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Actually both terms apply to the 'derivative work' above, as parody is usually a subset of satire, i.e. parody is used by satire to criticize and ridicule the intended target. Technically both are covered by the fair use clause which protects works used for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.

Of course, if someone does decide to sue it's up to the judge/jury which interpretation(="loop holes") of the clause to apply. (These loop holes are the four sub-points of 107)

IANAL either, but I think that's called releasing your work to the public domain. It used to be quite common for most works to be public domain unless explicitly copyrighted, until copyright was amended to be automatically applied to everything.

You can copyright a specific implementation, or your own specific description of the algorithm, but you cannot copyright the algorithm itself.

For example, the specific instructions (the list of ingredients, and the process of mixing them together) of how to bake your dear Aunt's double layer chocolate cake cannot be copyrighted. However if you want you can write a little booklet describing how your Aunt would make this cake for your birthday and how much it meant to you and incorporate the ingredients and the process as part of the story. Or you could collect all of your families recipes together and make a copyrighted cookbook of the collection.

Here is the backing comment from the US Copyright office:

Extent of Copyright Protection

Copyright protection extends to all the copyrightable expression embodied in the computer program. Copyright protection is not available for ideas, program logic, algorithms, systems, methods, concepts, or layouts.

If you want to protect the idea/algorithm itself, file a patent

Besides .. it's just a radix sort..

Personally, I saw DMCA (pdf), passed in 1998, as an attempt to clarify rules, to set industry standards. Most of the talk I heard on DMCA prior to its passing was about laws related to publishing software or making hardware specifically to circumvent copyright protection devices or to remove copyright information from works. The 1998 DCMA was about the computer industry trying to find a way to curb the development of technology specifically for violating copyrights. It was not really aimed at the individual. It was aimed at corporations.

The copyright-pirating as a culture war thing was a completely different issue. That was an attempt to simply swamp the whole system. The really ugly stuff like the DRM software embedded in music formats came after the piracy-revolution. If that revolution had not happened, I believe that we would be seeing a much saner industry today.

The piracy culture war was basically a statement that a radical group would not play by the rules passed. That gave the culture warriors on the right the chance to stomp on everybody's head.

Today's article seems to understand that individuals are not the threat to the welfare of copyright holders. It is only the mechanized violation of copyright that poses a threat.

The exemptions not specifically mentioned in the statute itself. Application for an exemption is made to the Librarian of Congress, who then makes a ruling as to whether or not the exemption should be granted. The cell phone exemption unlocking was granted in the most recent cycle:

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

Unfortunately, copyright law is not that simple. YouTube is a 'safe harbour' under the DMCA 512(c). 512(c) is a magical section of the law that grants an online service provider which hosts content from users on their own servers immunity from IP infringement provided that they meet certain criteria.

To summarize, YouTube has to designate an agent to receive notice of infringement, publish their copyright infringement policies, disable access to repeat offenders, and respond reasonably to takedown / counter notices.

So just as long as they're processing those DMCA takedowns and tossing users out, the DMCA (in theory) shields them from litigation. So, eh, surprisingly, this is copyright law.

Disclaimer: IANAL. Go read copyright.gov/onlinesp/ or ChillingEffects.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

I suppose you'll go through the text of the law and nitpick out-of-context zingers. Remember that copyright law could disappear and my argument would stay the same.

By the way, you've never explained the source of the rights you say we all get when someone publishes a book. Where do they come from? Do people who buy the book get more rights than people who don't even know the book exists? What about people who borrow it from a library?

Why doesn't a prospective publisher acquire these rights when he first reads a copy of the manuscript made by the author? If he doesn't, why does the rest of the world acquire these rights as soon as the publisher starts making copies? It's the same thing. Or, is there something special about copying with a printing press? If the publisher does gain these rights upon reading the manuscript, why do publishers bother to sign contracts and pay royalties? Why would an auther ever show a manuscript to a publisher or anyone else, if that mean losing rights to it?

That's not a strawman. You argue that rights transfer upon publication. Publication enables people to see copies of a work. So does submitting a manuscript to a publisher.

Stallman wrote emacs. He published the code. Does that give people who've never heard of emacs the same rights as you seem to argue that everyone acquires when a book is published? Why shouldn't I slap my name on emacs, repackage it, and start selling it? I'd respond to the inevitable lawsuit by making your argument, which invalidates both copyright law and Stallman's license. After all, you are claiming that rights pass from a work's creator to the public at the moment of publication.

