Why Is The Copyright Office Lying To Protect The Cable Industry's Monopoly Stranglehold Over The Cable Box?

from the defenders-of-the-status-quo dept

The FCC's attempt to bring some much needed competition to the cable box has birthed an absolute torrent of lobbying shenanigans by the cable and entertainment industries. They've pushed a flood of misleading editorials in major papers and websites claiming the plan is somehow racist and will unveil a piracy apocalypse. They've nudged Congressional campaign contribution recipients to bash the plan as an extreme case of government over-reach. They've also managed to convince the press and some FCC staffers the idea is an attack on copyright, when copyright has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Quick background: under the FCC's original proposal (pdf), the FCC wants cable companies to provide programming access to third-party hardware vendors without the need for a CableCARD, the goal being to generate competition in the space resulting in better, cheaper and more open cable boxes. Under the proposal cable operators would be able to use any copyright protection or DRM standard they choose to deliver this content to companies like Google, Amazon or TiVO -- and the FCC has repeatedly stated any final rules would respect existing copyright and financial arrangements between cable and the customer.

But because the plan would cost cable providers $21 billion annually in rental fee revenue and result in more open cable boxes (more likely to direct viewers to third party streaming competitors), they've been trying to use a false definition of "copyright" to protect its monopoly stranglehold over cable hardware. And now, the cable industry has another ally in their attempt to mislead the press and public on this subject: The United States Copyright Office.

For months the Copyright Office has been quietly going around "educating" DC regulators and politicians on the FCC's cable box reform plan, falsely claiming that the plan is an attack on copyright. These efforts have been effective in getting some of the FCC Commissioners that originally voted to approve the plan to waffle on their decision. The behavior resulted in a number IP lawyers (including Annmarie Bridy) recently warning the Office that it's giving horrible advice and ignoring legal precedent as to the scope of copyright.

Undaunted, the Copyright Office this week doubled down on its misleading arguments, sending a letter to Congress (pdf) that's absolutely jam-packed with claims ranging from the incredibly misleading to downright bullshit. At its core, the Office's letter continues to pretend that the FCC’s NPRM would require copyright owners to give their content away for free exploitation by third party devices. That the FCC's plan lets "big tech" hijack cable's innovation and re-purpose it for all manner of nefarious use has been a cable lobbyist argument for the last year, and it pops up repeatedly in the structural underpinnings of the Office's own argument:

"The Office's principal reservation is that, as currently proposed, the rule could interfere with copyright owners' rights to license their works as provided by copyright law, and restrict their ability to impose reasonable conditions on the use of these works through the private negotiations that are the hallmark of the vibrant and dynamic MPVD marketplace."

Use of phrasing like "vibrant and dynamic" to describe the most-hated industry in the United States gives you a pretty solid sense of the objectivity of the Office's argument. But again, this idea that third parties can simply take cable company programming, throw their own ads on it, and present it as their own isn't what the FCC's proposing. At all. All the same licensing arrangements, consumer cable pricing, advertising, and DRM will remain intact (for better or worse).

Throughout the letter, the Copyright Office repeatedly claims that copyright gives cable companies more control than they actually have. While copyright obviously gives an author some control over the copying and redistribution of their works, these rights can't magically be extended wherever and whenever one chooses, especially, as the EFF this week argued in a great reply to the letter, when it conflicts with the rights of the end user:

"Once a copyright holder has released their work to paying customers, like cable subscribers, those customers have their own set of rights: to view TV programs at home or on the go, to skip around within the programs as they wish, to search for and organize the programs and other content they’re entitled to see, and to choose tools that enable them to do these things.

The Copyright Office’s letter implies that cable and content companies could create new rights for themselves just by writing them into private contracts between each other: the right to control which “platforms and devices” customers can use, the right to limit time-shifting and other fair uses, and the right to “exclude” other software from a customer’s device. While private companies are free to negotiate conditions like these between each other, nothing in the law gives copyright holders the power to impose those conditions on the whole world, snuffing out the rights of users.

