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http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

The broadcasting should have an effect and is the make factor vs. being simply recorded. They would have to get a model release form or similar. In Missouri, you do have a right of publicity, meaning that using your likeness for commercial purposes or for ad revenue requires consent. In addition, you have the legal right to protect you against publishing of private facts (eg personal conversations in a car).

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

Sorry, clown. California is a two-party consent wiretapping state, period.

Obviously, privacy of police officers is less equal than that of Planned Parenthood officials.

Of course it is. The police force work for, and are public employees of, the city/counties/state of California. They are by far more subject to public scrutiny. Moreover, they are granted special powers in very limited and unique circumstances, which is why they should always feel like they're under the public's microscope.

Oh, and by the way, the right to film someone is not the same-- either legally or in common understanding-- as the right to record audio of their conversations. There is an expectation that anyone in a public area as well as the police, who typically work in public areas, can have their image recorded. This is why we have public security cameras. However, in california if you're recording you must provide notices for people walking about saying that for example, a tv show is being recorded here, or this place is mic'd etc.

Are PP's employees "entirely different" from policemen?

Absolutely. They are private citizens, not public servants. What they are NOT is "entirely different" from the rest of the population in the state who are protected from being wiretapped without being first informed and conceding or without a warrant.

Also, you should be aware that Planned Parenthood is not funded with tax money like a charter school is. Planned Parenthood is re-embursed by medicaid just like any other health care organization. And the total amount of reimbursement for abortion-related services comes to exactly zero dollars.

Seriously, pull your fucking head out of your fucking ass.

Nope, a DMCA counterclaim at this point is simply writing out a statement and sending it to, in this case, youtube, stating that you believe, under penalty of perjury, that the content is parody in nature falling under fair-use.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

They can admit it, as this came to light as the article explains when the recordings were submitted as evidence.

It would be nice to have a crowdsourced google map however. Anyone know how to set one of those up?

Along those lines, california is a two-party consent state for wiretapped conversation-- this sounds like a zero-party consent program. Even in a public space, you can't record private conversations without both parties being aware and consenting to the practice. So I wonder if this involves some kind of waiver, otherwise the investigators, if operating without a warrant, would seemingly be in violation of this law, which is usually taken very seriously by judges in California

Finally, once that crowd sourced map shows up (which would be nice to include speedtraps, fake mobile towers, and license plate readers), there's no reason I could think of for volunteers to go have a private reading of some crime drama such as a scene from "Cops" or something-- hopefully no copyright laws would apply here.

You can't just trademark your likeness and shut down all political parody or it would soon cease to exist.

Correct. Political parody is explicitly protected as fair comment - this explicit protection was established in the famous Larry Flynt "free speech" trial over a fake ad in Hustler magazine with a fake interview with Moral Majority founder discussing his first sexual encounter as a Campari liqueur fueled romp with his mother in an outhouse. It had nothing to do with Jerry Falwell's trademark/IP rights to his name or likeness, and everything to do with political discourse, of which parody is considered a valid form. Incidentally, parody can be considered "fair use" in most contexts with public figures, not just political ones.

And yet...

Parody for political commentary is protected as part of the public right to discourse. Making money doing so is not. So, no, Bernie Sanders can't sue you for making a picture of him doing bong hits with Che Guevara and posting it online. (Or he could sue, but he wouldn't win, at least on free speech grounds.) But if you started selling the images - then you would run afoul of his personality rights, by which using someone's name or likeness to make money is something he could sue for and win, because money making ventures are considered outside the realm of pure free discourse and becomes "exploitative."

So bottom line - make fun of a political figure with their likeness? No problem. Try to make money doing it? Yeah, problem.

One last note... you don't have to sue anyone and everyone who uses your trademark in order to defend it. You do, however, have to demonstrate that you are defending it in cases where there is a significant likelihood that it may cause confusion. For example, if you trademarked Slurm brand soda, and someone else produced Slurm brand automobiles, you don't have to sue them if you don't plan to make automobiles yourself. You do have to sue if they are infringing on your trademark in an area where you want to say that you hold yourself as having the rights to. (There are some exceptions with really well known brands like Coca Cola, but Apple doesn't have to sue every Apple Fruit Stand or Apple Moving & Storage business in the country because it's not diluting their trademark on computers and electronics.)

One generally accepted set of metrics is:

(1) that the plaintiff undertake to notify the anonymous posters that they are the subject of a subpoena seeking their identity; (2) that the plaintiff specify the exact statement alleged to constitute actionable speech; (3) that the court review the complaint and other information to determine whether a viable claim against the anonymous defendants is presented; (4) that the plaintiff produce sufficient evidence to support, prima facie, each element of its cause of action; and (5) that the court then balance the First Amendment right of anonymous speech against the strength of the plaintiff's prima facie claim and the need for disclosure of the anonymous defendant's identity.