117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. -- Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or

Would most publishers accusing a less popular artist who made little or no profit on an infringing work be willing to settle the issue for significantly less than the statutory damages of $750 to $30,000?

One man's "creative influence" could very well be one lawyer's "plagiarism". It is all a matter of degree.

There are surely gray areas, but your remark suggests there is nothing but gray areas, and I don't think that's true. Under the law, copyright protects the form of a work, not an idea. It comes right out and says that plainly, in a way that law doesn't always do. Just to make sure there is no confusion. As such, "creative influence" insofar as it is an "idea" is generally protected.

The author of the article seemed to speak at times as if he were arguing against things that are in fact not in play. It is considered fair use to quote one another in the course of public dialog. (The right of fair use happens to be implementationally threatened by coercive DRM attempting to conform to the DMCA, but that's a slightly different problem. I have argued (but so far have not managed to convince any actual lawyers) that the legal concept of an easement (from Real Estate law) needs to be injected into Intellectual Property law in order to address the present state of affairs in that regard. For rights to be meaningful, having some way to enforce them seems useful. There are a number of mechanisms for addressing infringement, but there needs to be a counterbalancing force to address fair use. That the US Government Copyright FAQ does not even mention "fair use" in the set of questions is perhaps telling in and of itself.)

It is trivially true that as you morph an idea from a single source, there is a point in which the idea is still so much the original that the new form carries with it no serious value and cannot legitimately be called its own work. So in this regard, your remark is technically correct.

However, another way of interpreting copyright might be not to regard it as a right of use, but a standard we hold ourselves to before we call something a contribution. That is, if I take a play you wrote, change a word or two, and then offer it back to the public, odds are the public will say "this wasn't a material contribution". Forget copyright issues, my obligation to say I have contributed something is higher. If I'm a writer, even a good one, and call a press conference every time I type a period or comma, eventually people will get tired. It's not a novel, or even a chapter, until a chunkier contribution has been made. And copyright just enforces that same notion, but between people instead of internally within them.

So maybe it is just a matter of degree after all. But maybe degree matters. Maybe the whole point is, as in Aristotle's Virtue Ethics that at either end of the spectrum is an "unreasonable extreme", and that there really is no well-defined, uniquely determined midpoint, but that the goal is to seek a balance in spite of that fact, so that one doesn't slide to one of the endpoints. To say that any contribution, no matter how trivial, that includes another's work is ok is to create spam. To say that any contribution, no matter how large, that includes another's work, is infringing is to create a society that doesn't grow through interaction.

In all seriousness, if you really feel this way, you perhaps ought to of your house with the U.S. Library of Congress by taking a few photographs from various angles and doing the formal registration. Copyrighting ship hull designs is permitted, and I don't see how that is any different than somebody's house.

That way, if somebody else does take a photo of your house, you can go after them not only for "actual damages" but "statutory damages" as well. I believe this is currently $250,000 for statutory damages... so this isn't necessarily something trivial, especially as the formal registration is only $45.

I'm sure you could easily recover the $45+legal fees alone if this Canadian company were to take a photo of your house without your permission, if you just wanted to go after them on the basis of principle alone. And let your lawyer buy a new BMW with the $1/4 million if he wants to go after the rest.

Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

An admitedly quick search doesn't pull up any cases where someone was sued for infringement based on a false claim of title. Also given that these notices were filed under the DMCA & the DMCA itself has penalties for false filings(1), trying to push this through would probably be doomed to failure at the dismissal request.
Mistakenly claiming ownership will result in damages. Sorry, we meant video 12659 not 12650.
Falsely claiming ownership to create a competitive advantage will result in a tort suit for interfierance and purjury.
Falsely claiming ownership with malicious intent gives you slander of title and purjury.
Title 17 Chapter 5 (501c)

(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.

Is the only other section I find in the actual text of title 17 reguarding falsely claiming copyright ownership. The section you quote is from a copyright primer - not the code itself. Even 501c may not apply because they are not placing notices on the works, just claiming to own them - a fine distinction that might be enought to avoid the fine.

Title 17 Chapter 1 (106a) covers rights of atribution for visual works, but again doesn't invoke infrignement for falsely claiming that atribution.