Of course that's precisely what the cable industry wants to do. For decades the cable industry has enjoyed a captive monopoly over cable hardware, resulting in expensive household rental fees and an erosion in consumer viewing rights. As the more open PC era arrived and challenged the inflexible mantra of traditional cable, the cable industry has worked harder on protecting this model than it has on evolving. Finally faced with a viable threat to monopoly hardware control, cable is falsely claiming that copyright gives it the right to continue imprisoning customers in an antiquated walled garden smelling faintly of old people and mothballs.

But here's the important part: copyright law cannot be used for this purpose -- and you'd think the Copyright Office would know that. The Copyright Office is twisting the fact that two private parties can negotiate away fair use and other rights for themselves, but the absolutely cannot negotiate away those rights for the public. Yet that's exactly what the Copyright Office is claiming.

In short this isn't a debate about copyright, it's a debate about control. The idea that these new cable boxes and associated services might interfere with contractual agreements around windowing and tiering is simply not a copyright concern and yet here is the Copyright Office incorrectly claiming that it is. The Copyright Office also ignores that these changes don't eliminate or weaken DRM, and that customers using these new, more open cable boxes would still be cable customers, paying the same high prices they always have. Also ignored by the Copyright Office is the fact that these changes would be a net benefit to consumers and countless companies alike.

Needless to say, consumer advocacy groups like Public Knowledge were equally unimpressed with the Copyright Office's selective reasoning:

"Under the Copyright Office's analysis, the interests of consumers are irrelevant, and fair use is an obstacle to be overcome. This letter is another example of how the Copyright Office has become dedicated to the interests of some copyright holders -- as opposed to providing an accurate interpretation of copyright law."

In short, the Copyright Office is being used as a puppet to defend one of the least liked industries in America, distorting the very definition of copyright to help protect said industry's monopoly control over the cable box.

Filed Under: competition, copyright, copyright office, fair use, public rights, restrictions, set top boxes, video

Why Does The TPP Repeatedly Require Stronger Copyright, But When It Comes To Public Rights... Makes It Voluntary?

from the what's-up-with-that? dept

We've already written a few stories about the newly leaked IP chapter of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, and how the US is pushing back against any attempt to punish abusers or to support the public domain. But in going through the documents, another key fact strikes me. Throughout the document it's designed to absolutely require strict copyright laws and enforcement. But when it gets to the public's rights, the so-called "limitations and exceptions," the agreement tosses up a big fat "meh, that one's voluntary."

We've already pointed out how ridiculous it is to refer to things like fair use as a "limitation and exception" to copyright, when it should be the public's rights -- and copyright restrictions are, by their very nature, a limitation and exception on those natural rights. But it's even worse in the TPP. As you may recall, the USTR announced, with great fanfare back in 2012, that "for the first time" it was moving to include such "limitations and exceptions" in the TPP. The USTR thought that this would appease people who had been complaining about the entirely one-sided pro-copyright extremist position that it had been pushing for decades. Of course, when the details came out it showed that the USTR was really proposing a limit on fair use by proposing a rule that would act as a ceiling for the kind of fair use-like protections for the public that would be allowed.

Now, with the latest leak, there's something else that's noteworthy. Here's the text of the "limitations and exceptions" clause in the copyright section:

Article.GG.Y {Limitations and Exceptions}

Each Party shall endeavour to achieve an appropriate balance in its copyright and related rights system, inter alia by means of limitations or exceptions that are consistent with Article QQ.G.16.1, including those for the digital environment, giving due consideration to legitimate purposes such as, but not limited to: criticism; comment; news reporting; teaching, scholarship, research, and other similar purposes; and facilitating access to published works for persons who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled.

