Software Industry Assocation About To Learn What Safe Harbors Mean

from the if-you-want-to-waste-your-money,-go-right-ahead... dept

It appears that the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is about to learn what DMCA safe harbors mean. The group is apparently upset about the fact that some people sell counterfeit software on eBay. That's not surprising. But, the SIIA is planning to sue eBay for this activity, rather than going after the counterfeiters themselves. Of course, if anyone from the SIIA had been paying attention, they would know that courts in the US have repeatedly found that eBay and sites like it are protected by various safe harbor provisions. This is for a very good reason: it's not eBay counterfeiting anything. eBay is merely the platform. If the SIIA wants to go after the actual counterfeiters, that's their issue. But going after eBay for providing the platform is going to fail miserably. You would think that a trade group that claims they cover the "Information Industry" would know that already.

Filed Under: auctions, copyright, counterfeits, dmca, liability, safe harbors, siia
Companies: ebay, siia

Company Fined For Passing News Clips Around Internally

from the there's-this-thing-called-the-world-wide-web... dept

It may be time to add the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) to the list of ridiculous industry associations who are excessively focused on copyright to the detriment of their own businesses. The group, which includes a number of newspaper publishers as members, began an "anti-piracy" program recently and have announced its first "win." An analyst firm has agreed to pay up a $300,000 settlement after an "insider" informed the SIIA that the firm passed around news clips to employees. This is very typical. Many companies employ news clipping services and receive copies of relevant news articles -- and often they pass those around to the appropriate people. However, it appears that various news publishers think that any company that does this should purchase a separate license. The reporter points out that many, many companies pass around news clips internally all the time, and an SIIA representative insists that's not true -- suggesting he has no idea what goes on in many companies. However, the key point is that this clearly does nothing to benefit these publishers. There are very few companies that will go through the trouble of actually licensing the individual news for the sake of passing them around. Instead, they'll either stop reading the clips altogether, or they'll simply go to the web, where it's free. Now, of course, it's worth pointing out that we at Techdirt provide original news analysis (not clips) to plenty of companies all the time -- and part of our contract is that we encourage the companies to pass our content around to as many people internally as possible. We know that the more people who see our analysis, the more useful and valuable it becomes. So, for firms worried about the SIIA suing you because you pass around news clips, feel free to give us a call.

Filed Under: copyright, news clips, piracy, siia
Companies: knowledge networks, siia