False Copyright Claims

FreetoCopy writes "Teenagers downloading music may not be the worst copyright offenders. See this item (available for download in PDF file with free registration) about the growing problem of copyfraud — in which publishers, archives, and distributors make false claims of copyright to shut down free expression. From the paper: 'Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the US Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use...'"

Comments

There should be consequence

[erroneus]

As far as I can see, there is apparently no consequence for making a false claim of ownership. Perhaps false claims of ownership should result in the loss of their ability to assert copyright at all. Actually, that probably wouldn't be appropriate but I'm at a loss for what would be appropriate in a case of false assertion especially when it should be obvious that they didn't create the works in question.

However, when you create a "derivative work" based on public domain content, it's probably eligible for copyright protection in and of itself. The problem comes from where you draw the line. Perhaps in the interest of preserving the public domain, there should be law stating that any use of public domain material within derivative works should also fall within the public domain. Imagine how viral that could be...

As far as I'm concerned

[iminplaya]

ALL claims of exclusive ownership and control over information are fraudulent. The law itself is a fraud.

What we need is DRM!

[DigitAl56K]

Don't go into convulsions just yet!

But we need an effective way for marking content with important details such as copyright owner, copyright date, contact details, and perhaps even licensing details in terms of what the licensor explicitly allows to be done with the content, even if there is no artificial technology restriction imposed on what is disallowed.

For example, if I find a piece of music on the Internet and I want to use it in something that I'm creating, how do I know if I can? Who do I contact? What if I don't even know what the song actually is? Sure enough, even knowing that the copyright holder doesn't want me to do such a thing might not stop me from doing it, but at least I know I'm acting against their wishes.

If we could have some form of DRM that was actually more like "digital rights marking", and survived transcoding/editing, that would probably be very interesting. To the extent that it wasn't used to restrict our actions, but merely make us aware of what we were doing (in terms of our actions being acceptable or otherwise), maybe that's something we as a society could agree to adopt.

Re:All over the place.

[_Sprocket_]

Give the man a break. So much is the fault of Bush & Co. that if you don't know what you're talking about, you can guess it was them and be correct more often than not. That's exactly the kind of thing terrorists would do. After all... terrorists have done so many bad things that, if you don't know what's really going on, you can guess it was them and be correct more often than not.

Broken thinking makes good comedy - but not so good politics.

Re:All over the place.

[Spazmania]

Making a false claim under the DMCA is PERJURY. It's a criminal offense.

Wake me up the first time someone is convicted of perjury for making a false DMCA claim. Its not real until the prosecutors, well, prosecute it.