See paragraph 26 of the decision, which is liked to from the story. I think that standard is far too low.

IANAL. But I did have some law at University, and I did pretty well at it. To the best of my understanding, that isn't the "standard", and a subpoena should not have been issued unless there was evidence of malice. Courts make mistakes too.

But I see you missed this part in para. 26:

i.e., a plaintiff must plead facts to establish the alleged defamatory statements are not constitutionally protected

As I have already explained, in order for libel of a "public figure" to NOT be Constitutionally protected, malice must be shown. So this paragraph implies that the plaintiff had sufficient evidence of malice.

In fact, here is a better way to explain it, unambiguously.

While libel laws vary a bit from state to state, there is a great deal of agreement among them. That reference says:

there is a growing consensus among courts that a would-be plaintiff must make a substantial legal and factual showing that his/her claim has merit before a court will unmask an anonymous or pseudonymous Internet speaker

In practical terms, that means they must convince the court that they are likely to prevail in a libel case, before the anonymity can be broken.

And as I stated before, if you are a public figure, in order to "prevail" in a defamation case, the injured party must show malice.

Therefore, we may safely presume that Hadley had convinced the court he could show malice.

See? The law isn't as bad as you seemed to think it is. People don't get to break another's anonymity in court for no reason. They first have to show that they would likely prevail in their defamation suit first.

That's the law's way of ensuring that anonymous speech is legitimate, but only to the same legal extent that any other speech is legitimate.

If he's using photos of individually identified people and posting them commercially he does. The only exception to that is for news media.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

As others have said, that's incorrect except in the case of trying to use it for a business purpose such as marketing where they are trying to use the individual (or other trademark) to promote their brand. There is no real exception for news media as news media are not suppose to be promoting a brand with the photos - just reporting what is happening, which any individual can do as well.

If a celeb just happens to be in the background, completely unrelated to the point of the picture, then they probably do not. But, as always, consult a lawyer first.

If he's using photos of individually identified people and posting them commercially he does. The only exception to that is for news media.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

Terrorists, hit-men, traffickers - and the occasional travel agent.

citations needed.

http://www.aclupa.org/issues/p...

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

Sometimes the term "illegal" is used to mean "inadmissible as evidence in court." I thought one can record any audio anywhere, they just might not be able to use it in court.

Can someone with legal knowledge of this clarify?

There is a link in the story to a useful site that will tell you about the local laws: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid....

For California at least, and no doubt the rest, the issue is that they are "Two party consent" states. That means everybody in the recording must give consent to being recorded prior to being recorded. In California, that applies to audio only. Video recordings are always legal. This is criminal as well as civil (again, in California; I didn't look up the other states). Meaning you will go to jail and be sued into oblivion.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law

It is a little more grey than you think:
"If you are recording someone without their knowledge in a public or semi-public place like a street or restaurant, the person whom you're recording may or may not have "an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation," and the reasonableness of the expectation would depend on the particular factual circumstances. Therefore, you cannot necessarily assume that you are in the clear simply because you are in a public place. "

Methinks an officer would object on principle... he does not want to be recorded.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

and this is very interesting read too:

http://www.videomaker.com/arti...

and this:
http://www.rcfp.org/reporters-...

Although a credentialed reporter is going to get more leeway than an average citizen.

You have to look at the specific law though. My state, MA is listed as a "two party state" but digging a little more finds: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...
" (3) Massachusetts bans "secret" recordings rather than requiring explicit consent from all parties.). "

So, informing someone that they are being recorded is really the requirement, not "consent" though, I would argue that continuing a conversation after being informed of the recording is, in fact, consent. (barring any extraordinary circumstances of course like would normally otherwise be considered as precluding consent, of course)

That's right. I read the legal papers and the talk archives of the Yank Barry article. It all seems to be well-documented with reliable sources like the Globe & Mail. It meets the Wikipedia Biographies of Living Persons standards. If it didn't Yank Barry could have complained and some admin would have come along and deleted it.

I didn't even see anything on the Talk pages saying, "I'm Yank Barry and you got this wrong." I did see a lot of apparent sock puppets and Yank Barry fanboys arguing that the article is giving too much weight to all the negative stuff.

In fact in the Talk pages I saw stuff that was even more negative and well-sourced that should have gone into the article, like the details of his blackmailing or extorting his partner, or the prosecution that he was acquitted for.

I also didn't see anything to indicate that Yank Barry had complained to the Wikipedia foundation under the BLP complaint process. Maybe he did complain and Wikipedia's lawyers decided that it wasn't libelous.

IANAL but it didn't look like a very good case. California has an anti-SLAPP law so if Wikipedia defends it he'll have to pay their legal fees. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid... He's a celebrity, he's raising investment money in his businesses, he has a criminal record. He's a public figure.

Privacy and free speech apply to government entities, not to ex girlfriends and basketball associations.

california's wiretapping law applies to everyone, not just government entities.

