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Universal and MySpace Square Off Over DMCA
moore.dustin writes "Universal and MySpace look to be on a collision course that could shape the future of media companies and the internet. The article discusses the DMCA's impact on their case, and talks ways in which the law lags behind the realities of technology." From the article: "Yet, as lawyers prepare for battle, they do so on uncertain legal ground. The legislation at the heart of the debate, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, was written years before social networking sites such as MySpace even existed. That fact has injected considerable uncertainty into the matter, according to copyright experts, and helps explain why lawyers from both sides are proclaiming that the DMCA, as it is known, is on their side."
And they are probably right that it is on both of their sides, because it sure the hell isn't on OUR side.
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
The basis of their argument is that they are allowing users to post Jay-Z videos, just like I'm sure they allow Universal to request there deletion. The gun manufactures tried this argument before. Guns allow people to kill each other. They also allow people to protect themselves. Allowing a crime is far from facilitating it. Myspace, sucks as it does, provides many with legal entertainment. Just because a few are able to abuse the system, doesn't mean that Rupt owes Univ a tax.
For the lazy, the case in TFA involves Universal accusing MySpace of copyright infringement based on the ability of its users to post copyrighted music videos to the site without permission.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Considering that CBS has already said that clips on YouTube are helping their business you wonder why Universal bothers. Do they rally think they can earn revenue from users watching some pre-teen lip sync to one nof their hits? Their win in the Supreme Court certainly did not slow the growth of file sharing. In the end it just means lots of billable hours for legal teams.
well, maybe they are working together, they are both owned by huge companies. They are working together to produce some sort of law suit that will be the basis for all future law suits. it's a CONSPIRACY!
MySpace is not fundamentally different from offering generic webspace. The safe harbor provisions cover this. It's hard to argue that MySpace is not an ISP under the terms of the DMCA.
The fact that to deny responsibility, the ISP is better off not policing their network is hardly the ISP's fault. It's a badly drafted law. Perhaps Universal should have thought about thiswhen lobbying for it.
I *so* can't wait until our culture gets past the "intellectual property" dark age. I just hope I'm still alive to see the incredible social, cultural, and technological advancements that will come once the notion of "owning" ideas and information has finally passed away.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I hate MySpace and refuse to go to the site, however, it seems to me that since 99% of the people who actually use MySpace know shite about FTP, HTML or the internet for that matter, I'd wager that the alleged Jay-Z video was linked from another site. If this is the case, since the video is actually not hosted on MySpace's servers, how would this be their fault in the first place?
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
While a lot of aspects of copyright are detestable -- such as the DMCA's prohibition against format shifting and the extension into perpetuity of copyrights, if the DMCA makes a special exemption for "common carriers" like MySpace (whose main purpose is social networking, not copyright infringement), then that is a good provision of the DMCA -- and it would be a farsighted one based on then-existing technologies such as UseNet, not a provision created in the "different world of 1998" as the ft.com article asserts.
Because God hates losers. I was watching the aftermath of a football game the other day and as usual, someone was thanking God for their win. I'm sure that God is a football fan and that, of course, influenced the outcome of the game.
The law, likewise, is on the side of the winner. Though both sides claim to have the backing of the law in this case, only one can be ruled as such by virtue of victory in the matter.
I'm hopeful that at some point, someone will set precedent on the notion that facilitating doesn't mean infringement. That would ease the way for the next Napster or Kazaa out there to do what it is that they do. I'll never use them of course -- there are too many safe open source methods that I can trust.
If universal wins, a "get rich fast" scheme would be:
/. /. for copyright infrigement for profit!
1) Create and sell copyrightable junk on e.g. www.lulu.com for an inflated price.
2) Post it as an Anonymous Coward on
3) Sue
A win for Universal would mean all user generated content on all sites would have to be pre-approved, which would be economically infeasible for most hobbyist or ad-based sites. Control of the information stream would fall back in the hands of a few large media companies, and most of the democratic potential of the Internet would be lost.
I've written on this point exactly: here.
FTA - "Its part of the continuing struggle between content owners and developers of technology, he said. People are trying to find out where the line is."
This is a very basic concept - the same people who invent technology are the types that create content. Broad-thinking creative types. The other type of people are the merchants: traditional business owners.
The battle between these SAME two factions drove founding of America. It was the traditional merchants who did not have enough power in 'old culture' Europe - so they left and came to the new world. They have been running things, yoking and squeezing the creative types ever since.
