RapidShare Ruled Legal... Yet Again

from the worst-of-the-worst? dept

While the entertainment industry has declared RapidShare to be one of the worst of the worst websites when it comes to copyright infringement, it's notable that the site continues to rack up legal victories. We've covered how it's been vindicated in lawsuits in the US and in Europe, where it's been noted that the site takes down infringing content when made aware of it, and has plenty of non-infringing uses (and users).

Now there's yet another ruling in favor of RapidShare, this time in Germany, where the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf ruled (again) that RapidShare takes "sufficient measures" to stop copyright infringement, in a case brought by Atari. Similar to Viacom in its lawsuit against YouTube, Atari suggested that RapidShare should be required to install a proactive filter, but the court said such a requirement would be unreasonable, since it might also block legitimate works.

Of course, with the US pushing for laws like COICA and standing behind questionable domain name seizures based on faulty evidence, it seems like this, once again, shows how unreasonable it is to simply listen to the RIAA or MPAA and accept their word as clear proof of infringement. As the courts are showing here, just because some industry rep claims a site is the "worst of the worst," it doesn't mean it's actually violating the law.

Filed Under: contributory infringement, copyright, germany, third party
Companies: atari, rapidshare

GEMA Music Collection Society No Longer Will Let Kindergartens Get Away With Teaching Music For Free

from the ownership-society dept

We've discussed a few times how the German music collection society GEMA often appears to be one of the worst of the worst when it comes to copyright maximalism. Its latest move is particularly egregious. While it used to allow pre-schools/kindergartens to hand out sheets with music to the children for singing for free, its policy recently changed, so that the schools now need to pay up (found via Slashdot). In the last few weeks, GEMA started sending out notices to these facilities, warning them to either pay up or no longer hand out sheets with music on it to students. This seems reminiscent of ASCAP demanding that Girl Scouts pay up for singing songs around the campfire. These collection societies have really gotten desperate lately, and now they're trying to shake down kindergarten students for cash. How nice of them.

Filed Under: copyright, germany, kindergarten, music
Companies: gema

Turkey Looks To Copyright Its National Anthem After German Collection Society Tries To Collect Royalties For It

from the copyright-gone-wrong dept

In general, we're no fan of collection societies, which have some pretty serious unintended consequences, often harming up and coming musicians while funneling money to the largest acts. However, I can't recall a collection society as aggressive and as expansionist as GEMA in Germany. When I was in Germany earlier this year, I had multiple musicians tell me how all-controlling GEMA is. Basically, if you want to use GEMA for just about anything, you effectively abdicate pretty much all of your rights to your music to GEMA. Two separate musicians showed me how they had secret websites where fans could download their music, because GEMA wouldn't let them give away their own music for free under a Creative Commons license.

So, I'm not too surprised to hear reports that the Turkish government is now scrambling to try to copyright its own national anthem after hearing that GEMA tried to collect royalties on it. The story is a bit confusing but it appears that GEMA, in standard collection society fashion, demanded that a Turkish school in Germany pay up for performing music. The school responded that the only music that was performed was the Turkish national anthem. This is where some of the dispute comes in. It appears that GEMA believes other covered music was also performed, and its asking for royalties from that and saying it never meant to collect for the Turkish national anthem. However, the school insists that was the only song performed -- so it went to the Turkish Culture Minister to ask for help. At that point, the Turkish government realized that there simply was no copyright on the song.

Now, here's where the Turkish government also went wrong. It could have just declared the Turkish national anthem in the public domain and told GEMA to shove off. But, instead, it took the backwards-looking step of trying to retroactively copyright the national anthem. Of course, that may open up a different can of worms. The report at Spiegel notes that, technically, the heirs of the songwriter (who died in 1958) might actually be more entitled to the copyright and any royalties than the Turkish government.

So, by rushing to secure the copyright, Turkey may end up with more trouble on its hands. It's difficult to believe that a copyright makes sense for any national anthem. Just put it in the public domain and let anyone sing it.

