TSA Agents Continue To Lie And Say You Can't Photograph Or Videotape Checkpoints

from the on-purpose? dept

The TSA recently reiterated that it is entirely legal to photograph or videotape airport checkpoints and security screenings:

Please be assured that TSA’ s goal is to protect passenger’s rights, including the right to record at passenger screening checkpoints, while ensuring that passenger screening operations can take place in an effective and efficient manner.

While the TSA may be telling the press that... it appears they forgot to tell the actual TSA agents on the ground who continue to threaten people for filming their activities.

The latest incident took place in Baltimore. The videotape was uploaded on July 10.

The action starts at 1:24 when a woman is videotaping the checkpoint process, waiting for her husband to walk through.

A TSA supervisor confronts her, telling her she is not allowed to videotape the checkpoint.

But she continues to videotape, asking him for a document that confirms it is not allowed.

He tells her he doesn’t have the time to show her, but will gladly call police and then have her removed from the airport.

At 3:16 in the video, a second TSA screener storms up and tells her to stop videotaping, but she continues to do so. When she continues to question their authority, the second TSA screener tells her she is allowed to videotape on the other side of the metal detectors but not once she is inside the checkpoint area.

That, of course, is not true.

These kinds of stories seem to keep popping up every week or so. Even more ridiculous, the guy in the video who claims he's the supervisor says that the checkpoint is "classified." Later, a second TSA official says she has to delete the video. None of that is true. In fact, it's outright ridiculous.

Later, the TSA agents appear to be entirely vindictive, asking for ID so they can write up a report. When asked why, the agent says he finds the questions asked "particularly... disturbing" because "there were children in the background" and the guy had asked whether or not the naked scanners could see his penis.

Once again, it seems like the TSA is making a mockery of the Constitution.

Filed Under: cameras, tsa, video

Rihanna Sued By Yet Another Photographer Who Doesn't Understand That An Homage Is Not A Copy

from the ain't-the-same dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how photographer David LaChappelle was suing Rihanna for the video of her song S&M, which includes a variety of scenes that might sorta be attempts to depict LaChappelle photographs as a part of a video: I couldn't see how that was copyright infringement at all, but apparently another photographer heard about LaChappelle's lawsuit and decided to jump into the fray as well. Photographer Philipp Paulus is claiming that a different part of that same video infringes on the copyright of one of his photographs: Once again, I'm at a loss to see how this might be infringing. At best, it's an homage, for which the artist should be happy. At worst, it's hard to argue that this isn't a clear case of fair use. It's definitely transformative in a variety of ways (photo to video, very different scenes and setups, music video, etc.) and it's ridiculous to argue that this, in any way, harms the commercial value of the original work. These lawsuits just seem like some annoying photographers trying to cash in.

Filed Under: copyright, david lachappelle, philipp paulus, photographs, rihanna, video

UFC Claims Copyright On Video Of The Crowd At Its Events?

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

Rob points us to news about a fight that broke out in the audience at a UFC event in Toronto recently. Of course, we couldn't care less about the fight itself, but what's interesting is that the video of the fight in the audience has been taken down, due to a copyright claim from UFC: At least for the time being, you can still see the video elsewhere, and I can't see how UFC has any sort of reasonable copyright claim on it. Whoever took the video may have a copyright claim, but UFC? Perhaps it can make a weak argument that some of the audio in the background is UFC's? But even then it seems like the claim is a huge stretch. Perhaps UFC thinks it automatically gets the copyright on anyone fighting on the premises? Once again, this seems like a case of copyright being used to censor content someone doesn't want people to see/hear/read, rather than a legitimate use of copyright.

Filed Under: copyright, crowd, ufc, video

Justice Department Investigating MPEG-LA For Antitrust Violations Over VP8 Patent Threats

from the monopolies dept

This is quite a surprise. We'd already covered how MPEG-LA, the private company that has set up patent pools around web video, had announced its intention to set up a patent pool focused on the patents that holders believe are infringed upon by Google's VP8/WebM video standard. This definitely seemed like a typical shakedown situation, with one company basically asking a bunch of others to team up to demand a bunch of cash from Google.

