Slashdot Mirror

• Google must not have "requisite level knowledge of the infringing activity. Examining what this means (page 12), we see that, because there are so many files on Youtube, they cannot have this type of knowledge (unless, of course, during discovery, a corporate memo was found which cited a specific infringing video that, after the fact, was never removed), which must be knowledge of a specific infringing file, not that infringement is occurring in general.
• If Google has the right and ability to control the infringing activity then (halt this boolean, we do not need to know the antecedent since it already evaluates to False: Google cannot monitor the millions of files placed on what was Youtube)
• "Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, [Google] must expeditiously take down or block access to the material" - Youtube did this, as evidenced by the many times Lazy Sunday was taken off Youtube at NBC's request (note that Youtube was never sued for this activity)

• Google must not have "requisite level knowledge of the infringing activity. Examining what this means (page 12), we see that, because there are so many files on Youtube, they cannot have this type of knowledge (unless, of course, during discovery, a corporate memo was found which cited a specific infringing video that, after the fact, was never removed), which must be knowledge of a specific infringing file, not that infringement is occurring in general.
• If Google has the right and ability to control the infringing activity then (halt this boolean, we do not need to know the antecedent since it already evaluates to False: Google cannot monitor the millions of files placed on what was Youtube)
• "Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, [Google] must expeditiously take down or block access to the material" - Youtube did this, as evidenced by the many times Lazy Sunday was taken off Youtube at NBC's request (note that Youtube was never sued for this activity)

Actually, no.

In America, profit is the *only* reason for copyright. Copyright exists to encourage authors and inventors to contribute their work to the public domain. In exchange for that, the government grants those creators a limited monopoly on their work so they can profit from it. Authors profit financially in the short term, the body of knowledge as a whole benefits in the long term.

American copyright has exactly nothing to do with the "moral rights" of an author. The prohibition against making derivitave works is not to protect the artistic vision or creative control; it is to keep a third party from developing a commercially viable idea from groundwork laid by another at the expense of that other. Two of the four elements considered when a judgement of fair use is made consider the financial impact of the use.

To say that money is almost irrelevant to either the spirit or letter of the law is simply ignorant.

I think most copyright laws have a clause in it that you can use excerpts from a book but not a whole book as long as you note the source of your information with the excerpt.

This is the "Fair Use" clause, described in the link below. The amount you can quote under fair use is legally fuzzy and situation dependent, but (though IANAL, I'll say that) it is almost certainly a lot less than Google makes available online, even if Google doesn't make the whole book available online.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Okay, now I had to go back and check. The deposit requirement still exists in the law(see 17 USC 407)—indeed, its theoretically broader than it used to be, since the prior limitation that it only applied to works published with notice of copyright has been removed, so theoretically anything subject to copyright must be deposited—but there is a provision which allows classes of works to be exempted by regulation. The copyright office page on Mandatory Deposit provides a general description of the current operation of the requirement, and regulations lay out a dozen exemptions, (catalogs, greeting cards, on-line databases, etc.) but in general the rule remains alive.

So if I draw something to a picture in a book I've bought, I have committed a copyright violation?

Perhaps. Your work is a derivative work, and is infringing unless it can be justified under the Fair Use provisions or other limitations on the scope of the copyright holder's exclusive rights.

In short, I don't buy this idea. Links to sources, please.

Title 17 US Code. In particular, look at the definition of derivative works in section 101, the rights exclusive to the copyright holder in section 106 and the Fair Use limitations in section 107.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Fair use gives you some rights over copyrighted material even if the author does not want you to have it. DRM prevents you from exercising your legal rights.

Wow OCG you're outdoing youself. Did you know

-There are people who do not "pirate" movies and music, and who also write papers for school. This is a totally irrelevant point, and I might say an attempt to "distract from the actual topic of discussion"
-The "implicit property transfer" you talk about has zero legal substance. Copyright transfer requires an explicit writing. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap2.html#204
-The threat of a failing grade is clearly coercion. The students are being "forced" to accept this or fail. If a teacher demanded sexual favors from a student in exchange for a passing grade would you say "If they don't like that, their parents can pull them out of school and homeschool them."? If the student provided the favors, would that be a freely-accepted agreement?

Try to get at least one or two of the most basic facts under your belt before trashing people.

The RIAA has no authority to sue on behalf of any copyright holder who has not agreed to be represented by them.