Filed Under: copyright, germany, national anthem, turkey
Companies: gema

Blurred German Houses Get Egged By Google Street View Fans

from the your-house-is-not-blurred-in-real-life dept

We found it to be somewhat silly that various folks in Germany could have Google blur the image of their house, as some sort of misguided privacy notion. As if to highlight the fact that if your house is blurred that it's not as if people can't see it in real life, it appears some overzealous Google fans have started throwing eggs at houses that chose to be blurred. As if the message wasn't clear enough, the houses that were egged also had notices taped to their mailboxes stating "Google's cool." That all seems a bit extreme (Google, rightly, is stating that this is not "acceptable behavior"). While I agree with Google that this is really childish behavior, there is a bit of a typical Streisand Effect to all of this. In trying to block the images of their homes, they have only served to call that much more attention to their homes.

Filed Under: germany, privacy, street view
Companies: google

German Appeals Court Says Video Hosting Platform Not Liable For User Uploaded Videos

from the chalk-one-up-for-proper-application-of-liability dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a German lower court ruling that found YouTube liable for copyright infringement, for the actions of a user, uploading a Sarah Brightman song to the platform. As I noted at the time, this didn't make much sense at all, since there's simply no way for Google to know ahead of time whether or not the user has permission to upload a video. Putting the liability on the service provider is simply nonsensical. The week after that ruling came out, I actually was in Berlin, for Berlin Music Week/Popkomm/A2N, and led a session discussing the legal status of YouTube. It was quite interesting, and I talked with a lot of folks on all sides of the issue (some were... um... angrier than others). But one thing that I was told over and over again by folks is that there are some serious issues with German copyright law, which considers third party liability a perfectly normal thing (and demonstrating how ridiculous this is, one audience member angrily read aloud some incendiary comments -- one of which insulted Germans -- from Techdirt and told me I was liable for it under German law, and then demanded to know why I hadn't taken it down).

However, thankfully, it appears that not every court in Germany feels that this is what the law says, or that this is acceptable. Apparently, a few years back, the very same court that issued the YouTube/Sarah Brightman ruling also issued a similar ruling against a local video hosting site called Sevenload, saying that it was liable for infringing videos uploaded by users. However, it appears that the appeals court has now reversed that decision, and ruled that Sevenload should not be liable. After the jump, I've embedded an English translation of the ruling, but the key point is that the court found that since Sevenload is not active in selecting the content, it makes no sense to hold the company liable. It also laughed off the argument from the rightsholder that since it wasn't known who uploaded the video, it could have been an employee of Sevenload. The court notes that this argument was brought up too late (i.e., not in the lower court decision) and that the plaintiff didn't offer any evidence to support such an assertion.

One part I liked in the ruling is that the court pointed out that it should be common sense that user-created content is not from the company in question:

Furthermore, from other services on the Internet, Internet users are used to areas being set up in which users can participate, in particular discussion forums. The sensible Internet user does not, as a rule, regard these areas as the site operator’s own content for which the operator intends to take responsibility.

The court also cites other cases which noted online auction providers are not expected to review every auction before it goes up, "as this would call the entire business model into question." Similarly, the court finds it silly that a video hosting service should need to inspect each video. While certainly no guarantee, this appeals court ruling appears to bode well for Google's appeal of the Sarah Brightman ruling.

Filed Under: germany, liability, service providers, uploads, video
Companies: sevenload

Google Begins Blurring German Houses In Street View On Request

from the second-blur-on-the-left dept

In one of the more ridiculous overreactions to screams of "privacy," Germany recently required Google to agree to "blur" any Street View images at the request of property owners. That anyone could just drive/walk/fly by and view the same property perfectly clearly, didn't seem to register with those making the rules. Apparently 3% of homeowners have demanded their homes be blurred, and Google has now blurred the images. Chris Matyszczyk, over at CNET, took the following screenshot: I'm trying to figure out how this helps anyone. Is it really protecting anyone's actual privacy to have the image of their house blurred in this nature? Is there really so much info in such an image that it was a serious concern pre-blurring?

Filed Under: blurring, germany, street view
Companies: google

German Teen Charged With Sharing Music Fined 30 Euros

from the seems-a-bit-more-reasonable dept

While we're still dealing with people losing copyright lawsuits and being told to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for sharing a handful of songs, a court in Germany has ordered a guy to pay a grand total of 30 euros ($41) for sharing two music tracks. He had been sued by the copyright holders, demanding 300 euros per track, but the court apparently decided to cut the amount down to just 5% of the rightsholders' request. Separately, the copyright holders had apparently tried to also sue the kid's father, since it was his internet connection that was being used -- but the court rejected that line of attack, quite reasonably.