Notice the text I bolded: "shall endeavour." In other words, "well, you can try for it, but you don't need to do it." Now, look at basically all of the other text and it's straight up "shall." No "shall endeavour" for everything else. Everything else is required. Only the stuff about the public's rights lets countries not do it so long as they claim they tried. Here, just for comparison's sake, are just a few of the other "shall's":

Article QQ.G.1: {Copyright and Related Rights/Right of Reproduction}

Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms in any manner or form, including in electronic form.

And...

each Party shall provide to authors the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the communication to the public of their works, by wire or wireless means, including the making available to the public of their works in such a way that members of the public may access these works from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

And...

Each Party shall provide to authors, performers, and producers of phonograms the right to authorize or prohibit the making available of the original and copies of their works, performances, and phonograms through sale or other transfer of ownership.

And...

Each Party shall provide that in cases where authorization is needed from both the author of a work embodied in a phonogram and a performer or producer owning rights in the phonogram, the need for the authorization of the performer or producer is also required.

Etc. etc. By my count, the copyright section includes thirteen "shall provide" and just the one measly "shall endeavour." And if you add in the enforcement section you get another thirty eight "shall provide" and just a single "shall endeavour" buried in a footnote unrelated to the key points in the document.

So, for those of you playing along at home, the message being sent by the TPP is pretty damn clear: when it comes to ratcheting up copyright and setting the ground rules for enforcement everything is required and every country must take part. Yet, when it comes to protecting the rights of the public and making sure copyright is more balanced to take into account the public... well, then it's optional.

I guess that's what happens when the public is not allowed a seat at the table, but the industry representatives get full time access to the document and the negotiators.

Filed Under: copyright, exceptions, fair use, limitations and exceptions, public rights, tpp, ustr

DC Police Chief Publicly Criticizes Officer's Actions After He Attempts To Shut Down A Citizen Recording An Arrest

from the an-event-so-rarely-seen,-it-has-long-been-presumed-mythical dept

Over two years ago, Washington, DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier enacted a new policy for her officers to follow when dealing with citizens armed with cameras. Very simply put: leave them alone.

"A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media," Chief Lanier writes. The First Amendment protects the right to record the activities of police officers, not only in public places such as parks and sidewalks, but also in "an individual's home or business, common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, and any other public or private facility at which the individual has a legal right to be present."

Lanier says that if an officer sees an individual recording his or her actions, the officer may not use that as a basis to ask the citizen for ID, demand an explanation for the recording, deliberately obstruct the camera, or arrest the citizen. And she stresses that under no circumstances should the citizen be asked to stop recording. [Emphasis added for reasons that will become clear in a few paragraphs.]

Even if citizens are somehow impeding police work, under no circumstances should they be asked to stop recording. They should be asked to move out of the way and that request should be the totality of the interaction.

The new citizen recording policy was violated the next day. DC police officers seized a man's phone. They later returned it, but without the memory card. Both actions violated Lanier's clear instructions that cameras/phones could only be acquired with the person's permission and that all devices seized must be returned intact.

This policy has now been in effect for nearly 26 months. Some officers apparently have yet to be "read in" on the specifics.

Here's what happened to one citizen who attempted to record an arrest being made.


From the description:

"I pulled out my phone and began recording when I came upon a man being physically restrained by 7 D.C. police officers outside the downtown branch of the D.C. Public Library September 7, 2014, at 6:24 p.m. The video came out blurry, but 48 seconds in, Officer C.C. Reynolds (badge 3983) didn't like that I was recording the proceedings, and tried to intimidate me into leaving the scene."

Officer C.C. Reynolds tries out various tactics, like claiming a public sidewalk is private property, claiming the recording is part of the investigation/evidence, claiming that the person recording could easily become part of the investigation (a little threat) and that the photographer is interfering with the arrest. All of it is false. He also baselessly demands the photographer give him his name and present ID.

So far, nothing surprising. The First Amendment right to record public officials is still intact, but it is very often ignored by those being recorded. What is surprising is the official reaction. None other than the police chief herself criticized the actions of the officer in a written statement to WNEW.