If they could then the following scenario would also be possible:

1. I am working in a school computer lab.
2. I witness someone on the computer in front of me download something which I suspect they do not have authorization to do.
3. I witness that person copy that file to a media, leaving the original download in the tmp directory.
4. Lets even say I happen to know said person, so identity is not in question.

Given these facts I would then be able to sue that person for "not more than $150,000." While a fun possibility, the actual act precludes this. At most I could notify the copyright owner and agree to serve as a witness to the act if they decided to bring the case. Similarly, the most RIAA could do in the P2P case is find the copyright owner and notify them, agreeing to provide the information that have collected.

I like the idea, but, according to the U.S. Copyright Office website, you have to wait 4 months for a certificate of registration, even though they might process it the next day. Doesn't invalidate the point, but you would have to send your paper in to the USCO earlier than the date of your paper submission day.

At least at my University, anything you turn in for a grade becomes the property of the University.

What might be possible is that you grant a license to the university that allows the university to do whatever it likes with your papers, but you still own the copyright.

Check out section 204 of the copuright code

Probably the university owns the physical copy of the paper that you turned in, but not the underlying copyrights.

that Google is a company based in the US and that the paper, in question, hails from Belgium. Copyright laws are not universal. That being said, Belgium has every right to adopt and implemement laws that it feels are just. Just as Google has every right to do as much as they can under the US Copyright Office's Fair Use definition: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html . But, that in no way means that Belgium has to allow Google to index those foreign newspaper outlets. This is the price of globalization that we are now beginning to encounter. International law is likley not the answer, either, since so many international laws are not fully recognized due to potential loss of revenues. This should be interesting to see what Google decides to do and what news outlets, among other content creators do in the future.

Since you are impaired in interpreting plain language English, by "unauthorized access," they are referring to getting content you have not licensed (paid for), NOT media shifting content which you have paid for.

Section1201(b)(1) defines such circumvention, as "avoiding, bypassing, removing, deactivating, or otherwise impairing a technological measure," and 321 states that its software does not avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or otherwise impair a technological measure, but that it simply uses the authorized key to unlock the encryption. However, while 321's software does use the authorized key to access the DVD, it does not have authority to use this key, as licensed DVD players do, and it therefore avoids and bypasses CSS.

(A) to 'circumvent a technological measure' means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
and
(B) a technological measure 'effectively controls access to a work' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Section 1201 divides technological measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measures that prevent unauthorized copying 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.

1. First, what is the nature of the new work? Is it transformative or merely derivative; is it educational and noncommercial or commercial?
2. Second, what is the amount of the old work re-used?
3. Third, is the old work largely creative or largely fact-based?
4. Fourth, what is the impact by the new work on the market for the old work? The first and fourth prongs are given considerably more weight than the second and third prongs.

Let's consider a student setting up a tape recorder and simply recording your lectures. (We'll set aside any Honor Code violations that explicitly give you the right to ban taping; we'll only deal with your "intellectual property" right.)

1. First, if the students aren't selling the recordings and using the recordings to help themselves and others learn, prong one cuts in their favor. Also, they're transforming your ephemeral audio into more durable format, so prong one further cuts in their favor under the transformative question.
2. Secondly, although they may be taping the whole old work and prong two cuts against a finding of Fair Use, this is only one prong and a less important one at that.
3. Third, your lecture is likely primarily fact-driven, so the third prong cuts in favor of finding Fair Use.
4. Finally, you're most likely not selling your existing lectures in a recorded format. You may be selling your lectures via tuition at the University, but so long as these tapes are not serving as a substitute for the University experience and/or degree, you're not being harmed. (On the contrary, I've had many people tell me they decided to go to law school because of LoaLS, because it de-mystified what law school was. In this way I'm helping the market for my law school professors, and so your hypothetical recording students could be helping the market for your copyrighted works.)

In summary, a student would likely have a legal right to record your lectures under Fair Use because three of the four prongs (and both of the important ones) would cut in their favor. If you would like make your lectures available for sale or distribution that might change the analysis. But the key thing is to disabuse yourself of this notion that your "intellectual property" is an absolute. Fair Use is explicitly codified in the Copyright Act because it is recognized that oftentimes the incu

Now, IANAL, but from what I know,

Hoo boy...

it doesn't actually matter whether or not you knew that company had permission to sell the book.