Filed Under: file sharing, fines, germany

Court Allows German Website To Link To Software Company's Website Five Years Later

from the links-are-speech dept

Having recently been in Germany, and discussing the state of the law there, I have to say that I was pretty stunned with the level of liability placed on third parties in Germany. I was told, repeatedly, that German law places tremendous liability on third parties, holding them responsible for actions of users in many, many cases. So, perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise that a news publisher, Heise, was banned from linking to a software company, Slysoft, which makes programs for copying various content from CDs, DVDs, etc., and which can be used to circumvent DRM. Way back in 2005, Heise was sued by folks in the music industry (it's unclear exactly who, and most of my searches are turning up only German reports on this -- so if anyone knows, please fill us in via the comments), and a court ruled that it could not even link to Slysoft's front page, even as the company's lawyers pointed out (correctly) that not linking wouldn't exactly stop people from being able to find Slysoft and its software, and that linking is part of how journalism works these days.

Another court in 2008 agreed, but now, five years after the original ruling, it appears that a court has rejected those earlier rulings and upheld Heise's right to link to the website of a company it was reporting on (found via Glyn Moody). It's pretty amazing in this day and age that this even needs to be discussed, but there's still plenty of confusion over this. A link is just a form of speech. It's about time that courts finally understood this simple fact.

Filed Under: copyright, drm, germany, links
Companies: heise, slysoft

German Court Says YouTube Has To Pay Because A User Uploaded A Musician's Video

from the bizarrely-misguided dept

Just after a court ruling saying that YouTube did not have to rush and takedown videos covered by German collection society GEMA, but warning that YouTube could very well lose during a full trial, it appears that a German court has ordered YouTube to pay up, because some users uploaded videos of singer Sarah Brightman without permission. Google had argued that it can't be held responsible for making sure the content users upload is not infringing, and pointed out that it even asks users to confirm that they have the rights to upload the works they're uploading. However, the court claimed that such a requirement doesn't absolve YouTube from liability.

The company is going to appeal, but I'm trying to figure out how this makes any sense at all. How can Google possibly know upfront whether or not a user has permission to upload content? It makes absolutely no sense.

Of course, the timing on this is quite good for me. I'm hopping a flight to Germany this weekend, to attend the A2N conference where (among other sessions), I'll be having an on-stage talk with Patrick Walker, from YouTube -- where I'll at least be certain to ask about this.

Filed Under: germany, music, sarah brightman, videos
Companies: google, youtube

German Court Says Google May Have To Police Videos On YouTube For Infringement

from the that's-not-good dept

Interesting timing on this. Next Thursday, September 9th, at the All 2gether Now conference in Berlin, I'll be on stage having a discussion with Patrick Walker of YouTube about collection societies, record labels and how they deal with sites like YouTube. Of particular interest, given the location, will be the ongoing legal fight between the German collection society GEMA and YouTube. On that note, a German court just initially side with YouTube that it does not need to block videos from appearing on YouTube, but (more worrisome), suggested that in a full trial it had a much better chance of siding with GEMA and suggesting that YouTube should police the content on the site:

"There are some good reasons to think that YouTube indeed has some duty to take care of detecting illegal uploads," Presiding Judge Heiner Steeneck said today. "GEMA has the opportunity to ask for such a ruling in regular proceedings."

The two organizations have been fighting about this for some time now, but I don't quite understand the judge's "good reasons" here. How is a third party supposed to be able to detect infringing content when many musicians and labels already put their content on YouTube on purpose? How is YouTube supposed to make the determination of "this is infringing" without additional info? Already, YouTube does have a Content ID system which will block certain uploads (or let the copyright holder monetize them) so I'm not clear how much more the judge or GEMA expects.

Separately, since I'm already mentioning my participation at A-2-N, I should also mention that I'm running an interactive "brainstorming session" on Tuesday the 7th on better ways to connect with fans and give them a reason to buy. For those attending the event, I hope to see you at either of those sessions.

Filed Under: copyright, germany, videos, youtube
Companies: gema, google, youtube