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Harlan Ellison vs. AOL Judgment Reversed
Robotech_Master writes "An appeals court has issued a decision reversing the summary judgment of a lower court that AOL qualified as a "safe harbor" under the DMCA. At issue is the fact that Ellison sent his notification of copyright violation to an email address at AOL, which AOL never received because the abuse submission address had been changed." The complete decision is available here as a PDF file; read below for an excerpt.
"AOL changed its contact e-mail address from "copyright@aol.com" to "aolcopyright@aol.com" in the fall of 1999, but waited until April 2000 to register the change with the U.S. Copyright Office. Moreover, AOL failed to configure the old e-mail address so that it would either forward messages to the new address or return new messages to their senders. In the meantime, complaints such as Ellison's went unheeded, and complainants were not notified that their messages had not been delivered. Furthermore, there is evidence in the record suggesting that a phone call from AOL subscriber John J. Miller to AOL should have put AOL on notice of the infringing activity on the particular USENET group at issue in this case, "alt.binaries.e-book." Miller contacted AOL to report the existence of unauthorized copies of works by various authors. Because there is evidence indicating that AOL changed its e-mail address in an unreasonable manner and that AOL should have been on notice of infringing activity we conclude that a reasonable trier of fact could find that AOL had reason to know of potentially infringing activity occurring within its USENET network."
I've never heard nor seen USENET refered to as a "peer to peer" file sharing network.
Or a hyphenation of "news-group".
-- benton.
Skimming the papers, it sounds like email is the legally acceptable way of contacting an ISP about a copyright issue... which seems kind of surprising. I mean, when you sue someone, they generally have to be notified either by certified mail or in person. If the U.S. Postal Service can't be trusted to deliver a supena, is it reasonable to trust email with a takedown notice and punish the recipeient for not acting?
I have blog like everyone else
While I think AOL is in the wrong here and should get punched in the face for their stupid actions, I find it hard to have sympathy for this Ellison guy. From the looks of it he found copies of his books on usenet. Does he really believe any significant number of people really wants to read books on a computer?
Paperbacks are still relatively cheap and available. I much prefer an actual printed book for $7 to having to scrunch up in front of a computer and strain my eyes for several hours to read a book. Sure I can read it on a teeny tiny PDA screen, but that sucks too. Books are probbably the _least_ susceptible to copyright violation, and have withstood the onslaught of copy machines for decades. Printed books are simply a better technology than electronic books, and probbably will be true for the forseeable future. While Ellison certainly has a right to complain about his works being posted on usenet, it seems more akin to some old man yelling at kids to "get off my lawn!".
AccountKiller
1. Spam usenet under false identity. 2. Complain to copyright office. 3. Repeat 1 and 2 as often as necessary to get violations by major ISP's. 4. Sue. This only works if the ISP's are actually held responsible.
DO NOT, FOR AN INSTANT, BUY INTO THE CULTURAL MYTHOLOGY THAT ALL ARTISTS ARE RICH. A FEW ARE, BUT MOST HAVE A HARD ROW TO HOE JUST SUBSISTING, HOLDING DOWN SECOND JOBS.
How is this possible, Harlan? How much is the average fiction book these days? $20? $30? How much does it cost to produce each copy? I mean, it's a bunch of flimsy paper with black ink on it, surrounded by a thicker set of paper or some sort of cardboard cover. If you can't survive on the markup between cost and sales on an item like that - at a price like that - talk to your publisher, not us!
Further, you're lucky that you're even being read by people and that you are being published. Do you know how many people in the world write excellent material but aren't considered by the publishing giants these days? It's harder to even get an agent today than it was to get a *publisher* three decades ago. The average author who *is* published only makes an average of $8,000 to $10,000 per year from it.
I have been writing novels my entire life and am dying to be published. I give out my material for free. When someone shares my writing with another person - or whole groups of people, I don't freak out and demaned $20 from each and every person that read it. I'm just appreciative that they like my work. That they appreciate my art. That it has an audience. Remember. It's ART.
Also, if you can't make a living, then I suggest you contact Cory Doctorow of boingboing.net. He has written two very popular best-selling books and made a lot of money from them. BUT HE ALSO GIVES THE FULL BOOKS AWAY ONLINE FOR FREE. Imagine that!
Gosh...an ISP might decide to not carry alt.binaries groups whose main purpose is to distribute copyrighted material without permission?
This is suppose to bother me how?