast Or Retransmit An Account' Of MLB Game On Twitter?

from the bogus-copyright-claims dept

You all know the routine. Towards the end of the sporting event you're watching, one of the announcers will remind the audience that the sports league in question holds the copyright, and you can't do a damn thing about it. It's slightly different per league, but the NFL one reads: "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited." We wrote about that a few years back when law professor Wendy Seltzer posted a clip of just that NFL warning to show how the NFL was exaggerating its rights... and got a takedown notice. The MLB one is a bit different. It reads: "Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited." We wrote about that one because one guy asked MLB for permission to describe a game to his friend, and MLB wouldn't give it. The FTC has been asked to stop sports leagues from making such overly broad (and legally misleading) claims, but hasn't done anything.

I'm reminded about all of this because, as a part of the silly retransmission fight between Fox and Cablevision, where some viewers were blocked from seeing some of the MLB postseason games airing on Fox, apparently the FCC decided to make something of a statement on the issue by tweeting an ongoing account of one of the blacked out games, along with a link to its own consumer alert about the retransmission fight. Here's an example tweet from the FCC's official Twitter account:

Matt Cain relieved after 7 strong, 2 H, 0 ER. Giants scored on two singles, throwing error. SF up 3-0 top 9

Of course, this has some questioning whether or not the FCC just did a rebroadcast or retransmission of an account of the game without (one assumes) express written consent of Major League Baseball. Of course, MLB's random attempts to enforce its bogus claims of ownership on data have all failed, and I'm sure it knows better than to take on the FCC in a losing cause, but it does a nice job of highlighting just how ridiculous the "warning" is from the MLB, and makes you wonder why the FTC doesn't crack down on what appears to be copyfraud.

Filed Under: baseball, copyfraud, copyright, rebroadcast
Companies: fcc, mlb

MLB Refuses To Give Permission To Guy To Describe Game To A Friend

from the expressed-written-permission dept

A couple years ago, law professor Wendy Seltzer used the NFL as an example of sports leagues performing copyfraud, by claiming copyright control beyond what is allowed by law. Specifically, she was talking about the warning mentioned at some point during every game. For the NFL it was: "This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited." In Seltzer's case, amazingly, the NFL sent a DMCA takedown of her posting that clip to YouTube -- giving her another "teachable moment" on copyright abuse.

And yet, sports leagues still continue the copyfraud. One of the fine folks over at Consumerist, Phil Villarreal, found the wording of Major League Baseball's warning quite questionable:

"Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited,"

Unlike the NFL one, at least it didn't say "descriptions," but "account" is pretty close. So, Villarreal contacted MLB to request "express written consent" to provide an "account" of the game he had watched to a friend. To its credit, MLB responded and asked him to call someone in its business development department... who (perhaps reasonably) thought it was a joke and did not provide the written consent (and stopped responding to calls and emails).

Now, obviously, this is a bit of a joke (and a funny one), but it does highlight a rather serious problem. Copyright holders are pretty regularly claiming significantly more rights than they actually hold over content, and many people simply assume that they can do this. This leads to them to think that they don't have basic rights concerning not just "fair use" but stuff that is obviously not covered by copyright, such as an "account of this game." There really should be sanctions against such copyfraud.

Filed Under: baseball, copyfraud, copyright, permission, sports
Companies: mlb.com

Gartner Tells Reporter: You're Not Allowed To Mention Gartner Research Without Our Permission

from the copyright-gone-insane dept

Rich Kulawiec alerts us to the news that Gartner (which absolutely should know better) sent a legal nastygram to a Network World blogger, Larry Chaffin, for the mortal sin of mentioning Gartner without Gartner's permission. Specifically, Gartner is claiming full control over its research reports, and saying that a reporter cannot quote them. Gartner is almost certainly wrong about this. If the information is newsworthy (and it sounds like it was), then a reporter absolutely has the right to post it. Also, Gartner seems confused about how all of this works. It first claims that posting such info was a violation of its own policy... but it's a policy that Chaffin had not agreed to. Perhaps Gartner had a claim against the vendor who gave Chaffin the report, but that doesn't preclude posting the information. On top of that (of course) Gartner is pulling a bit of copyfraud, by claiming that copyright gives it many more rights than it really does:

Gartner's published research is proprietary intellectual property of Gartner, Inc., and is protected by the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. Your company's mention of our research in your material does not comply with our Copyright and Quote Policy (available at the link below) and so this is an infringement of our copyrights. I ask that you take immediate and effective steps to remove this blog posting and also any other unauthorized mention of Gartner's research in any other venue which you control.

There's just one (big) problem with that. Copyright law doesn't really give a hoot what Gartner's own "Quote Policy" is. Copyright law has built in exceptions that can't just be written away like that.

Chaffin actually did take down the posts after being threatened, claiming that in doing so he's showing how meaningless Gartner is. He also promises never to post about any Gartner reports ever again in the future -- but did talk up Gartner's ridiculous policies and demands (amusingly referring to the company as Gar-ner).

Beyond just being of questionable legality, Gartner's actions also seem incredibly short-sighted (especially for a firm that's supposed to be known for being forward looking). Everyone knows the real value in a Gartner report is not in any actual analysis, but in the PR it might generate for companies that find their way into the infamous (and silly) "magic quadrant." By forcing reporters not to talk about who's in that magic quadrant, Gartner has just made its reports significantly less valuable. Now that's foresight.

Filed Under: chilling effects, copyfraud, copyright, research, takedowns
Companies: gartner

B&N Claims It Must DRM Public Domain Books To Protect The Copyright On Them

from the say-what-now? dept

Now, it's no surprise that plenty of people don't quite "get" the public domain or why it's important (though, if you are interested, you should read James Boyle's excellent book on the subject, which you can also order -- signed -- as a part of the Techdirt Book Club). And we've seen more than a few instances where people falsely claim copyright on public domain material. However, none of that really explains Barnes & Noble's bizarre and contradictory response to someone's question about why public domain ebooks were locked up with DRM (thanks Mark for sending this in). B&N is apparently offering a promotion for "free" ebooks, but it turns out that all of them are in the public domain (meaning most are already available for free online). But, oddly, these books were locked up by DRM, and someone decided to ask why. The original question goes a bit too far in claiming that the DRM "infringes" on the "right to print the works" (there's no such right, and B&N has no requirement to allow you to print), but that's no excuse for the way B&N "explains" why the public domain books its giving away "free" are protected by DRM:

We selected public domain titles as our free eBooks because these books are traditionally among our customers' favorite works of literature.... Also, for copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.

So, they recognize that the works are in the public domain... but they encrypt them with DRM to protect the copyright that doesn't exist on those works. That's convincing.

Filed Under: books, copyfraud, copyright, drm, ebooks, public domain

Should There Be A Penalty For Falsely Claiming Copyright Over Public Domain Material?

from the happy-birthday... dept

Slashdot and The Register point us to a new paper by Jason Mazzone about "copyfraud" -- or the ability of someone to claim copyright on something that is in the public domain. The issue, Mazzone points out, is that there's no penalty for falsely claiming copyright on something, so there's plenty of incentive to claim something is still covered even if it's not. Remember the story of "Happy Birthday"? While the common wisdom is that the copyright is owned by Time Warner, there's a lot of evidence that this is not the case at all, and the song is in the public domain. Oh, and that could be true of Mickey Mouse as well. But, of course, neither Disney nor Time Warner risks any punishment in claiming that they still hold the copyright to each of those... so who's going to challenge it?

Filed Under: copyfraud, copyright, false claim, jason mazzone, public domain
Companies: disney, time warner