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Universal and MySpace Square Off Over DMCA

Posted by Zonk on from the ready-fight dept.

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."

4 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Universally Flawed Argument by quanticle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously, wasn't this settled during the Betamax case? If I recall correctly, the movie industry tried the same argument there — i.e. video cassette recorders encourage copying of intellectual property. The Supreme Court there ruled that videocassette recorders were legal because of the many legal uses they had, and the fact that they could be used for illegal purposes did not diminish this.

    How is that situation different from this one?

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  2. What's changed. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:What's changed. by Total_Wimp · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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.

      I just walked in from the car where I was listening to NPR. They had a guy from Youtube and another guy from NBC. During this call-in program (The Diane Ream Show) they were actually quite civil and seemed like they wanted to work together. The NBC guy said they don't want "vast quantities" of their music on Youtube without compensatino, but said they eagerly look forward to haveing some kind of revenue sharing agreement. He pointed to the iTunes deal as a great success and said $1.99 per movie worked great for them. Additionally he pointed out that some of NBC's shows are put online directly on the NBC site. They Youtube guy said they're working with NBC right now and hope they can put together a deal

      The bottom line is that it sounded a whole hell of a lot like NBC wasn't purposely trying to be evil. They're not just trying to get politicians to do their biddnig to screw everyone over. They're working with distribution outlets to get their material out there. They just want to get paid for their very expensive programming.

      Now I know there's still a lot of badness out there. Copy protection sucks, as well as the fact that it's not like their whole library is available for you to pick and choose from. They still want the broadcast flag so they can force us to pay and then make content disapear.

      But at least it looks like they're trying to resolve some of the basics, like giving consumers the choice of ad supported, or pay-to-watch content ("Lost" is available one way on the ABC site and the other way on iTunes, not to mention DVD) and generaly making more material available to watch, without making you pay a bunch of times for the same thing.

      We should still fight the bad stuff, but, damn, they're at least starting to come to terms with the fact that consumers need some level of control over the process. They're a little smarter, also, in the sense that they realize they have to move into the internet era. Unlike the record industry, they know that they cant force consumers to keep using the same old business model. For that, at least, I do give them credit.

      TW
  3. Re:The Universally Flawed Argument by Duds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The obvious different is that Myspace are specifically storing the copyrighted material on their site.

    If Sony were allowing people to store all their betamax tapes of copied films in a Sony warehouse the case may have had a different outcome.

    A better similie to that case would be if myspace was displaying videos playing off my server, at which point they would be protected.

    The other difference is of course the laws were different back then.