You see, copyright protects the right to copy. When you're buying a book, you're not making a copy of the book. Someone else is. And that person, company, whatever, is the one who bears the legal liability for making the copy, not you.

Only if the copy was lawfully made. See http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117

"That'll be because Copyright infringement is a Civil, not a Crimminal offence in most of the western world. Governments can't prosecute it."

FYI, here in the USA, it falls under both civil and criminal law, depending on the volume. If you would like the specifics, see Title 17, Chapter 5, Section 506. In a nutshell, you're allowed to pirate up to $1,000 worth of stuff in 180 days before you run afoul of the feds.

"Funny, that, because they do prosecute people who sell pirated DVDs.. anyone care to explain the difference for me? Damned if I can spot it.."

It's not the media; pirate enough of anything and you'll go to the clink. Remember the guy in the news lately who just got seven years for software piracy?

As I said, IANAL. The relevant portion of the Act (Title 17 106(3)) reads as follows:

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: . . . (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; . . .

This is modified somewhat by a later section:

109. Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord. . . .

(b)(1)(A) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending. . . .

It appears that an exception was later introduced for direct sale; Congress probably realized that the original wording of the Act was far too restrictive in that area after a court case or two. However, lending of "sound recordings" is still specificially prohibited by the Act, and that was what the GGP poster referred to.

As I said, IANAL. The relevant portion of the Act (Title 17 106(3)) reads as follows:

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: . . . (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; . . .

This is modified somewhat by a later section:

109. Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord

(a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord. . . .

(b)(1)(A) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), unless authorized by the owners of copyright in the sound recording or the owner of copyright in a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), and in the case of a sound recording in the musical works embodied therein, neither the owner of a particular phonorecord nor any person in possession of a particular copy of a computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program), may, for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage, dispose of, or authorize the disposal of, the possession of that phonorecord or computer program (including any tape, disk, or other medium embodying such program) by rental, lease, or lending, or by any other act or practice in the nature of rental, lease, or lending. . . .

It appears that an exception was later introduced for direct sale; Congress probably realized that the original wording of the Act was far too restrictive in that area after a court case or two. However, lending of "sound recordings" is still specificially prohibited by the Act, and that was what the GGP poster referred to.

This is yet another question that anyone with a clue wouldn't waste lawyer time on. So, if I google 'internet broadcast license fee' one of the first hits is this. So let me ask, if you're not paying license fees you're obviously supposed to, can they tie you up in legalities?

This is considerably different than the average "pirate" who downloads software for him/herself and perhaps distributes copies to friends. This guy was *selling* pirated software. That's a whole different ballgame, and it makes him a garden variety criminal in my opinion.

Google might want to read Sec. 506 before they claim copyright on this stuff.

(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.

When a company goes belly up, the law should stipulate that copy protection mechanisms can be legally circumvented

The DMCA already does this. See page 5 of this summary, the part that talks about reverse engineering for compatibility.

Although not present in the summary, I believe (meaning I lost the original article) the DMCA also makes exceptions for cracking copy protection, such as a hardware dongle, on legitimately purchased software if the dongle no longer works and there's no real way to get another one. That section could also apply to what you're talking about.

Copyright is limited, but DRM is forever

Copyright: Life of author + 70 years http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html

Life of a CDr: a few years, to a few decades, to possibly a few hundred years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R

Life of a removable storage media drive: 20 years (est. Think 5 1/4" floppies.)

Life of a game console: about 15 years (playstation)

For practical purposes, copyright is forever too. Unless you plan on passing your Donkey Kong cartridge down to your great grand children...

So.... How long is that in Computer Years?

The US is a fascist state - they like to tell people what they can and cannot do. That's nothing to be proud of.

Each of the WIPO treaties contains virtually identical language obligating member states to prevent circumvention of technological measures used to protect copyrighted works, and to prevent tampering with the integrity of copyright management information.

506. Criminal offenses:
(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,

shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

From our copyright laws:

(1) Except as provided by clause (2) of this subsection, the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. For the purposes of this subsection, all the parts of a compilation or derivative work constitute one work.

(Clause 2 goes on to state "(2) In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.")

"If that's all they expect to receive from the downloading services, then they rightfully shouldn't expect anything more than that as penalties for non-pay downloading."