We have an extremely clear policy that addresses the Metropolitan Police Department's recognition of the First Amendment rights enjoyed by – not only members of the media, but the general public as well – to video record, photograph and or audio record MPD members conducting official business or while acting in an official capacity in any public space, unless such recordings interfere with police activity.

We spent an extensive amount of time to ensure that members were aware of the policy (developed in 2011).

The video speaks for itself. I was shocked when I saw it. There is no excuse for an officer to be unaware of the policy.

This matter is under investigation.

Cathy L. Lanier
Chief of Police

It's not very often that a police chief will publicly criticize an officer's actions. Normally, this sort of thing is handled with a blow-off statement about being "under investigation." Only in very rare circumstances is that statement accompanied by a clear admission of fault.

According to Andrew Heining (the photographer who was harassed), he received another out-of-the-ordinary response when he filed a complaint at the precinct.

I filled out a PD-99 Citizen Complaint form with MPD Sunday night and submitted it to Internal Affairs and the District 1 Commander. I heard back from Commander Jeff Brown and Captain Brian Harris on Monday afternoon, and again from Capt. Harris Tuesday night. Capt. Harris told me the officers shown were clearly in the wrong, that he and another officer he showed it to said "What the hell!?" aloud while watching it. He told me that the officers in the video would be disciplined.

If nothing else, this indicates Chief Lanier is dead serious about the new photography/recording policy. It wasn't something slapped into place as a token effort to mollify critics. She wants officers to respect her constituents' First Amendment rights. Even better, it appears other commanding officers feel the same way.

Filed Under: cathy lanier, civil rights, dc police, photography, police, public rights, video taping

Copyright Week: Fair Use Is Not An 'Exception' But The Rule

from the it's-your-rights dept

Update: This post was modified to better explain the role of the three-steps test in both Berne and the TPP.

Today is day five of Copyright Week, where the focus is on fair use. Earlier today we already had Michael Petricone's excellent post about the innovations and consumer benefits unleashed by the Betamax ruling, which hinged on the concept of fair use. Over at Wired, Automattic's (the makers of WordPress) general counsel, Paul Sieminski, also has a great post talking about how much innovation is enabled by fair use and why companies should be fighting more to support their users' fair use rights. Meanwhile, over at Public Knowledge, there's a good discussion of how the flexibility of fair use is important in enabling it to respond to new innovations. These are all great ways of looking at the issue.

I wanted to focus on a different aspect of fair use, however, and that's the unfortunate fact that it is often described (especially in official political discussions) as an "exception or limitation" to copyright. That implies, incorrectly, that copyright is "the normal state" and that fair use is something that can only be used in "exceptional" cases, where a political body has decided to carve out some small breathing space. But that's wrong. Fair use is about the rights of the public to speak, to make use of content, to comment, to criticize and to express themselves.

These are fundamental rights of the public -- not "exceptions or limitations."

It is, instead, copyright that has always been an "exception and limitation" on the rights to free expression. We can (and should) discuss and debate the proper levels of copyright and its limitations on expression. But to frame things as if fair use is a minor "exception" is a subtle but dangerous twist of language that copyright maximalists have been employing for far too long.

And it's a public right that is under threat. While negotiators were (after decades of negotiating) able to work out a WIPO Treaty for the Blind last year, copyright maximalists fought hard against it, because they were convinced that any attempt to expand what they called "limitations and exceptions" would set a dangerous precedent. And, if you look at things like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP agreement), the USTR tried to take credit for it being the first time that it was willing to include "limitations and exceptions" in a trade agreement. That, on its face, is true (and it's better than previous agreements, like ACTA, which ignored fair use and the public's rights entirely), but the wording does not in fact establish any limitations or exceptions: it sets out parameters that curb what limitations and exceptions countries are allowed to offer. The wording is based on a three-factor standard that is actually more restrictive than current fair use laws in the US. The standard is clearly modelled after the Berne convention, to which the US is already a signatory despite several differences, such as fair use, between US copyright law and that treaty's requirements. The TPP's "exceptions" would only serve to solidify these inflexible fair use requirements that the US currently, mercifully, defies.