It is the same factors that drive the Shiite and Sunni conflict. It has lead to the most significant ideological gaps in human history.
Interestingly, the tide turned in the USA in November 2006. No longer is there any need for the small-minded, traditional merchants to run the system. Global communication, Web 2.0-mentality, and the empowering of the individual are all working together to eliminate the entrenched foothold by the merchants.
It will be great to see if the courts follow suit.
America
I find it hilarious that a new law had to be passed "for the new millennium" that couldn't even account for changes in less than a decade.
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Tm
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How is this different than the old Napster case?
Couldn't Napster have claimed the same "safe harbour" that MySpace is trying to claim?
How is that situation different from this one?
I think the major difference is that the movie/music/"content" industry has, since the Betamax case, spent probably close to a billion dollars lobbying Congress and getting laws passed which together change the dynamic of the playing field from what it was like in the 1980s.
They learned from where Jack Valenti failed (from their perspective) and are now a lot smarter when it comes to using the government as a cudgel against their own customers.
In short, the industry is smarter now, and they have had 20-odd years to make the environment more politically receptive to their point of view, on all levels.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Oh, and what of sites like Slashdot? What is the fundamental difference between MySpace and a forum?
Near as I can tell, a Blog is nothing more than a personal forum that allows some media attachments.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The new printing press, the internet, came and provided a means of great information freedom.
But for the companies that used a business model based on controlling media, the freedom of information was a threat to profits.
So these companies paid/lobbied/bribed the government to get some new laws passed. One that extended the copyright to 95-120 years. And another specifically written to control publishing digital information and override past "fair use" clauses that allowed things like VCR's and Tivo's.
But even with all of this, the public still expects to have more freedom and innovation that internet had promised.
Companies and web sites come up for sometime short times that offer a glimpse of what could be. Then the controlling media companies try to shut them down, pointing to the laws that were legally paid for.
The media companies may be successful in suppressing information for a time, perhaps in some countries. But a country that manage to fight this control, and manage to allow a level of information freedom that really promotes innovation; This country will have a great advantage.
Considering that CBS has already said that clips on YouTube are helping their business you wonder why Universal bothers.
CBS and Universal operate in fundamentally different modes within the entertainment/'content' business. CBS basically responds to consumer and viewer demand -- delivering news and less-than-cutting-edge television entertainment -- while Universal has made a killing by staying on the bleeding edge. Universal doesn't follow demand, they manufacture it.
Thus while CBS is perfectly fine having YouTube create a market for their stuff, Universal is far more controlling. Their success depends on complete control of distribution and publicity; they want to micromanage everything, playing with artifically-induced scarcity so as to maximize the effect and appeal of their brands and products. Anything that relinquishes any amount of control over media distribution to the public is a Bad Thing to them.
If you think of 'the curve' of public interest, CBS is a fairly conservative organization and basically stays just behind it, while Universal wants to be out front. This requires a far more aggressive and controlling attitude when it comes to their content.
I think eventually you're going to see a schism in the entertainment business, between companies that are responsive to demand, and basically look at what's popular and try to respond to it, without a whole lot of risk (and who are basically receptive to any new technology that reduces costs), and companies that try to project themselves ahead of demand and actually manufacture popularity, a fundamentally riskier (but potentially more profitable) endeavor that lends itself to maximizing control over the entire process, from creation to viewing. For many years, these two business models have coexisted -- companies owning movie studios and record labels also owning television networks -- but I'm not sure it's as natural an alliance as it appears.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
There is, in the US, a right to own guns. You may debate until you are blue in the face what the clause "well regulated militia" means at the beginning of the second amendment, but the NRA and gun manufacturers have spent a lot of money to make sure that it is interpreted to mean you have a right to common firearms. Thanks to the advancement of the science of warfare, the government no longer needs to worry about individual gun owners (or the group as a collective) as an impediment to pushing a socialist/oligopolist/nameyourleastfavoritopolist governmental stance.
Consider this: if you could liquidate all of Google's stock, including corporately held shares, at today's close, you still would have less than half the annual operating budget of the US military, and you'd be behind by 40 years of spending on military weapons.
It may be a questionable analogy becuase of the political force of the gun lobby, but gun ownership plays no part in the forceful takeover/overthrow potential of the US government.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Is there a Mod of "Insufficiently Rabid"?
...that is exactly what the big media companies want. Would you really put it past congress to grant them what they desire for a SMALL campaign contribution.