(1)DMCA 512(c)(3)(A)(vi) makes knowingly making a false claim an act of Purjury. Proving knowingly and not error is hard enough to prevent these from showing up in court unless the person requesting the takedown gets picked to be made an example of.

Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

An admitedly quick search doesn't pull up any cases where someone was sued for infringement based on a false claim of title. Also given that these notices were filed under the DMCA & the DMCA itself has penalties for false filings(1), trying to push this through would probably be doomed to failure at the dismissal request.
Mistakenly claiming ownership will result in damages. Sorry, we meant video 12659 not 12650.
Falsely claiming ownership to create a competitive advantage will result in a tort suit for interfierance and purjury.
Falsely claiming ownership with malicious intent gives you slander of title and purjury.
Title 17 Chapter 5 (501c)

(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.

Is the only other section I find in the actual text of title 17 reguarding falsely claiming copyright ownership. The section you quote is from a copyright primer - not the code itself. Even 501c may not apply because they are not placing notices on the works, just claiming to own them - a fine distinction that might be enought to avoid the fine.

Title 17 Chapter 1 (106a) covers rights of atribution for visual works, but again doesn't invoke infrignement for falsely claiming that atribution.

(1)DMCA 512(c)(3)(A)(vi) makes knowingly making a false claim an act of Purjury. Proving knowingly and not error is hard enough to prevent these from showing up in court unless the person requesting the takedown gets picked to be made an example of.

(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:
 
...

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
 
...

(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work.

It's not that simple. His employer only owns it if he assigned it to his employer or if it is a work made for hire under the Copyright Act of 1976. Among other things, the Act requires a written agreement that the work is made for hire. The documents posted there do not include enough information to determine.

In the US, if you have an unregistered copyright, the most you can do is put out a cease and desist. The DMCA takedown notices fall under that heading, I believe, and this particular takedown seems to fall under the "distortion/mutilation" clause here. To sue for damages, you must have a registered copyright. Also, you can only sue for damages for infringement that occurs after the copyright was registered (with a minor exception for registration applications within 3 months of publication).

That site in general is VERY informative reading.

In the US, if you have an unregistered copyright, the most you can do is put out a cease and desist. The DMCA takedown notices fall under that heading, I believe, and this particular takedown seems to fall under the "distortion/mutilation" clause here. To sue for damages, you must have a registered copyright. Also, you can only sue for damages for infringement that occurs after the copyright was registered (with a minor exception for registration applications within 3 months of publication).

That site in general is VERY informative reading.

True, but apparently you can copyright choreography:

Choreography and pantomimes are also copyrightable dramatic works. Choreography is the composition and arrangement of dance movements and patterns usually intended to be accompanied by music. As distinct from choreography, pantomime is the art of imitating or acting out situations, characters, or other events. To be protected by copyright, pantomimes and choreography need not tell a story or be presented before an audience. Each work, however, must be fixed in a tangible medium of expression from which the work can be performed.

So, could you point out exactly which part of copyright law I am breaking by disclosing my character's name and my password to a third party?

[...] character names, [...]

They are full of shit. From the U.S. Copyright Office:

Names, titles, and short phrases or expressions are not subject to copyright protection. Even if a name, title, or short phrase is novel or distinctive or if it lends itself to a play on words, it cannot be protected by copyright.

Mind it, the EULA is probably referring to NPCs' names, not PCs' names, as the latter, even if they could be licensed, would "belong" to the players. Moreover, I do not think that I need to abide by EULA if I am not playing WoW.

My gripe with eBay is not about them removing game-related listings; if they would just bloody told me that I cannot sell anything game-related because it's their shop and they set the rules, I would be perfectly satisfied. Instead, they told me that (1) ESA reported my listing as infringing their IP (2) I should apologize (in typing) for infringing ESA's IP if I want my eBay account back (3) ESA refuses to comment on which IP was infringed. Since I did not infringe anyone's IP, I didn't see a reason to apologize. As far as I know, I never violated eBay's policy: I chatted with the reps several times, and not a single one of them could tell me what the violation was. All they knew was that I got tagged by ESA twice, and they have an agreement to remove the tagged listings. But if there is no violation, how is it fair to have my account suspended? Unless, that is, eBay thinks that its customers are morons and treats them like morons, which is my only bloody point in this thread.