I thought IN PERSON recordings where legal in PA?

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guid...

What does it say fair use is though?

There are precedents, rulings, and of course, common sense. People hire lawyers whose job is to understand what legal definitions mean and how to apply them. There are many precedents that exist a lawyer can help determine if it is Fair Use.

It is not something you just make up, it is a legal definition that employs concepts to be determined by an arbitrator on the subject for each specific case. It is a law limiting rights of copyright holders, not a definition.

First of all your concept of copyright is flawed at the structural level. Congress wrote copyright laws to grant limited protection to works. Fair Use is one of the limitations as codified by USC 107. Fair Use is a legal concept; it does not exist in the vernacular. As such Congress has defined it loosely using USC 107 as part of 4 factor test. Other legal concepts are also loosely defined like "obscenity."

No, it spells out elements that can be fair use but leaves discretion over it to someone with the power to decide matters like this (a judge or arbitrator).

So no lawyer can look at precedents and make a judgement as to whether or not they have enough of a case to go to an arbiter and win? The copyright holder is free to sue anyone if they went even against advice of counsel.

What do you think RIAA and the MPAA are doing? A copyright holder can still claim a copyright violation without filing a lawsuit. The accused infringe won't likely be pursued outside of having his reputation damaged or a DMCA take down filed, but there is no concrete statements in the law defining fair use. As I originally said, in an ideal world, the copyright holder (their agent) would recognized fair use when it exists but they don't seem to see it.

Anyone can "claim" anything. SCO "claimed" that IBM stole their Unix and put it into Linux even though there was no infringement and they are not the owners of Unix. Part of the RIAA and MPAA strategy has been to threaten people to get quick settlements even if they are not legally correct. Unfortunately for them, people like Lessig fight back, and the copyright holder backed down. Lenz fought back and won in court.

ahh.. so young and naive. Copyright is a right granted by law not common sense. All to often in law, there is absolutely no common sense. Lessig didn't get into a dispute about using the clip of a song in his lesson, he got into the dispute because he posted and distributed that lesson online. Had he been charging a fee for the lessons, his claim to fair use may have very well went against him.

I don't know if you understand USC 107 as it clearly says "teaching" is an acceptable purpose. Non-commercial use is often Fair Use, but it does not say that all Fair Use must be non-commercial. Commercial use of a copyrighted work can be Fair Use. Otherwise, no news organization could ever review a book, movie, album and show part of the work.

Your point is wrong though. All lenz V Universal says is that before issuing a DMCA take down notice, the copyright holder must consider fair use. However, there is no set definition for fair use and by law is determined upon a preponderance of facts relating to the use.

From the court ruling:

Universal first argues that Lenz implicitly has admitted using Prince’s copyrighted musical composition without authorization, and thus that she infringed the copyright, through her “exclusive reliance on fair use in this litigation.” . . In response, Lenz maintains that the she has not admitted infringing the copyright by relying on a fair use theory because “[a]s this Court has noted, a fair use is not

1) Potential for greater liability if the Site Owner tries to moderate but occasionally lets one slip.

Wrong, at least in the USA.

Under the Communications Decency Act, the site owner does NOT have liability for third party comments: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/immunity-online-publishers-under-communications-decency-act

3) China cracked down on anonymity (article from a year ago http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-12/28/china-internet-registration [wired.co.uk]) and we can't be left behind

So we're just like China now? I guess with the recent Snowden news, we may as well be, but who says we have to tell world+dog who we are? I see absolutely no problem using pseudonyms that can be traced to an IP address, which is good enough for law enforcement, world+dog is just stupid and violates the 1st amendment. (I do not use Farcebook for exactly this reason, fuck the retards that do)

FTA:
Courts have recognized that the right to speak anonymously and pseudonymously is part of the First Amendment right to free speech, and accordingly some level of scrutiny is required before stripping an anonymous Internet speaker of that right. At the same time, those harmed by unlawful anonymous speech -- whether by defamation, misappropriation of trade secrets, or whatever else -- also have a right to seek compensation for their injury. When considering a subpoena or other discovery request seeking to unmask a speaker, courts attempt to balance these two competing rights.

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/legal-protections-anonymous-speech

In the United States, truth is always an absolute defense against defamation. http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/substantial-truth

What about this?
1. In a lot of these cases, the person who uploaded the picture to the revenge site did not take the picture. It was sent to them some time before. They do not own copyright to the image. It was already illegal in that case.

2. These sites are funded by advertising. Therefore, the images are being used in a commercial manner. Your likeness cannot be used for commercial purposes without your explicit consent. It was already illegal in this case, too.

So we're really just adding an almost-impossible-to-prove situation on top of things that are already illegal. The problem is and always has been that the person whose picture is posted doesn't know about it because they would never visit the site. So they don't find out until everyone else already knows about it.