IPcentral Weblog: March 2007 Archives

March 2007 Archives

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03.30.2007

A Cheer for FOSS!

Despite my skepticism of FOSS, I do recognize when it makes important commercial gains.

posted by Noel Le @ 1:33 PM | Free Culture Movement

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Google on YouTube

Google still has not posted anything about the Viacom suit on the press pages of either Google or YouTube. But it did send a letter to the WaPo in answer to an oped that appeared there, in which it said:

Viacom's lawsuit is an attack on the way people communicate on the Web and on the platforms that allow people to make the Internet their own. In the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress struck a careful balance between the rights of the copyright holder and the need to protect the Internet as an innovative communication frontier, not as another venue for litigation.
Content-hosting sites such as YouTube, Craigslist and MySpace that want to take advantage of the DMCA's safe harbors must promptly remove infringing content if the copyright owner so requests, giving owners a quick remedy that doesn't require going to court. Copyright owners, in return, have the responsibility to identify infringing material they want removed. Viacom's lawyers helped craft this law but apparently don't like it, after all. They want to shirk the responsibility Congress gave them.

Placing that burden on hosting platforms would turn the DMCA on its head.

Viacom is attempting to rewrite established copyright law through a baseless lawsuit. In February, after negotiations broke down, Viacom requested that YouTube take down more than 100,000 videos. We did so immediately, working through a weekend. Viacom later withdrew some of those requests, apparently realizing that those videos were not infringing, after all. Though Viacom seems unable to determine what constitutes infringing content, its lawyers believe that we should have the responsibility and ability to do it for them. Fortunately, the law is clear, and on our side.

MICHAEL KWUN
Google, Managing Counsel, Litigation

Continue reading Google on YouTube . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 1:11 PM | DMCA

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Trademark Dogma

The Intellectual Property Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons), have sent a cease and desist letter to the owner of a small coffee shop in Utah. It seems the shop has used an image of a statue of the angel Moroni in its rather clever advertising. The church's IP office claims that this is a violation of a registered trademark.

An opinion piece in the Daily Herald sums up one side the dispute nicely but I, not being an expert in trademark law, question whether the statue could actually be trademarked. It seems that the work of art itself, commissioned by the LDS, would be protected by copyright. Anyone?

posted by Amy Smorodin @ 1:09 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Art , Enforcement & Remedies

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Unfair Use

It really is time to re-think the doctrine of "fair use." As in, get rid of much of it.

To see why, look at the latest exercise of legal kung fu -- the Electronic Frontier Foundation has responded to Viacom's recent suit against YouTube by filing an action of its own.

EFF represents MoveOn and Brave New Films, which made a riff on the Colbert Report, a Viacom Comedy Central show, and posted it on YouTube. Viacom noted it among YouTube's 160,000-odd clips of the company’s copyrighted content, and sent YouTube a take-down notice. YouTube complied.

Aha, says EFF, this particular video was actually a "fair use" under the copyright law, and thus was not an infringement. Therefore, Viacom has harmed its client with an erroneous take-down notice, and should pay.

Continue reading Unfair Use . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 11:15 AM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain

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House Looks at Small Businesses and Patents

Here are some details on yesterday’s patent panel organized by the House Committee for Small Businesses. I’ll review transcripts or presentations if they become available.

“Small, innovative companies are creating the technologies America needs to compete in the global marketplace and the jobs that expand communities,” said Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez. “It is critical to the ongoing success of small businesses that their unique needs be considered in any reform of our nation’s existing patent system.”

Small companies have been major contributors to the technological advances of recent decades. According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small tech companies produce nearly 13 times more patents per employee than large firms and represent one-third of all companies in possession of 15 or more patents.

posted by Noel Le @ 11:12 AM | Patents

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03.29.2007

The world is already full of free and cheap LEGAL music

A common claim by the copyleft is that CD retail prices are higher than they should be and that they would constantly be driven ever higher if it weren’t for the fact that record labels have to compete with downloading. Statistics from the RIAA indicate that, when you divide CD units shipped by CD dollar value, the average price of a CD in 1995 was $12.97, and in 2005 it was $14.92, an increase of 15 percent. The annual consumer price index (adjusted so that the 1982-1984 values equal 100) was 152.4 in 1995, compared with 2005 in 195.3, an increase of 28 percent. The conclusion is obvious: when you control for inflation, CD prices have actually decreased over the past several years.

Continue reading The world is already full of free and cheap LEGAL music . . .

posted by Dan Britton @ 3:09 PM |

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Interoperability, GPLv3, & IP Law

Interoperability is one of the current Holy Grails of the tech world. It is also favored by copyright law. Section 1201(f) provides immunity from the anti-cracking rules for activities designed to promote software interoperability, which is defined as "the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged."

So an oddity of the debate over GPLv3 is that the open source community, or at least the Free Software Foundation part of it, is fighting hard for a closed system, one that permits interaction only among a limited set of programs produced under FSF-specified rules.

The proprietary software producers, on the other hand, especially the baddest bear in the forest, Microsoft, are fighting for an open system, one that allows for interaction among programs whatever their derivation.

The explanation of this apparent paradox, I think, is that FSF is actually far more imperial in its ambitions than Microsoft. As I wrote last Fall in TCSDaily:

Continue reading Interoperability, GPLv3, & IP Law . . .

posted by James DeLong @ 2:37 PM | Software

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Global Reach

From WIPO:

A global network of academies dedicated to the teaching of intellectual property (IP) was launched at a meeting convened by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the National Institute of Industrial Property Office (INPI) of Brazil earlier this month in Rio de Janeiro. The global network which includes some ten educational institutes dedicated to teaching, training and research into IP at the national level is designed to enhance international cooperation and strengthen the delivery of IP education.

The next meeting of this International Symposium on Intellectual Property Academies will be in China in 2008.

posted by James DeLong @ 8:41 AM | International

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ACT on GPLv3

[T]his third version of the General Public License can be simply written “GPL v.” – where “v” stands not for “version” but for “vendetta.”

There’s little doubt that this GPL 3 draft is a vendetta against the patent non-assertion agreement we saw in the Microsoft and Novell deal. But it is also aimed at the use of technological protection measures like digital rights management. Overall, these new additions will hurt the open source software community by elevating code over the desires of the marketplace.

Subsequent headings:

Turning the Four Freedoms into the Ten Commandments
GPL 3 Elevates Code over Consumers and Developers

There’s No Reason to “Upgrade” to GPL 3

A Bonfire of the Vanities?

posted by James DeLong @ 8:24 AM | Software

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03.28.2007

Sympathy for Microsoft?

A Cnet story on the EC's continued bullying of Microsoft gets interesting responses:

•The EU has become the mouthpiece for socialist activities. Forget capitalism... Isn?t it funny that IBM, Oracle and others are using this organization as a puppet to further their causes?

•The people imposing the fines haven't said what MS is doing wrong other than being successful… What [Kroes] is saying is that because people prefer your product we are going to fine you.

Continue reading Sympathy for Microsoft? . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 3:01 PM | Antitrust

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03.28.2007

Delusions of Grandeur: GPLv3 Is A License That Thinks It‘s a Regulation

posted by James DeLong @ 12:56 PM | Software

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