This has to be the least impact and most important cellphone news of the past year, and no one seems to be able to remember it. New rules got passed last december. It was covered here and on most of the major tech sites. The telcos can't as in "NO", restrict the use of any phone as along as it is frequency capable. You can unlock them, they are now portable if you so choose. Apple saying it is cingular only is mass consumer FUD now. That might be their contract they have with AT&T, but it isn't the law for individuals. Tell your friend he shouldn't have to switch if the iPhone hardware is compatable. Scroll to section five, clear as day, cellphones are now portable, legally, they can't stop you

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/index.html

"5. Computer programs in the form of firmware that enable wireless telephone handsets to connect to a wireless telephone communication network, when circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of lawfully connecting to a wireless telephone communication network."

I have posted this a few times now on cellphone theads, hopefully it will stick this time

With that said, I would encourage anyone to support open moko and the neo1973 instead of the iPhone,it is pretty close to half the price, totally open, no restrictions of note, free as in speech.

    Support hardware vendors who support open source (and it is a sharp looking phone, and there will be a ton of apps for it, unlike apple's big FU to consumers and devs)

It's funny that you chose to call them "derivative works" in an attempt to show that making them is legal. "[T]he owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: . . . (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;" 17 U.S.C. 106. That's exclusive, as in "no one else can do it without permission."

Note that I'm not making any judgments/commentary about the subject of the main article here -- just any implication that this is "the entire fucking point of copyright" or that it is, in the absence of fair use, legal.

-puk

Here is the act: http://www.performact.com/pdf/s2644-109.pdf

Here is the law that it changes

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#114

AFAICT, it does not seem to restrict broadcasts if the material being transmitted is not copyrighted. The relevant text from the bill is:

(c) Content Protection.--Section 114(d)(2) of title 17, United States
Code, is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (A)--
(A) in clause (ii), by striking ``and'' after the semicolon;
(B) in clause (iii), by adding ``and'' after the semicolon; and
(C) by adding after clause (iii) the following:
``(iv) the transmitting entity takes no affirmative steps to
authorize, enable, cause or induce the making of a copy or
phonorecord by or for the transmission recipient and uses technology
that is reasonably available, technologically feasible, and economically
reasonable to prevent the making of copies or phonorecords
embodying the transmission in whole or in part, except for reasonable
recording as defined in this subsection;'';

The section that is being editted, 114(d)(2) restricts broadcasts that would otherwise be under section 114(d)(1). 114(d)(1) exempts certain types of broadcasts. However, the section 114(d) is only qualifying section 106 which deals with the exclusive rights of copyrighted work.

What about all those podcasts with 100% legal content?

I would much prefer the RIAA simply not license content to DRM free broadcasts and sue those who don't have a license.

It's not "in most states" - it's a part of federal Copyright law, specifically 17 USC 101. Here's the Copyright Office's take on it.

The state is claiming that this was a work for hire. Unless they paid him specifically for doing this work, then he can not have been considered "hired." Being given unpaid time off can't count for payment either, ummm, since it was _unpaid_.

Doing the work on their equipment has absolutely nothing to do with anything under copyright law.

If an artist composes a song on your guitar that doesn't mean you own the song.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html

  201. Ownership of copyright1

(a) Initial Ownership. -- Copyright in a work protected under this title vests initially in the author or authors of the work. The authors of a joint work are coowner of copyright in the work.

(b) Works Made for Hire. -- In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.

(c) Contributions to Collective Works. -- Copyright in each separate contribution to a collective work is distinct from copyright in the collective work as a whole, and vests initially in the author of the contribution. In the absence of an express transfer of the copyright or of any rights under it, the owner of copyright in the collective work is presumed to have acquired only the privilege of reproducing and distributing the contribution as part of that particular collective work, any revision of that collective work, and any later collective work in the same series.

(d) Transfer of Ownership. --

(1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.

(2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivision of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title.

(e) Involuntary Transfer. -- When an individual author's ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, has not previously been transferred voluntarily by that individual author, no action by any governmental body or other official or organization purporting to seize, expropriate, transfer, or exercise rights of ownership with respect to the copyright, or any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, shall be given effect under this title, except as provided under title 11.2

Under the Copyright Act of 1976, this should be a 'works made for hire'' Once you are paid to work on something, that 'thing' becomes the property of the company (in this case the State of Wisconsin). There is no need for the employer to give notice to the employee that his work is not 'his' since it is clear in the Copyright Act. Once he accepted money and resources, it clearly became property of the State of Wisconsin.

