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Grannies and Pirated Software
dthomas731 writes, "After reading Ed Foster's blog about how the Embroidery Software Protection Coalition (ESPC) is suing grandmothers over using pirated digitized designs, I thought you might want to call your own grandmothers and tell them they are going to be needing a lawyer. And the ESPC is very serious. On the ESPC faq page they scare these grandmothers by telling them even if they didn't know the software was pirated, that 'Unfortunately, when it comes to copyright violations, ignorance is no defense.'"
This almost seems a new (or not so new) trend, and a way to make money above and beyond having a product, though ostensibly "having a product" is where one should start (are you listening RIAA?). So now after seeing the apparent success of legal scare tactics by RIAA and others, the embroidery industry is piling on?
Should we be enraged? Or should we jump in too, cull the internet, everything, for any evidence of anyone, any group, etc. with even the remotest hint of infringing on something you can claim you own?
Don't worry too much about specifics (read the article, the legal threatening letter isn't specific enough to tell Granny what CD she has that infringes), and raise legal bloody hell. This could be more profitable than spam. With a modicum of respondents "paying up", one could conceivably collect rather large sums.
The internet does provide the ability to spread intellectual property instantaneously, and similarly provides amazing tools to sniff out where stuff is, intentionally or otherwise. Unfortunately, most of the "pirated" booty is "otherwise", i.e., the perpertrator has no awareness. These "perpetrators" are not the problem. They should be left alone. Enough already.
(Aside: I really would be curious to how prevalent this (these) letter(s) is (are). Are they really doing this? How many letters have they sent. The article mentions contacting your states attorney, alas, the demographic targeted here is not likely to know that, and probably not privy to /. for reference
to this article. Sigh.)
Now, IANAL, but from what I know, 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.
My blog
"What if I am innocent and did not know the designs or software were counterfeit when I purchased the designs?
It is your responsibility to investigate any designs or software that you purchased over the Internet or from online auctions. You must take steps to insure that they are legitimate original embroidery designs or software, not pirated copies."
Great, so now we need to research every product we buy to be sure the company didn't do anything illegal.
I think not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Does this story not strike anyone else as to be so ridiculous that it must be one of those things set up just to see what community reaction is like? Like a researcher at a university doing a sociology experiment. I mean..."Embroidery Software Protection Coalition"...come on!
Well, here is some point where turkish law is better than u.s. law.
Recently a high court whose decisions are exemplary and binding have decided that it is not the customers' responsibility to know what they were buying was pirated or not - the SELLER of pirated stuff is guilty. And it is the companies' responsibility to protect their own copyrights.
Which perfectly makes sense, as no inhabitant of this planet has to maintain a list that contains which company holds the rights to what product.
Read radical news here
On the ESPC faq page they scare these grandmothers by telling them even if they didn't know the software was pirated, that 'Unfortunately, when it comes to copyright violations, ignorance is no defense.
In this day and age, it's also not a barrier to using a computer.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Dialing... (after hours, clearly) 1 2 3 4 rings You have reached the legal dept for the ESPC. Our office hours are Monday - thurs 9:30am through 4pm Central standard time. Please leave your name, number that you can be reached at between those hours, thank you. Why Central, if it's in PA? Monroeville is near Pittsburgh... it's a pity it's a PO box because I am there about once a month. Anyone got a better addy? :)
This is clearly a case of a coalition getting together to become the next RIAA. However, my mother makes her living making embroidery machine instructional videos and custom designs (http://littlebrownjugdesigns.com/ for those interested...I didn't code the page, it's not my fault). Anyway, the granny-embroidery crowd can be viscious and there is an embedded culture of one person buying a design and giving a copy to everyone they know. This isn't really a big deal, however. The big deal is when an embroidery supply store buys one copy of a training dvd or design pack and just burns a copy to sell whenever a customer expresses an interest. For a one-person-show, it's impossible to track down all the stores operating this way, so some sort of industry coalition makes sense, but it should target infringing merchants not the Grandma who just wanted to stitch Faye Valentine on her grandson's backpack.
Dave
I've actually looked in to getting an embroidery machine. (My mother actually has one too)
Here's the rub. The machine costs $5000. The software for loading your own designs into it... another $5000 (last I checked)
Yes, these machines hook up to a computer via USB, they have their own CD drives and their own format for embroidery patterns. The patterns you can buy on CD for a pretty penny, more expensive than a music CD for sure.
So, no, I'm not surprised by this at all.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
You didn't copy the book, so you didn't violate the copyright. The company you bought it from is guilty/liable, not you. Similarly, these grannies didn't copy the CDs they bought, so I don't see how they violated anyone's copyright.
This is a different situation than the familiar RIAA vs filesharers. The RIAA is suing the publishers of the files. And even downloaders can be argued to be "making a copy", of the data from their network connection eventually to their HD.