Pay close attention to this issue as we go through the copyright reform process. Fair use isn't just some limitation or exception. It's not just -- as some have said -- a "valve" on copyright restricting speech. It is, instead, core to the very concept of free speech. It is the public's rights. Don't let the language twisters try to frame the debate as one about "limitations and exceptions" because if that's the debate, we've already lost. Fair use doesn't just enable all kinds of important innovations -- including much of the internet you use and love today. It represents a fundamental right of you to express yourself, and that right must not be taken away.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright week, exceptions, expression, fair use, free speech, innovation, limitations, public rights, rights

Exploring Fair Use And Fair Dealing Around The Globe

from the it's-there dept

We've seen some pushback against fair use/fair dealing over the years -- especially by copyright maximalists who like to pretend that such public rights as codified as fair use and fair dealing somehow violate international treaties. That's ridiculous. Jonathan Band and Jonathan Gerafi have put together a fantastic handbook detailing every fair use and fair dealing law they could find around the globe. The end result? Over 40 countries, covering more than one-third of the world's population, have these laws as a part of their copyright laws. That doesn't mean that all of them are well written or as strong and protective of the rights of the public as they could be. However, as Band notes, this suggests that "there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments."

Filed Under: copyright, fair dealing, fair use, public rights

EU Commission Wants More Copyright Licensing, But Not Creative Commons Or Fair Use

from the that'll-make-the-lawyers-happy dept

While there's no doubt that copyright licensing is a mess that is often holding back key innovations online, it's a bit worrisome to hear about how the EU Commission is exploring the issue. It has set up a "Licenses for Europe" campaign, but designed in a way that locks in a predetermined conclusion that the only way to deal with locked up content in Europe is to get the big copyright holders to agree to more easily determined licenses. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it ignores the larger picture: including the fact that most content produced today is coming from individuals and not as a part of a larger industry.

La Quadrature du Net explains why the whole setup is a problem:

Instead of planning for a broad reform that would break away with full-on repression of cultural practices based on sharing and remixing, the Commission is setting up a parody of a debate. 75% of the participants to the working-group concerning “users” are affiliated with the industry and the themes and objectives are defined so as to ensure that the industry has its way and that nothing will change. Through this initiative, the EU Commission shows its contempt of the many citizens who participated in defeating ACTA and are still mobilized against repressive policies.

La Quadrature du Net is registered to participate in a working-group of the new “Licences for Europe” initiative called “User-Generated Content”. Everything in its name, theme and mission is biased to fit the views of the entertainment industry – which represents more than 3/4 of the participants! – The working group is meant to focus on “User-Generated Content”, as if works created by Internet users were a different category from “real” cultural works; as if today, everyone was not on an equal footing to participate in culture. The Commission's framing of discussion is subservient to major industrial actors who keep attacking their users' cultural practices and ignore the urgent need to reform copyright.

Just starting out from the point of view, that "user generated content" is somehow a different category than "content," itself is problematic, but much more problematic is the fact that there is no interest from this effort in things that would actually help out on a large scale: such as recognizing that copyright doesn't make much sense for many of these works, and that sharing and building on others' works is a part of how culture works (and that "licenses" can often get in the way of such things). In fact, the EU Commission made sure that no discussions of things like fair use were to be discussed, since the point of the discussion was just "licenses."

The working group is supposed to work only on licensing – contracts by the industry in which it controls everything – rather than discuss new exceptions to copyright, which would represent the general interest by allowing not-for-profit sharing and remixing of digital works.

This is really unfortunate. Because when you start from the position of licensing everything, you ignore the fact that not everything needs to be licensed. And, as a result, you end up with over-licensing, which is a real problem. Apparently, things got even worse once the sessions began. Even though there were rules in place designed to keep the details of the proceedings mostly secret, some indications from inside were that things were not going well, thanks to some tweets from COADEC.