GENERATION 27: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It seems simple enough for MySpace to simply rack up points for video views. If content copyright holders identify their works, and agree to a 1 or 2 cents per view price, MySpace account holders can be charged points for each pay for view video, and then pay their account by PayPal or other online payment system. The resulting profits would be funneled directly to the artist, bypassing the RIAA and other greedy middlemen. Nice and simple, easy and works for everyone by the **AA's of the world.
If each video is vetted prior to display, it gets even tighter. If artists release videos with digital watermarking in them for such activity, its even easier for MySpace and YouTube to charge and process royalty fees.
Lets face it, 2 cents is about tops for the MySpace quality of videos...
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In the upcoming Episode II, Universal accuses the global Internet in general of copyright infringement based on the ability of its users to post copyrighted music videos to web sites and FTP servers without permission.
In Episode III, Universal accuses the Universe of trademark infringement; sadly, Universal spontaneously explodes, onlookers remarking "as if millions of managers and lawyers but no artists were suddenly silenced".
It is the same factors that drive the Shiite and Sunni conflict.
Well observed! Clearly, in this case Universal would represent the "Shite" faction.
...to do away with the concept of "contributory infringement," taking away any legal weight it may carry.
Everybody saw this coming. We've already seen it happen to various services and software applications. As a software developer, I find it ridiculous that an application I write with the best intentions could be used as a metaphorical crowbar, and subsequently finding myself accused of providing metaphorical burglar tools.
I think it's a lazy, opportunistic strategy that's being deployed here. Why can't they go after the individual infringers? Never mind that the RIAA does, but then again, the RIAA is getting more than it bargained for lately, and it may be demonstrating how poor the return is on such a strategy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
This case will never see the inside of a courtroom. The issues and the business at stake is too important to both sides to roll the dice with some judge whose idea of "new technology" is a touch tone telephone.
Are you mad at Myspace because you got no friends? Or did she leave you for someone she met on there? :)
Yet liberal slashdot users were telling me the other day that they hope MySpace loses because it is a conservative company.
Seems like a double standard, on the one hand, liberals turning a blind eye when the ACLU defends pedophiles and child pornographers, and then, claiming its OK for MySpace to have its free speech curtailed because of who they are as people.
You might be interested in reading another comment I posted in this same discussion. Basically, I think there is a fundamental and growing difference in the entertainment industry between companies (the news companies, most major TV networks) who are responsive to consumer demand and try to follow/track demand as closely as possible and tailor their offerings to it, and companies like Universal that want to manufacture demand itself. Currently there are many organizations (like GE's NBC Universal) that do both, but I think that just masks the conflict, it doesn't mean it's not there.
I think this is why you get TV networks that are much less restrictive and controlling about their content than the movie studios are; the studios have a business model that relies on control and engineered 'supply shortages' to create demand, while the networks exist to push as much content out (along with ads) as they possibly can, at the lowest possible cost.
At the extremes, it's a 'manufacturing' versus 'service' industry conflict. Broadcasting, as exemplified by the 24-hour news channels, are a service. The value is in the continued stream of information, not in discrete copies of a particular recording (except for special cirumstances, e.g. recording of a particular event, or if the anchor does something embarrassing). Music and movie companies, on the other hand, are "IP factories." They design, produce, market, and profit from the sale of 'media widgets,' discrete quantities of content that have a measurable value, separate from their value as part of a service or stream of information.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
How are academics and scientists supposed to support themselves? I mean professors, researchers, and graduate students.
They don't get paid per-copy for their papers. (Indeed, they try to spread their work as far and wide as possible, at great cost.) They have to struggle to get funding from funding agencies, companies, charities, and so on. And yet, somehow, academia works.
The short answer is, "have faith in the invisible hand."
Copyright was a government granted monopoly in the first place. If one really believes that the free market works it's silly to worry that an artificial market created by government intervention won't be replaced by something more efficient in the absence of that intervention. I have money and want the next Harry Potter novel. Rowling wants money and is capable of writing the next Harry Potter novel. We'll work something out.
In all likelyhood we'll work a whole bunch of different things out for different groups. Patronage. The Street Performer Protocol. Pledge drives. Asking people to be ethical and pay you. Sales of secondary items (t-shirt, etc). Sponsorship deals. Establishing yourself as an expert in an area and selling your expertise. Contract law. High prices for early adopters (before others make copies), then lower prices in line with the knockoffs.
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Do most Slashdotters hate AOL users? It's the same exact thing. These people shouldn't be on the internet. At least not mine anyway.
Every mention of YouTube in my above post is equally applicable to MySpace.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.