What's surprising, however, is that the US Justice Department is apparently jumping into this particular battle, and investigating if MPEG-LA's response violates antitrust law. Apparently, the Justice Department (which is not exactly known as being a Google supporter...) is questioning whether or not this move by MPEG-LA and its members represents an attempt to stifle competition in the marketplace. Of course, the answer seems to be yes, but part of that is the very nature of patents. They are, by definition, a monopoly right. So if they want to stop monopoly abuse from stifling competition, perhaps the government should stop handing out so many monopolies.

Filed Under: antitrust, patents, video, vp8, web video, webm
Companies: google, mpeg-la

Musician/Comedian Faces 20 Years In Jail For Silly Video No Different Than Done On TV & In Movies

from the that's-not-right dept

Slashdot points us to yet another example of overzealous prosecutors going after someone with felony charges for a joke (perhaps done in poor taste). In this case, it involves 21-year-old musician/comedian Evan Emory, who performed childrens' songs in front of some elementary school kids. Later that day, after everyone else had left, he also performed and recorded another song with sexually explicit lyrics. He then cut the footage of the two songs together, to make it look like he was singing the explicit song to the kids. This is, admittedly, in extremely poor taste -- but as the Slashdot post notes, it's no different than what has been regularly done on various TV shows and in movies. The Slashdot post has even more examples, but those three all seem to be pretty "mainstream" and well-known examples of this tactic.

Yet, when Emory did it, he was arrested, charged with a felony for "manufacturing child sexual abusive material" and now faces 20 years in prison. Emory appears to be deeply remorseful, and notes that he obviously never intended to harm any kids, and searches of his house and computer showed no evidence of any actual child porn. But it doesn't seem to have stopped prosecutors from their plans to charge him with this felony. The prosecutor seems to be willfully ignoring the intent of the video:

"If you insinuate that you want to have sex with young children in Muskegon County and put that in the Internet, you've got a problem with the law," Tague said.

"As prosecutor of Muskegon County, I feel I have a strong obligation to vigorously defend all the children in our county. To insinuate on a tape that you want to perform perverted acts on children is clearly within the scope of the law with which Mr. Emory is charged."

Except, of course, Emory did not insinuate he wanted to have sex with those kids. It was a (crass and tasteless) joke video. I'm all for law enforcement prosecuting real child abusers to the fullest extent possible under the law. But going after folks like Emory here seems to make a mockery of the law, and take away efforts from stopping those who actually do want to do harm to children.

Filed Under: comedy, evan emory, felony, video

Photographer Sues Rihanna Saying Her Video Violates Copyright On His Photos

from the an-homage-is-infringing? dept

This is bizarre. Shocklee points us to the news that celebrity photographer David LaChapelle is suing singer Rihanna, claiming that the video of her latest song, "S&M" is "directly derived" from his photographs. I haven't seen the full lawsuit filing (anyone got it?), so I don't know all of the details of what's being alleged, but the derivative claims sound like a standard copyright claim. A few news sources have compared the video and the photos, and while they're similar and the photos certainly may have inspired the scenes in the video, they certainly don't look like direct copies in any way. Here are a few examples, video on the left, photos on the right. I'm having trouble understanding how any of these would be considered copyright infringing. Sure, they may be homages to the original photos, but that shouldn't be infringing. Remember, copyright is only supposed to cover the specific expression, and not the idea. In all of these examples, it looks like the specific expression is quite different, even if the idea is similar. Why not just be happy with the flattery and move on? Of course, some will say that the press attention from the lawsuit is probably the reason why, and perhaps that's true, even if it's an incredibly cynical view on the world.

Filed Under: copyright, david lachapelle, rihanna, video

MPEG-LA Follows Through On Its Promise To Go After Google For Daring To Offer Patent-Free Video

from the we-must-find-some-patents! dept

Right after Google announced that it was "freeing" up its VP8 video codec under the WebM name, in an effort to get away from the heavily patented H.264 standard, MPEG-LA, the private company that manages the H.264 patent pool and has done some patent trolling at times, announced that it was planning to set up a patent pool around VP8 insisting that it simply wasn't possible that there could be a web video standard that wasn't patented (and wasn't paying MPEG-LA, I guess).