Industry reps seemed to have absolutely no interest in discussing things like fair use or other "exceptions" to copyright. Someone brought up fair use, and apparently the response was that "fair use is from the 20th century" and then annoyance at the fact that "exceptions" were even being discussed since "we should just talk about licenses." Moderators obliged by shutting down any talk of exceptions.

Someone tried to point out that this seemed to be putting the cart before the horse, asking whether or not there has been any evaluation done as to whether or not licensing was really the best solution, and the moderator responded "well we want to deliver something." We've heard this before, many times. Politicians have no interest in making sure the solution they're pushing for makes sense or works, so long as they're seen as "doing something." We saw that nearly a decade ago when Senator Orrin Hatch tried to push his INDUCE Act, and when quizzed about it, he admitted that it might cause problems, but he had to "do something" or else.

Further making a mockery of the whole thing, someone brought up Creative Commons licensing... and that conversation was also shut down as a "certain industry" claimed it was "too early" to discuss such things. Apparently, this "certain industry" doesn't realize that Creative Commons is a form of licensing too. Like too many maximalists, they consider Creative Commons not to be a form of licensing, but another form of "copyright exceptions," (which it is not).

All in all, the whole session appears to have made a mockery of any attempt at real, meaningful copyright reform. One more comment from the session sort of highlighted the whole problem. As the moderator and people from "certain industries" shut down all talk of exceptions, and focused solely on how to set up a system with more and more licenses, an attendee asked a simple, pointed question:

Attendee asks, who gives a licence for mining the Internet?

And that, right there, encapsulates the entire problem. If you think that we shouldn't be talking about exceptions, and that everything requires licensing, what you're really saying is that search engines are illegal. Searching the internet without "permission" is illegal. And that's the world that the EU Commissions seems to think we should be heading towards.

Yes, locked up content is a problem, and fixing licensing is one part of the solution, but it cannot be done absent a more comprehensive look at the issues of the internet and copyright today. Completely ignoring things like fair use or other "exceptions" to copyright (I prefer to think of them as the rights of the public rather than "exceptions") means you get bad plans with bad results that border on the ridiculous.

Filed Under: creative commons, eu commission, europe, exceptions, fair use, licensing, public rights

DC Police Chief Lays Down New Cell/Camera Policy: 'Don't Seize. Don't Delete. Don't Interfere.'

from the they're-not-First-Amendment-'privileges' dept

There's a long history of police officers abusing their power to prevent documentation of their actions via cellphones and cameras. For the most part, this has been the norm, rather than being relegated to outlying, "rogue" police departments. Some attempts at "controlling" this interaction have been blatant: illegal seizures of phones and cameras. Others have just been exploitations of the existing system, like twisting wiretap laws to make citizen recordings illegal or somehow insisting on privacy rights despite being a public servant in a public setting.

However, some good news (disguised as common sense) has arrived in the form of the Washington D.C. police force's new cell camera policy. Put together as part of a settlement with Jerome Vorus, who sued the city (with the ACLU's help) after Georgetown police told him to stop taking photos of a traffic stop, the new policy pretty much reflects how most citizens feel the system should have been working all along, which means it's a drastic departure from the way many law enforcement camera policies are worded (if they have them at all).

Washington D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier takes care to (re)inform the officers of the public's constitutional rights and details specifics to hopefully eliminate loopholes and "workarounds." Perhaps the boldest statement is in regards to recording police activity, which minces no words upholding the public's First Amendment rights:

"A bystander has the same right to take photographs or make recordings as a member of the media," Chief Lanier writes. The First Amendment protects the right to record the activities of police officers, not only in public places such as parks and sidewalks, but also in "an individual’s home or business, common areas of public and private facilities and buildings, and any other public or private facility at which the individual has a legal right to be present."

Lanier says that if an officer sees an individual recording his or her actions, the officer may not use that as a basis to ask the citizen for ID, demand an explanation for the recording, deliberately obstruct the camera, or arrest the citizen. And she stresses that under no circumstances should the citizen be asked to stop recording.