When one buys a track from the iTMS for a buck, one does not get the right to distribute unlimited copies, as the defendant apparently did. Come on, guys, this should be basic stuff -- if I crack your $25 shareware app and distribute it to 1,000 people, I don't simply owe you just $25 for that one copy I cracked. If I use your OSS code in my closed-source app and sell 1,000 copies for $100, I don't owe you $0 for just that one instance of the source code that I copied.

Make no mistake, analog copyright protection systems are protected under the DMCA. The DMCA makes it illegal to create an anticircumvention device of any kind, with few exceptions (fairly well explained on Copyright.gov's DMCA overview, page 5 (Warning: PDF)), none of which apply to breaking older copyright protection methods. If you're going to enforce the DMCA anywhere, you must also enforce it here, and against every other technological copyright circumvention scheme ever conceived.

Which, of course, is why the DMCA is so stupid, arbitrary, and completely one-sided.

In the United States, a copyrighted work is defined in Title 17 of the United States Code.

Section 102 of the Code states:

"Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." (my emphasis)

The key phrase is "tangible medium of expression" meaning things like paper, CD's, etc.

The rules governing your whistling, singing, or otherwise performing a copyrighted work are defined in the concept of a "public" performance (Sec. 101):

"To perform or display a work 'publicly' means --

(1) to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered; or

(2) to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance or display of the work to a place specified by clause (1) or to the public, by means of any device or process, whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance or display receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times." (again, my emphasis)

So you can sing anything you want in front of your family and its "social acquanitances" but not in front of strangers in a bar and not on TV. At that point the performance becomes "public" and subject to copyright law. Whether a particular performance infringes depends on the applicability of the "fair use" concept and any additional rights granted you by the rights-holder. The copyrighted song, "Happy Birthday to You!," is a common example. No one collects royalties from you when you sing it, unlicensed, at a party, but movie producers must credit the songwriters and pay them royalties if it's performed in a movie.

If you're curious about your fair-use rights (in the US), I recommend reading 17 USC 107 http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107.

IANAL.

Any of it! Hence "copyright", the right to copy.

I just copied nine words of your automatically copyrighted comment into mine. So sue me. No wait, you'll be laughed out of court, as some instances of copying are obvious fair uses and thus not actionable infringements. The issue here is what should and should not be a fair use.

That they won't be able to sell you the same tune for an Nth time in the form of an "official" (and often crappy) guitar translation.

If this is the case, then OLGA might again rise from the ashes as a sort of "errata sheet" to the official translation, explaining every single error in every single song book. Criticism of a copyrighted work is likely to be ruled as fair use of that work and thus not an infringement (17 USC 107).

"it's been ages since i've seen the articles pertaining to this, but you can read the text of the AHRA online."

It's also known as Title 17, Chapter 10. Here's a copy, for anybody who's interested.

"The AHRA was expressly written to address concerns by copyright interests that people would use recording devices to share recordings with friends. To remedy this in a balanced manner, they charged a small levy on recording devices/media in return for the cartels forfeiting their rights to pursue cases of individual copying as infringing."

You are referring to 1008:

"No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings."

I believe that you are correct that the specific case of copying a friend or neighbor's tape is exempt from action.

As an aside, many Slashdotters take this "noncommercial" notion and run with it. They state -- incorrectly -- that this makes piracy via P2P legal, as it's just making a copy for 10,000 of one's closest friends. When it became viable to distribute thousands of copies of an item at practically no cash (and thus not requiring that cash be paid for the pirated item), the DMCA closed this loophole.

Meanwhile, even though [17 USC 506](2) seems like it's supposed to cover prepping for sale of bootlegs (making hundreds of copies in 6 months? What is being done with these copies?) and filesharing

At least in the United States, (1) covers file trading through the 17 USC 101 definition of "financial gain":

The term "financial gain" includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.

Copyright infringement is not a crime. It's a civil infraction you can be sued for

Most of the time copyright infringement is a civil matter. However, in some cases it's a criminal offense: see 17 USC 506 and foreign counterparts.

Copyright isn't only about copying; as a general matter, the owner of a copyright controls many different uses of the copyrighted works, including use, public performance, transmission, etc. Just check out Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright law, aka 17 USC 106. {Prof. Jonathan}

Show me where any sort of commercial activity is permitted in the "Fair Use" exemptions to copyright infringement.

