France's Three Strikes Enforcement Agency... Pirated A Font For Its Logo

from the oooops dept

We've been highlighting how Nicolas Sarkozy -- who was the original strong supporter of "three strikes" proposals to kick people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) -- and his political party have been caught time and time again infringing on the copyright of others. It looks like that's happening again in an even more embarrassing fashion. The organization that's been designated to deal with three strikes in France, Hadopi, unveiled a new logo... that used an unlicensed font, that had been created by France Telecom and had not been licensed for use by anyone else. Hadopi had to scramble and try to find a new font once called on this, and issued an "apology," but will it allow those accused of infringement online the right to "apologize" as well?

These may seem like minor issues, but they're actually quite instructive. The point is that due to the way copyright law is set up, people infringe unintentionally all the time. Even the biggest defenders of copyright do so. And that is the problem with any sort of system that punishes people for something as minor as three infringements -- and it's even worse when its three accusations of infringement, rather than actual convictions. It creates a massive liability for the way everyone -- even copyright defenders -- do things every day. But, of course, the big powerful folks -- the ones who passed and support this law -- can just apologize and ignore the consequences. Everyone else? Good luck.

Filed Under: copyright, fonts, france, hadopi, hypocracy, three strikes

Stronger Copyrights Are Important! Except, You Know, When It Means We Have To Pay Some Money

from the funny-how-that-works... dept

It's always amusing to catch the hypocritical actions of the groups that purport to be in favor of strong copyright rules, but throw those rules right out the window the second it saves them a few bucks. The latest such story involves a group called Prism that is against the idea that publicly-funded research should be available to the public for free. The group bases a lot of its claims on the importance of strong copyrights, but apparently it's not such a huge fan of living up its own standards. As Slashdot highlights the group not only copied some images from Getty Images without paying for them, it put them up on its website with the digital watermarks clearly visible. If you've ever bought stock photography licenses, you know that as you sort through the images, they all contain these visible watermarks to prevent people from doing exactly this type of thing. You only get the watermark-free versions after you've purchased a license. Of course, with the avalanche of Slashdot users, it looks like the group quickly ran out and licensed the photos it was using -- but it again highlights the hypocracy of those who claim to be in favor of strong copyright, when they really just want a monopoly for themselves when it helps themselves.

Filed Under: copyright, hypocracy, violations
Companies: prism