It gets even better. Not only are officers prevented from preventing the recording from happening, they are also not allowed to use vague terms like "obstruction" or the ever-popular (but not a real crime) "contempt of cop" to halt recordings.

That applies even in cases where the citizen is recording "from a position that impedes or interferes with the safety of members or their ability to perform their duties." In that situation, she says, the officer may ask the person to move out of the way, but the officer "shall not order the person to stop photographing or recording."

She also notes that "a person has the right to express criticism of the police activity being observed."

Another aspect that Lanier has covered is the seizure of cell phones or cameras, often done under the auspices that footage or photos might be "evidence." This gathering of "evidence" has been abused frequently as well, often resulting in the destruction of "evidence" that reflects badly on the officers involved. Other times, any sort of "evidence" pretext is tossed out completely, with officers seizing cell phones/cameras simply to remove damaging footage. D.C.'s new policy will make this sort of behavior much more difficult (although, certainly not impossible).

Lanier's directive addresses another scenario that is becoming increasingly common: a civilian takes a photograph or recording that a police officer believes could constitute evidence of a crime. Under Lanier's directive, an individual cop cannot take a recording device away from a citizen without his or her consent. "Consent to take possession of a recording device or medium must be given voluntarily," she writes.

In the event that the cop believes the recording is needed for evidence but its owner isn't willing to part with it, the officer is required to call his supervisor. The device or recording media can be seized only if the supervisor is present, only if "there is probable cause to believe that the property holds contraband or evidence of a crime," and only if "the exigencies of the circumstances demand it or some other recognized exception to the warrant requirement is present."

D.C. law enforcement members are also instructed that they may not "under any circumstances" erase or delete images and sound from seized recording devices and that these devices must be maintained and returned intact, with all data present, to the owners at the end of the investigation.

This is all a huge step forward for the public's relationship with law enforcement. Removing the false "expectation of privacy" that has shielded many bad actors is an important change and reasserting the public's First Amendment rights as trumping law enforcement's antagonistic attitude toward observation is very definitely a win for US citizens. It's somewhat unfortunate that it took a lawsuit, the ACLU and a forward-thinking police chief to "restore" these rights, but having a new policy publicly deliver this message should temper future interactions between the public and those sworn to protect them.

The real test will come when violations are reported. The policy itself has a lot of verbal teeth but there are many badly-behaving police officers who have run afoul of the laws they were hired to uphold and escaped with little more than some stern words and paid vacation. If D.C. can take the lead, both in instituting a tough set of policies and, more importantly, enforcing these policies, one would hope that the rest of the nation's police forces would look to this as the model on which to base their own policies.

Filed Under: citizen rights, dc, police, public rights, videotaping

We Should Stop Calling Fair Use A 'Limitation & Exception' To Copyright; It's A Right Of The Public

from the that's-important dept

Language matters. In debates we see over copyright and other issues, it's often amazing how the industry has really twisted the language to their advantage. A few years ago, Bill Patry wrote an excellent book all about how the entertainment industry inserted its preferred language into all of the debates over copyright, such that they can claim the moral high ground on an issue that is really a business model/economic one for the most part. Of course, those of us pushing for fixing problems in copyright law unfortunately sometimes fall into the same traps. Just recently, for example, we talked about how we should stop calling things "orphan works," and more accurately describe them as they are: hostage works.

I was thinking about this while watching Jamie Love's recent interview with Alan Adler, the VP of Legal & Gov't Affairs for the Association of American Publishers. We already discussed the substance of the discussion around various international agreements for "limitations and exceptions" to copyright law. "Limitations and exceptions" has been standard terminology for things like fair use, fair dealing and other "valves" to stop copyright from being completely oppressive. However, as I watched Adler, some of his comments around those things bothered me. You can watch it below, but I'll call out a few quotes:

"For publishers, they really don't have a business, unless they own intellectual property assets, that they're able to use, control and exploit in the marketplace. So the threat of piracy and the threat of restrictions, limitations, exception to their rights as copyright owners is always a concern to them, because it effects the way they do business. The WIPO is now looking at creating international instruments addressing a number of different things -- but all of them have one thing in common: they would cut back on the rights of publishers as copyright owners by introducing new limitations and exception to those rights..."