A lot of commercial uses are permitted under the "Fair Use" doctrine. Excerpts used for a commercial review site for example. Show me where commercial use is specifically omitted from Fair Use.

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered "fair," such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. 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 distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission. The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported." Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work. The safest course is always to get permission from the copyright owner before using copyrighted material. The Copyright Office cannot give this permission. When it is impracticable to obtain permission, use of copyrighted material should be avoided unless the doctrine of "fair use" would clearly apply to the situation. The Copyright Office can neither determine if a certain use may be considered "fair" nor advise on possible copyright violations. If there is any doubt, it is advisable to consult an attorney. FL-102, Revised July 2006

copyright.gov's formatting is nicer...

(SEVERAL URLS are in this posting... scan further (~ 3/4) down for details about my own designs I am discussing)

Since the discussion has wended and meandered into copyright, police, government and commercial buildings, this presented one of the very rare opportunities for me to mention my own copyright works without being blatantly off topic.

For fun and hopefully someday to make money, I design naval ships (cruisers, but no destroyers... "destroyer" is too evil/bombastic/outmoded a word -- and internationally, several nations feel the same way). I've shown them to LOTS of people here and overseas. I've given away hard copies of my design in the URL below. People see them on paper and think I'm an engineer, asking me what CAD system I used. I reply: "Mark ONE, Mod-OH eyeball, pencil, straight edge, and paper and lots of reading." Some even thing I heisted REAL government/ship designs. But, I made sure the USN public affairs office in 2003 knew what I was doing so I don't get some capricious, reactionary government warrant or possible shipyard complaints delivered to me. Filing for my first copyright was interesting, though not expensive. Registering them would be even MORE expensive, since mine are not the typical 8.5" x 11" questionable originality boat and dinghy and small craft designs sent to the US Library of Congress.

Copyright on boats/ships/vessels is or seems to be notoriously fraught with issues. If you look at:

US Copyright Office - Registration of Vessel Hull Designs
http://www.copyright.gov/vessels/

and:

Copyrights
stylized boat The Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, Title 17, Chapter 13 of the United States Code, was signed into law on October 28, 1998, providing for ...
www.uspto.gov/main/profiles/copyright.htm

you may scratch your head.

When I filed for copyright in 2003 for one design, the US LIB CONG/ Copyright Office sent back the form for clarification. I could COPYRIGHT my designs as BLUEPRINTS, but since they look VERY REAL as ship plans, I could also register them as "REGISTERED VESSEL DESIGNS". At one point, their processing fees were lower than posted. I think once they got two copies of my originals at 24" by 46" or so, and saw that 5 sheets comprised the set for a particular ship, and that there were many decks, numerous details, and an 80+ page/two-sides printed book (badly edited on my part) they must have realized that if others started registering ships it would cost them an arm and a leg to process such stuff.

But, they apparently can conceive of a situation where a ship design is a COPYRIGHTED blueprint of a fictional ship, AND simultaneously the design can be a REGISTERED VESSEL DESIGN because the details are so insanely numerous as to be a buildable ship. What REALLY hung them up was that I wanted to also register the design, as Copyright and Registry are two beasts, and I wanted dual protection. They then started saying that since this is a SHIP, it should be registered, since it will sit in water, and they don't like seeing REAL ships as copyright but not registered. I told them the ship could be a MOCKUP for a movie set, or a floating barge not going to sea if no engines were installed, but things got really confusing and I didn't finish the paperwork.

However, technically, legally, the work is mine. It's just that without registry or copyright, what I could claim in damages would be limited by any lack of copyright filing or registry.

You can see them at:

www.dreadyachts.com

but at:

http://www.dreadyacht.com/4.html

you an for free download .tif copies of my first design (it has some intentional/and erroneous external alternations which don't negate the value of the effort; besides, if any real navy wanted to build a copy of my plans, they'd STILL spend years ruminating the best permutations and equipment to personnel ratio among many over va

Show me a passage in any lawbook that equates copyright infringement with theft.

Chapter IIIa of Prosecuting Intellectual Property Crimes (my copy is in dead-tree form, but it's also available online: http://www.cybercrime.gov/ipmanual.htm), by David Goldstone: "the criminalization of large-scale copying even in the absence of economic motivation by the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, Pub. L. No. 105-147, 111 Stat. 2678 (1997). . .

Also, in many jurisdictions copyright infringement is a tort, not a crime.