There is no "IF" in the statement, "NOTHING in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." - http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html [copyright.gov] See the definition of "nothing" http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=dictiona ry&q=nothing

I guess I don't get it. the government just ruled(late last year, went into effect december 1) that A-you can unlock your phone and the carriers can't stop you and B - phones are now portable across networks by being unlocked, and they can't stop you, this is now an exception to copyright rules. They don't have to do it for you, but nothing illegal about people doing it, near as i can read the thing. Now apple and cinglar might want you to forget that little bit, but the law is the law usually anyway.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

scroll down to section 5 in particular

seems to me this was covered on slashdot last month as well, wasn't it?

And if the net neutrality bill recently introduced into the senate passes (about the same as last year's attempt), you can hacketh away at your "computer", handheld to mainframe, and they can't say boo to ya about it.

Please show us the language in the DMCA that "makes it illegal to exercise fair use rights if there is DRM in place?"

Nevermind, because there is NO language in the DMCA that "makes it illegal to exercise fair use rights if there is DRM in place." In fact the DMCA states exactly the opposite.

"(c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected. - (1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title." - http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap12.html

Stop believing the FUD of the Corporate Copyright Elite. "Fair Use" is still alive and kicking in the US, in spite of the money and power of the likes of the RIAA, MPAA, and the BSA!

"Being an online-posting musician myself -- what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"

In the US, you automatically have copyright on any work you create (unless you explicitly place a work in the public domain), but if you want to make it easier to sue violators, registration of a work makes violators liable to any legal fees you may incur.

>>Consider that even if an artist was the last of his bloodline, owned all his copyrights, and did not will those rights to anyone, you still couldn't copy any of his works for however long Disney decided they should be extended.

IANAL, but I think that'd be untrue under a couple of legal theories at least:

First, if she had no heirs at all (including parents, siblings, cousins, etc.) then her property would escheat to the State. The practical effect of which (I believe - I haven't researched it) would be to put the work in the public domain. I have no idea if anyone has done any work with this area, but it'd be fun thing to try...

Next, if the copyright is in limbo and no one seems to have any rights to it, it would probably be considered an Orphaned Work. There have been Bills recently in Congress to clarify and codify the status of such works, but none have passed yet (that I know of.) The Copyright Office was soliciting advice from the public on what should be done last year. ( http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html ). I personally opined that they should go into the public domain, possibly with a grace period to allow for a lost author to suddenly show up before it becomes public property*.

*I admit my anti-copyright bias, but I don't think this is unfair. If you want your work to be protected, you should have to put a notice of copyright within the work, as under the old system. And you should have up to a year or so to decide you want to do that (to prevent people copying your expression.) Beyond that, it's public - period.

"Copyright infringement is not theft. The most obvious and conspicuous difference is that the former is civil and the latter criminal law."

This is another popular Slashdot conversation:

Person A: copyright isn't criminal, it's civil!

Persons B..N: No, it's both.

Person A: I knew that! What I meant was that civil copyright infringement isn't criminal. I wasn't talking about criminal copyright infringement.

it's about a pointless discussion as the "it's not acceptable to use the term 'steal' when discussing piracy" arguments.

"Now, these are obvious, relevant, basic facts about a topic which is important and much-discussed on Slashdot. And yet there a largish population (maybe 15% of those who express an interest) on Slashdot of people who just physically cannot learn them."

I know what you mean. Section 506 is even called "Criminal offenses" and people still don't get it that you can go to the big house if you pirate enough. Heck, cases of people getting jail time for piracy regularly come up on Slashdot, and there are still people who'll try to tell you that copyright violation doesn't fall under criminal law.

Copyright infringement is part of criminal law. Patent infringement is part of civil law. That is why you can go to jail for copyright infringement, but not patent infringement.

Canada: "Either civil or criminal penalties can be imposed for copyright infringement. Criminal penalties can include fines and/or imprisonment and depend on the seriousness of the infringement."
ref - http://www.yorku.ca/univsec/documents/copyright/te xt9.htm

US: see paragraph 506 called "Criminal offenses"
ref - http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html

Britain: ditto

In other jurisdictions it is similar. So get off your high horse and actually READ the law or maybe google for it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringemen t

"(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,"

Good point. I don't know of any case law because it doesn't interest me that much and since I'm in Canada it doesn't affect me. That might be covered by this:

Section 1201
(c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.(1) Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title.