"Interestingly, our interest and concern about whether it's a treaty or some other form of international agreement, probably would not have been much of a problem if we were only working on the issue of print disabilities. But with the effort to develop supposed proposed treaties on limitations and exceptions for educational uses and also a separate effort moving parallel to this, to develop a similar treaty on limitations and exceptions for uses by libraries and archives. The problem we have in the area of print disabilities is we really don't want to establish a precedent of developing a series of treaties that specifically focus on trying to set forth minimal limitations and exceptions to the rights of copyright owners. Up until this proposal with respect to print disabilities, generally the treaties and other international agreements that have been devised by the WIPO have been to establish the minimal rights of copyright owners -- not the limitations and exceptions to those rights. And the notion that now, because of the concerns of developing countries and some of the agreements that have been made to pursue an agenda of issues that are of concern to developing countries, we're now beginning to focus on limitations and exceptions."

I have to admit that it's somewhat refreshing that Adler comes right out and says this honestly: that the companies he represents are worried that it might change their business models, rather than making any kind of unsupported moral claims or suggestions that these "limitations and exceptions" are somehow going to destroy content.

That said -- and this comes through strongly in that second quote above -- it's a bit disturbing the way he seems to think that the only thing at issue is the rights of copyright holders, and the way he only describes limitations and exceptions in terms of how they take away rights from the copyright holders. That's incredibly misleading. These "limitations and exceptions" with things like fair use are actually rights of the public. Copyright has always been a restriction on the rights of the public. We can argue over whether or not it's a reasonable or appropriate restriction, but that's what it is. When we flip the language and call things like fair use -- which give back some rights to the public -- "limitations and exceptions," we're unfortunately playing into the language framing of copyright holders, and allowing Adler to say things like he does above and have them sound marginally reasonable.

Yet, if you changed around what he said to make it more accurate by noting that these limitations and exceptions are really about increasing the rights of the public, you begin to realize that what he's saying is pretty crazy:

"For publishers, they really don't have a business, unless they hold government-granted monopoly privileges, that they're able to use, control and exploit in the marketplace. So the threat of infringement and the threat of the public regaining some of their own rights is always a concern to them, because it effects the way they do business. The WIPO is now looking at creating international instruments addressing a number of different things -- but all of them have one thing in common: they would increase the rights of the public by restoring their ability to make use of those works...

"Interestingly, our interest and concern about whether it's a treaty or some other form of international agreement, probably would not have been much of a problem if we were only working on the issue of print disabilities. But with the effort to develop supposed proposed treaties on the public's rights to use works for educational uses and also a separate effort moving parallel to this, to develop a similar treaty on the public's right for uses by libraries and archives. The problem we have in the area of print disabilities is we really don't want to establish a precedent of developing a series of treaties that specifically focus on trying to set forth expanded rights for the public. Up until this proposal with respect to print disabilities, generally the treaties and other international agreements that have been devised by the WIPO have been to take away and limit the rights of the public -- not to expand and clarify those rights. And the notion that now, because of the concerns of developing countries and some of the agreements that have been made to pursue an agenda of issues that are of concern to developing countries, we're now beginning to focus on the rights of the public."

That is a lot more accurate version of what he's saying when you realize the nature of what's really being discussed. So even as we're happy that at least there's been a lot more talk of "limitations & exceptions" (even by the USTR in the TPP negotiations), it seems wrong to cede the framing of the discussion to special interest industry folks. These aren't "limitations and exceptions," they're the public's right to access, to create and to express themselves.

Filed Under: alan adler, blind, copyright, fair use, limitations and exceptions, public, public rights