In the U.S., all copyright cases are Federal, and controlled by the United States Code and stare decisis in the Federal District and Circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#301 17 USC 301. Under the United States Code, copyright infringement can be (depending on the factual circumstances present) either civil or http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506 criminal (17 USC 506).

Many extra-territorial jurisdictions treat, or can treat, (c) infringement as criminal.

U.S.: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/06/28/1699696.h tm

Viet Nam: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php ?num=06SOC080706

New Zealand:http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/2006/07/ar t100012268.php

China:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-07/1 6/content_641731.htm

Special Chinese District of Hong Kong:http://www.thestandard.com.hk/weekend_news_de tail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=22887&sid=8816949&con_ty pe=3&d_str=20060715

I saw something in my news clipping service about a recent -- last week -- India conviction and six month jail sentence for (c) infringement, but can't find it on news.google.com.

Show me a passage in any lawbook that equates copyright infringement with theft.

Chapter IIIa of Prosecuting Intellectual Property Crimes (my copy is in dead-tree form, but it's also available online: http://www.cybercrime.gov/ipmanual.htm), by David Goldstone: "the criminalization of large-scale copying even in the absence of economic motivation by the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, Pub. L. No. 105-147, 111 Stat. 2678 (1997). . .

Also, in many jurisdictions copyright infringement is a tort, not a crime.

In the U.S., all copyright cases are Federal, and controlled by the United States Code and stare decisis in the Federal District and Circuit courts, and the Supreme Court. http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#301 17 USC 301. Under the United States Code, copyright infringement can be (depending on the factual circumstances present) either civil or http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506 criminal (17 USC 506).

Many extra-territorial jurisdictions treat, or can treat, (c) infringement as criminal.

U.S.: http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/06/28/1699696.h tm

Viet Nam: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php ?num=06SOC080706

New Zealand:http://www.times.co.nz/cms/news/2006/07/ar t100012268.php

China:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-07/1 6/content_641731.htm

Special Chinese District of Hong Kong:http://www.thestandard.com.hk/weekend_news_de tail.asp?pp_cat=30&art_id=22887&sid=8816949&con_ty pe=3&d_str=20060715

I saw something in my news clipping service about a recent -- last week -- India conviction and six month jail sentence for (c) infringement, but can't find it on news.google.com.

Exclusive rights in copyrighted works.

The Director's Guild would have you believe that the "artist" has an intrinsic right to see that his work is only displayed in approved forms. Such a right does not exist in law. (Not in the United States, anyway.)

Let's be accurate about something.

Yes, that would be a nice idea, wouldn't it?

Anything, and I mean ANYTHING that is shown over the ABC airwaves that is recorded and shared via the internet IS NOT piracy. Over the air television, HD or analog, is free for the taking.

Bullshit. Sorry, but that is complete and utter bullshit. "Let's be accurate about something." Just because something is shown over the airwaves does not mean it's free for the taking.

Unlike you, I will back up my claims with evidence.

It is not "free for the taking" in the USA. See this statement from the US Copyright Office website, which says "anybody who wishes to retransmit copyrighted broadcast programming--whether over the Internet or by more established means of transmission such as cable or satellite--may do so only by obtaining the consent of the copyright owners."

It is not "free for the taking" in Britain, either. See the official guide to UK copyrights.

I don't know about other countries, but I suspect you're based in the USA, in which case you are simply wrong.

Because Honda and VW aren't monopolists. It's really that simple.

Monopolists don't play by the same rules as everyone else. Monopolists have to play by much stricter rules. Especially Monopolists that acheived their status through government regulations and government subsidies.

What's that? You want me to point at the government grants that allowed Microsoft to become a monopoly?

No problem. Here you go.

Let me remind you what copyright is. Copyright is a government grant on the monopoly distribution of an intellectual work. The Constitution established the Congress's ability to issue copyright in order to promote the Arts and Sciences. Copyright is an economic tool; not an inalienable right.

Are VW parts, or Honda parts copyright by their creator companies? Last I checked you could go to an autoparts store and by replacements parts from a variety of vendors. The interfaces and connections between various vehicular parts are well documented, if not standard.

The government granted MS a copyright. MS took this copyright, and established a monopoly in the OS market. They then used this monopoly to harm the market, and as such, are subjected to government regulation that their competitors are not. That's the long and the short of the matter.