That was back in May, and it's taken until February, but MPEG-LA has officially put out a call for patents that cover VP8. That's a pretty clear declaration of war. It's also fairly obnoxious. What sort of organization blatantly says "Company X has released a cool technology to the world, and we're going to find any and all patents that will destroy that?" What an incredibly anti-innovation stance.

That said, I do wonder why it took so long between announcing the original plans and making this call. Perhaps it's discovered that it wasn't quite as easy as they had hoped to find patents that cover VP8. For its part, Google insists it's committed to fighting to keep V8 patent-free, and hopefully it stands by that commitment.

Filed Under: online video, patents, video, vp8, webm
Companies: google, mpeg-la

Rock & A Hard Place: Will Google Dropping H.264 Lead To Antitrust Questions?

from the of-course-it-will dept

There was a lot of attention paid to the news that Google was going to drop H.264 support for Chrome. The reasoning makes perfect sense. H.264 is a proprietary standard, run by MPEG-LA, a group that has been quite aggressive at times on the patent front, and which could eventually turn around and charge websites for using it (right now it charges for hardware, but lets websites use it royalty free, and has promised to keep it that way until at least 2015). Getting locked into proprietary standards is bad, so getting away from those standards is good. I'm all for it, especially given MPEG-LA's views on patents. However, I wonder how long it will be until someone claims that this move shows that Google is violating antitrust laws. After all, part of doing this is to push its own WebM format forward.

Of course, this demonstrates the difficult position that Google is put in on this subject. Lots of folks keep trying to play gotcha with Google pushing its own solutions. That's what some of the various antitrust investigations have been about. But when pushing its own solutions means getting away from proprietary, locked down standards, that seems like it can only be a good thing for consumers. And, really, shouldn't the determination of any sort of antitrust argument be about the impact on the overall market?

Filed Under: antitrust, h.264, video
Companies: google

Hulu Realizes That It Can't Go Public Because Its Business Plan Is Hindered

from the you-don't-revolutionize-from-the-inside dept

We've been pointing out for a while that Hulu, as well designed as the website is, is always going to run into trouble as long as it's controlled by the TV companies who won't let the company do the disruptive things it really needs to do to move the industry forward. For example, rather than really innovate, Hulu's been focused on this disastrous attempt to create a paywall, that has been such a disaster that Hulu has even admitted it sucks, and has already dropped the prices, because very, very few people subscribed. Hulu had announced plans for an IPO a while back, and there have been rumors ever since it did that Wall Street just didn't buy Hulu as a sustainable company. In fact, we've heard that the key driving force for creating the paywall was to try to show Wall Street that the company could make money beyond advertising.

However, with the failure of the paywall, the IPO plans have now gone away as well -- and with it, the hundreds of millions the company hoped to raise. The end result may mean that the company will need to go back to its current entrenched TV company owners for more cash, which will only make Hulu even more beholden to them, making it that much harder for Hulu to do the truly disruptive things it needs to take things to the next level. Instead, it's going to be some upstart (whether legal or not) that will convince people that TV online can be done quite differently than it's being done today.

Filed Under: ipo, video
Companies: hulu

Google To Make Video Services More Annoying After Buying DRM Company?

from the seriously? dept

You would think that the folks over at Google would know by now what a joke DRM is -- especially after the company's disastrous foray into server-based DRM on its original Google Video platform that required users to "check in" before they could watch videos they thought they had "purchased." However, Google made some news this week by buying DRM vendor Widevine. It's no secret why the company did so: it wants to appease the big entertainment companies, promising that it's "protecting" their works and trying to sign big dollar deals to distribute their content via YouTube or the as-yet-unannounced Google Music offering. But, still, it's unfortunate that (even if it's demanded by these companies) Google would legitimize technology that purposely is designed to destroy value for consumers.

Filed Under: drm, video
Companies: google