I guess one would have to know about the rest of the Copyright title.

Title 17, Chapter 12, Section 1201.
Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works

That latter link is about what the Librarian of Congress has made excemptions from the DMCA for, as per 1201 (a)(1)(C). It's kind of interesting, because there are barely any excemptions at all. The only one that would really come up I imagine is that people can break DRM on ebooks that don't exist with accessibility features, if there are no other versions of that ebook that do have accessbility features.

(I should note I'm not a lawyer and may have interpreted this wrong. Don't act on my interpretation.)

Allow me to provide a few cites to text that I believe support what I've said:
DMCA circa 1998

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying(2) of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

2 "Copying" is used in this context as a short-hand for the exercise of any of the exclusive rights of an author under section 106 of the Copyright Act. Consequently, a technological measure that prevents unauthorized distribution or public performance of a work would fall in this second category

and later on in the same document

Savings clauses

Section 1201 contains two general savings clauses. First, section 1201(c)(1) states that nothing in section 1201 affects rights, remedies, limitations or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use. Second, section 1201(c)(2) states that nothing in section 1201 enlarges or diminishes vicarious or contributory copyright infringement.

...and last but not least - the copyright law itself as it defines "fair use" just so we're clear:

107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

So to me it's fairly clear that the DMCA allows circumvention for cases of fair use. The catch is the interpretation of "fair use". The EFF (among others) consider a personal backup copy fair use. Of course, that's not always the case.

To add more confusion to the mess, the RIAA itself said in the MGM vs. Grokster case

Don Verrilli said to the Supreme Court last year:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their websi

Allow me to provide a few cites to text that I believe support what I've said:
DMCA circa 1998

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying(2) of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent either category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances, described below. As to the act of circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

This distinction was employed to assure that the public will have the continued ability to make fair use of copyrighted works. Since copying of a work may be a fair use under appropriate circumstances, section 1201 does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited.

2 "Copying" is used in this context as a short-hand for the exercise of any of the exclusive rights of an author under section 106 of the Copyright Act. Consequently, a technological measure that prevents unauthorized distribution or public performance of a work would fall in this second category

and later on in the same document

Savings clauses

Section 1201 contains two general savings clauses. First, section 1201(c)(1) states that nothing in section 1201 affects rights, remedies, limitations or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use. Second, section 1201(c)(2) states that nothing in section 1201 enlarges or diminishes vicarious or contributory copyright infringement.

...and last but not least - the copyright law itself as it defines "fair use" just so we're clear:

107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

So to me it's fairly clear that the DMCA allows circumvention for cases of fair use. The catch is the interpretation of "fair use". The EFF (among others) consider a personal backup copy fair use. Of course, that's not always the case.

To add more confusion to the mess, the RIAA itself said in the MGM vs. Grokster case

Don Verrilli said to the Supreme Court last year:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their websi

Unfortunately, you're wrong. Copyright law in the US does not say that what you write is yours.

No, he's correct. It says in layman's terms that:

Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights through the author can rightfully claim copyright.

So, if you write something, you own the copyright. You may notice in the article you linked to that Courtney specifically mentions print authors owning copyrights for their works. You can do what you want with the copyright, however, and that's where the confusion lies.

More often than not, what you write belongs to the publisher. That's why you see musicians complaining bitterly that "the band owns none of its work" (quoted directly from that article).

If you read the article, you'd know that the band owns none of its work, because it sold the copyright for its work to a record company in return for distribution, promotion, and royalties. That's the beauty of copyright. As an author, you can do what you want with your property. You do NOT have to sell it to a record company, and they can't TAKE it from you. You can, however, sign a recording contract wherein you stipulate that you relinquish certain rights in return for the record company's services. Note that many musicians *do* own the copyrights for the music they created. You may give up your copyright in two ways:

You can create a work for hire:

In the case of works made for hire, the employer and not the employee is considered to be the author ...if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

You can transfer the copyright:

Any or all of the copyright owner's exclusive rights or any subdivision of those rights may be transferred, but the transfer of exclusive rights is not valid unless that transfer is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent. Transfer of a right on a nonexclusive basis does not require a written agreement.