Irrelevant comparisons to other companies has nothing to do with this.

Here's the relevant section of the law:

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.

What if only Fox or CBS has the footage of a particular public event? Do we let the broadcaster eviscerate the ideas of fair use, prohibiting other networks from showing fragments so as to comment on the events, or criticise the original coverage?

of course it would be almost impossible to enforce at the individual level

Maybe or maybe not. Perhaps a desire for a public image would keep them from a broad harrassment campaign, although the penalties for copyright violation are so stiff that the cost of doing this would be paid by the penalties:

Statutory Damages. ... the copyright owner may elect, at any time before final judgment is rendered, to recover, instead of actual damages and profits, an award of statutory damages for all infringements involved in the action, with respect to any one work, for which any one infringer is liable individually, or for which any two or more infringers are liable jointly and severally, in a sum of not less than $750 or more than $30,000 as the court considers just. ... In a case where the copyright owner sustains the burden of proving, and the court finds, that infringement was committed willfully, the court in its discretion may increase the award of statutory damages to a sum of not more than $150,000.

That is a truckload of power to offer a copyright owner, but I've always said it makes sense in the existing cases of things like authoring stories, books, etc. because you need strong protection to keep Big Business from taking control of the works of the Little Guy. What I don't understand is why we need to empower Big Business further. They already seem to be making a healthy business even in the presence of piracy. If they lose money, they seem to just jack their rates to compensate and there's little any of us can do because there's so little competition. So why do they need more protection? Rights should be offered in order to create an incentive for action that might be threatened absent the action; having strong copyright to protect our individual blogs, etc. makes sense. Strong copyright to protect the people already making a healthy living serving those blogs seems worse than stupid--outright dangerous.

As to precedents, the case of WestLaw and its control of the court transcripts for a large part of the nation through the use of copyright (not asserted on the original work, but rather, if I understand correctly, asserted on the page and line breaking algorithms--because some courts have required citations to page and line numbers generated by those algorithms!) is probably worthy of study for anyone who thinks extreme cases don't happen because no one would ever be so bold.

The reason these stories on Slashdot are useless is because all of the slashbots here will be screaming "I don't want ads!". Well, tough shit. Advertising is part of our world and culture and they are coming to video games whether you want them to or not.

There are 3 ways to avoid advertising. Here they are:

1) Die. Seriously. Then your problems with advertising will be all over for good. The drawback is that it is permanent [depending on your beliefs in an afterlife.... :) ].

2) Live 'off the grid' on public/private land with NONE of the technological amenities of modern civilization other than (maybe) a P.O. box or other suitable 'mail drop' (but then the ad men will probably get ahold of it and still send you junk mail! :P). I like how the USPS's definiton of '1st Class Mail' only covers bills/invoices/purchase orders/related whatnot, financial statements/legal papers/government correspondence, checks and equivalents, and handwritten personal correspondence. To them, everything else that is not a periodical or parcel of some kind is considered bulk mail and is fair game for recycling/disposal. :)

3) Use the technologies at hand to minimize/eliminate your exposure to advertising. Some examples:

3a) Digital Video Recorders with 'adskip' (if you can still buy 'em or build 'em). If push comes to shove, hang on to your VCRs and use them instead.

3b) DVD Players that ignore Prohibited User Operation(s) (and region codeds as well!). Yay, no more FBI warnings/trailers/long animated menus before the movie! :) (the animated menu on Disney's Lion King DVD is notoriously long! :P) If you live in the USA and are thinking 'FVCK THE DMCA(.pdf)!!!!' there is software out there that will allow you to 'remaster' a commercial DVD to remove 'all' unwanted content. Non-USA world citizens don't have this worry (lucky them!)

3c) Ad blocking hosts file for your webbrowser such as this one. Use a 'surfer friendly' web browser like Off By One that ignores Flash and popup windows because it doesn't understand the SCRIPT and OBJECT HTML tags I am using it now to write this post instead of IE 5 that came with Windows 2000. Slashdot looks like crap in IE 5 so I gave up on it and am now using Off By One to surf Slashdot--much nicer! If you have to/want to use a 3rd party popup blocker, I heartily recommend NoAds

On Windows and tired of email spam? Filter it out with my absolutely free gift back to the Internet community at large who can use it. Since I started using it, my email spam has dropped to essentially zero. Attention Mods. before you mod this post down as spam/karmawhoring, consider 'going after' Roland Piquepaille first who always seems to get a story posted here no matter how trivial it is sometimes...or the multpage 'adfest' stories mentioned here from Tom's Hardware.