--
make install -not war
someone please tell me this is merely a bad joke... if it isn't, there is gonna be some serious crap going down. seniors vote much more than average citizens. up here, IIRC, 87% of senior citizens voted, vs. 65% of the general population. i can imagine that there is a comparable phenomenon in the US.
and plus, the whole suing old people raised a PR firestorm upon the RIAA, so i can expect a similar effect on this.
provided again that this isn't a really early april fools joke...
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Because this is excessive greed.
As for prohibitions against copying, one should consider the scalability.
If everyone was prohibited from using each others ideas without permission, it won't scale well if you have many billions or even trillions of people. Unless you assume that it is typical that only a very few of the billions are creative enough to have new ideas.
If I came up with a unique thought first, others should not be prohibited from thinking it, they shouldn't falsely claim they are first or the only ones because that would be lying.
I would have thought that civilized nations would have plenty of ways of keeping inventive people alive and reasonably contented even if they don't get to have monopolies over everything. And the "expanding markets and thousands of new types of jobs" would be good enough.
In fact I think it may actually be all the excessive greed that's causing it to not be good enough.
It's like the starving in Africa - not due to there not being enough food, but evil and greedy leaders. There are more overweight and obese people in the world than starving people - so there's more than enough food to go around.
I want to express this with all due respect to the grannies involved, as I'm certain this has come as a shock to some of them.
However (ahem). Today's sewing/embroidery machines aren't the straight-needle treadle-operated Singers of yore. They come equipped with flash drives, USB ports, CD/DVD drives, and network connections. Many are Internet-upgradeable. Even to buy in at the low end of the market, you have to come up with about $1,500 - $3,000. Upwards of $5,000 gets you a respectably flexible and powerful system. Manufacturers who formerly dealt only in industrial sewing machines (such as Juki) seem now to be involved in the home market. Manufacturers of traditionally high-end home machines (Viking comes to mind) have a glittering array of semi-professional options with price tags to match. They are also specialized, with machines available for embroidery, quilting, overcasting seams in garments--lots of features formerly available only in industry.
I guess what I'm saying is that you have to come up with a fairly substantial investment to get into this game in the first place. Maybe what we need is an open-source embroidery pattern movement (Tux would make a cute embroidery pattern), but a lot of these designs are licensed (such as Disney characters), and to me it stands to reason one would have to shell out substantial money for them.
It's also a bit of a slap in the face at the idea of the ditzy old lady bereft of any technical smarts at all. Not the case if she's just logged into Husqvarna for the latest update to her Viking SE.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Most definitely is fake. In fact it's a scam.
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a m.pdf
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2
You see they get these sewing people all scared, work them up into a lather and then direct them to the "Amnesty Program" here:
http://www.embroideryprotection.org/Amnesty_Progr
Where they procede to take $300 a piece from unwitting cross-stichers.
cat sig >
Even though this goes against the principles of Slashdot, I did in fact RTFA. While I don't agree that its a good idea from a PR standpoint to go after grannies, I also don't see anything in the article, or at the organization's web site, that is factually incorrect. They are merely exercising their rights under US law. Don't like it? Then don't buy their product. Don't want to get in trouble? Then besides not buying their product, don't *cough* acquire *cough* their product either.
It works the same way with the RIAA. I think the RIAA sucks. Suing teenagers is usually not a good idea from a PR standpoint. That's why I don't buy their product. I also don't *cough* acquire *cough* their product either. But regardless, most of what the RIAA says (and noticed I didn't say "all of what they say") is in fact correct under US law.
Its also quite obvious in reading most of the replies here, that none of you have ever made or marketed a product that has a very limited pool of customers. Just like most of you have never created music, artwork, or software for sale. If you did, and someone started passing your creation around and cut in to your sales, I bet a lot of you would be changing your responses (and hiring lawyers). If you want to create something and give it away for free, that's your right to do so. But its equally someone else's right to create something and offer it only in exchange for money. You only have two choices in this debate...to pay and use, or to keep your money and not use. You never have the right to steal their product because you don't like their policies or prices.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
The more copyright and patent issues encroach into the lives of the less geeky the better. Bring on the lawsuits for quilt patterns, sewing patterns and wood working designs (im going to lay claim to the spindle). The more insane the lawsuits get the more likely it is that the sheepish masses will finally wake up and see just how jacked up the current laws are.
...slashdotted your mother.
Sig: I stole this sig.
Then she went back to embroidering a skull and crossbones flag for her ship, which is a trimaster named "The RIAA Sucks Ass Too" that sails the Caribbean looking for patterns and CDs to steal, and Disney videos to copy.
Granny may be an old boozy bag, but she's all right. But the ESPC sure isn't. Leave old women alone, you bastards.