The contrast between the US Constitution (which favors authors and inventors) and US law (which favors publishers and employers) could not be more striking.

It's only striking, because you misunderstand the Constitution. The Constitution provides for copyright, but more importantly, doesn't stipulate what you can or cannot do with your property. Thus, the laws regarding transfer and works for hire fit perfectly within the bounds of the Constitution. There is no disagreement or hypocrisy.

Source: U.S. Copyright Office

>PS: Linux users are breaking the LAW every time they watch a DVD using their OS.

Untrue.

Distributors of some types of DVD decoding software may be doing so in violation of civil statutes in certain jurisdictions, but I must ask you to cite the specific prohibition you claimed in your PS:. Chapter and verse of the applicable law, please, don't waste our time with "DMCA". I know all about the DMCA, the DVD/CCA/CSS issues, etc.

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

CSS, as far as I know, has been found to "effectively control access". Using software that circuments CSS therefore appears to violate the above. Yes, distributing said software is also a violation, but I don't see any exception for use.

you can also record your own version of any copyrighted song and put it on a CD for sale without asking anyone. This is called a cover song, and the law gives you explicit permission to do that.

Could you give a citation of the passage of copyright law that does so? I could not find one on http://www.copyright.gov/ but admittedly did only a cursory search. I remember numerous examples of lawsuits, and threats of lawsuits, against artists "covering" or sampling other people's copyrighted work, e.g. U2 vs Negativland and SST Records, for which U2 may forever burn in hell.

It is unclear whether you are asking about my statements in the post you replied to, or if you are asking about my statements in my other post elsewhere. If the former, you should have noticed that I put a link in my post and you should have checked it. If the latter, it would have been more clear had you replied to the post that you were questioning... and to breifly answer you you can directly confirm the existance and operation of Pandora.com under US law or check the Wikipedia page on Pandora.com, if you want to verify the US law I discussed you can go directly to the official US government copyright webpage on CARP law, if you were asking about Russian law and ROMS here is the official ROMS website but I would have to Google for an "authoratative" english reference on ROMS, and if you were questioning the RIAA contracts for their artists... that would be odd... but I'm sure I could Google several artist websites explaining and ranting about the evil contracts the RIAA members impose.

Is that adaquate? If not, could you be more specific about what points you are questioning?

-

Surely we can speed up this process by simply asking the publishers to make available the original digital Latex or SGML files for all books printed since the late 70s right? Why invest hundreds of hours on scan/ocr/qa for texts which already exist in a digital format?

This has to do with DRM because...? You did remember that was the subject of this conversation, right?

Yes, but you for some reason brought up the topic of running MacOS on Windows. Which also has nothing to do with DRM. Windows' copy protection does, because it is explicitly DRM - and affects the system when running as intended on legal owners' platforms.

It's probably perfectly possible - many people have run MacOS X on non-Apple x86 boxes.

How? With a DMCA notice. Why? Apple has encrypted some of the binaries that must be modified to get OSX to run on non-Apple systems.

Again, what evidence is there that it would be illegal to modify it? From what I understand, the DMCA refers to breaking encryption that is part of a copy-protection mechanism. But the encrypted parts in MacOS are not part of a copy-protection mechanism. After all, I can use it on as many different Macs as I like - making many different copies, and it won't stop me. It's not using unique serial codes or anything to prevent unlicensed copying. So, wouldn't running MacOS on a vanilla PC fall under reverse-engineering exemptions?

You're seriously asking me what harm an infinite-length copyright term could do? That's a remarkably low bar to set. We'll examine the effects of automatically-renewed copyright terms of long, but not infinite, length here in the United States.

(Bear in mind that to seriously argue for infinite terms, you'd have to show harm to the culture that wouldn't occur if terms were only five hundred years long, for instance. And "it enriches their descendants" doesn't count; we have copyright to promote science and the useful arts. Congress can hand me a stack of Benjies for no particular reason, and that'd be "good" for me, but that doesn't make it good public policy, and it absolutely doesn't promote science and the useful arts.)

If you'd like an example of how current culture always makes use of the past, and how that past has been taken out of the hands of creators, there's an excellent presentation by Lawrence Lessig.