P.S. Sorry, I have no solution to public restroom advertising other than to keep your eyes closed while you do your business, use a 100% ad-free bathroom, or risk being arrested for defecating/urinating in public....

"The writing is on the wall" Indeed. Legal, for-profit commercial graffiti.... :P

The SIRA establishes a royalty-free rate for the making of server and other intermediate copies necessary to facilitate noninteractive webcasting. As the Register of Copyrights has previously testified,(10) intermediate copies made in the course of streaming a licensed public performance of a musical work should be subject either to an exemption or to a statutory license. The Office believes that the SIRA's proposal to create a royalty-free compulsory license to address this situation is a major step in the right direction, primarily because we understand that several of the interested parties have preliminarily agreed to this term and we believe it is a reasonable solution which resolves the "double-dipping" scenario at least in this context. However, we believe that a less burdensome and equally effective approach would be to grant a statutory exemption for this activity. Establishing an administrative apparatus and charging an administrative fee for the issuance of a royalty-free license would offer little or no benefit over an exemption, while creating costs and burdens for both licensees and the designated agent.

Finally, the SIRA appears to omit a provision governing one of the most significant and necessary aspects of any blanket licensing scheme: there is no provision that addresses how royalties are to be distributed by designated agents to copyright owners.

A stream does not, however, constitute a "distribution," the object of which is to deliver a usable copy of the work to the recipient; the buffer and other intermediate copies or portions of copies that may temporarily exist on a recipient's computer to facilitate the stream and are for all practical purposes useless (apart from their role in facilitating the single performance) and most likely unknown to the recipient simply do not qualify.

Additionally, we note that the SIRA resolves complaints by online music services about what they characterize as "double-dipping" in one context, providing for a royalty-free license for intermediate copies in the context of noninteractive streaming, but does not resolve other situations involving arguably duplicative payments demanded by copyright holders' representatives for both the performance as well as the reproduction and distribution rights when a musical work is delivered by a mechanism which is not clearly solely a distribution or a performance. Although these other situations involve important issues, it is not necessary to resolve them at this time to make the SIRA an effective piece of legislation. Its absence from the SIRA may even prompt the interested parties to resolve it on their own. In fact, because the resolution of that issue is so difficult due to the positions taken by music publishers and performing rights organizations, it is actually a virtue of the SIRA that it defers resolution of that intractable issue to another day.

Please read into something before calling all the reps of the senate to complain about something incorrectly and make yourself and your cause look like a bunch of asshats. Trusting a blog entry at face value is about as dumb as believing your friend who tells you that "all stop signs that have a white border around them are optional".

Again, Im not expressing support for or against this bill, only trying (hopelessly, this IS slashdot afterall, Ill probably be flamed to -10) to get people to think for themselves and read deeper into news flashes before reacting so you know not to flame the wrong people, it only makes you look dumb.

tm

I'm not entirely sure what this bill is supposed to do. Do you know?

The article doesn't link to the bill's text - it links to someone's blog. They don't really say what the bill's text is - they say what their reading of it is. Another poster put up a link to the Copyright Office's comments in favor of the bill:

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html

Now, normally I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. They invariably seem to side with copyright holders against the public interest. But they are suggesting that the point of the bill is to make a form of compulsory licensing for digital music, similar to what we have for radio. It makes it sound like, under these proposed rules, Apple wouldn't have to negotiate a license in order to sell a work on iTunes. They would only have to send payments to an organization like ASCAP, who would then be responsible for paying musicians and (more importantly from the bill's point of view) record companies. There are "No Opt-Out" provisions which suggest that a musician or studio can't exempt their works from online distribution. I'm sure it will be botched (would be cool if you could sell non-DRM files this way; and, the Copyright Office suggests that the current versions of the bill are "buggy", and that streaming should be explicitly made exempt from this section as an incidental copy), but it's an interesting idea nethertheless.

Now, given that recording companies and the Copyright Office are behind the bill, I'm sure there are all sorts of nasty suprises lurking. But the article is a very misleading and uninformative summary of what's going on here. Anyone have a better link? To the bill's text, for example?