If you'd like numbers, see Public Knowledge's statistics that of the 3 million registered copyrights from 1923 to 1943, only 2% of them were commercially used in 1998. I think tossing 98% of our culture from that period down the memory hole is a terrible thing to do. (The Lessig presentation has a bit about the role of a noncommercial life for many works--most of the books on Project Gutenberg aren't sold any more, but that doesn't mean they're not useful. Better to have them there than nowhere at all.)

If you'd like anecdotes, you can start with Save The Music's overview, then read anecdotes from researchers who had to change or abandon projects because there was no way to clear rights for orphan works, archivists and documentarians who can't use materials from companies that went out of business many years ago, or old folks who can't get their wedding photographs repaired if their kid tears them, or the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America--hardly a bunch of Napster-licking college students--collecting anecdotes where the early pulp heritage of SF can't be reproduced or even preserved because early magazines folded, and no one knows who owns the copyright.

An Orphan Works system--or requiring copyright registration again--would address most of these concerns. But ironclad copyright of a century or more, let alone eternal copyright, is destructive madness which serves to enrich a few corporations at the expense of our culture at large, by locking up (until they turn to dust--essentially throwing away) any works which aren't commercially exploited any longer.

So, yeah, there's my evidence; the losses are far from being simply theoretical. Your house analogy is ridiculous for reasons pointed out elsewhere in this thread; no one short of Jack Valenti thinks that intellectual property should be administered the same way as physical property. You can read some of the Founders' thoughts on that. (As I keep saying, copyright is for the benefit of the culture at large; it rewards creators as an incentive to this end. It is, for this reason, a convenient abstraction, similar to physical property in name only.)

(Also, your distinction between "artistic" and "non-artistic" isn't the right one; you're thinking of creative and non-creative works. See Feist v. Rural; it's not your efforts that are copyrighted, but your creativity, once fixed in a tan

You're seriously asking me what harm an infinite-length copyright term could do? That's a remarkably low bar to set. We'll examine the effects of automatically-renewed copyright terms of long, but not infinite, length here in the United States.

(Bear in mind that to seriously argue for infinite terms, you'd have to show harm to the culture that wouldn't occur if terms were only five hundred years long, for instance. And "it enriches their descendants" doesn't count; we have copyright to promote science and the useful arts. Congress can hand me a stack of Benjies for no particular reason, and that'd be "good" for me, but that doesn't make it good public policy, and it absolutely doesn't promote science and the useful arts.)

If you'd like an example of how current culture always makes use of the past, and how that past has been taken out of the hands of creators, there's an excellent presentation by Lawrence Lessig.

If you'd like numbers, see Public Knowledge's statistics that of the 3 million registered copyrights from 1923 to 1943, only 2% of them were commercially used in 1998. I think tossing 98% of our culture from that period down the memory hole is a terrible thing to do. (The Lessig presentation has a bit about the role of a noncommercial life for many works--most of the books on Project Gutenberg aren't sold any more, but that doesn't mean they're not useful. Better to have them there than nowhere at all.)

If you'd like anecdotes, you can start with Save The Music's overview, then read anecdotes from researchers who had to change or abandon projects because there was no way to clear rights for orphan works, archivists and documentarians who can't use materials from companies that went out of business many years ago, or old folks who can't get their wedding photographs repaired if their kid tears them, or the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America--hardly a bunch of Napster-licking college students--collecting anecdotes where the early pulp heritage of SF can't be reproduced or even preserved because early magazines folded, and no one knows who owns the copyright.

An Orphan Works system--or requiring copyright registration again--would address most of these concerns. But ironclad copyright of a century or more, let alone eternal copyright, is destructive madness which serves to enrich a few corporations at the expense of our culture at large, by locking up (until they turn to dust--essentially throwing away) any works which aren't commercially exploited any longer.

So, yeah, there's my evidence; the losses are far from being simply theoretical. Your house analogy is ridiculous for reasons pointed out elsewhere in this thread; no one short of Jack Valenti thinks that intellectual property should be administered the same way as physical property. You can read some of the Founders' thoughts on that. (As I keep saying, copyright is for the benefit of the culture at large; it rewards creators as an incentive to this end. It is, for this reason, a convenient abstraction, similar to physical property in name only.)

(Also, your distinction between "artistic" and "non-artistic" isn't the right one; you're thinking of creative and non-creative works. See Feist v. Rural; it's not your efforts that are copyrighted, but your creativity, once fixed in a tan