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NFL, MLB Accused of Bogus Copyright Claims
P Crewe writes "A complaint filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association accuses the NFL, MLB, and a number of studios of deceptive trade practices, saying that their far-reaching copyright claims systematically misrepresent the rights of consumers to use copyrighted material. 'According to the complaint, such warnings "materially misrepresent" US law. Fair use is given short shrift, and as a result, consumers are left with the impression that any use that the rights-holders do not expressly approve is illegal. "Consumers have the right to use the content in legal, non-infringing ways," CCIA spokesperson Jake Ward told Ars Technica. "Putting these warnings on broadcasts, videotapes, and DVDs is both misleading and threatening."'"
Why wouldn't publicly claiming legal ownership of something that you don't actually own (total, unrestricted rights) and threatening punitive action if these illegally claimed rights are violated should fall under fraud or extortion laws?
It would if you were Jimmy the Local Neighborhood Thug, but if you're a major corporate interest with lots of dollars and plenty of bureaucrats and politicians willing to suck your figurative genitals for a share of the pie, it ceases to be. Remember, the only thing that matters in this world is how much money you have. The more you have, the less the law applies to you, until finally, when you're a Very Large Corporation, the law is a meaningless abstraction that has little effect other than keeping legal departments employed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If it is illegal why did they wait "decades" as the article even points out to do file the complaint?
B5 71 ED FB 55 D6 4E 68 07 25 E2 FA CA 93 F0 2F, is mine! All mine!
If I were the judge I would rule that all their copyrights on past works are now expired as punishment for misleading the public. That would teach them fast.
Whether or not a pro-football player can get a job playing football is similar to the whole **AA thing. Complain that their business model (aka job) changed and they were unable to adapt so they're owed something. Thousands of kids go to college on football scholarships hoping to make it pro but never will. What do they do with the rest of their lives? Maybe become an actor, a cop (one of my high school football coaches is a police officer and former member of the Seahawks), a doctor (eye doctor in town is a former nfl player), etc. Most of them go to college for four years, often for free, why feel bad if they didn't use their opportunity to get an education in case things didn't pan out with pro football?
Not just with TM and copy write Pet peeve here... it's copyright (copyrighted)... as in the right to copy something. A copywriter is a person who basically writes up advertising. There's no such thing as copy write or copy written.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
behind all those criminal alegations, are real criminals waiting to be unhidden
?
"As a Canadian, the FBI is as important to me as the RCMP is to Americans."
Yeah we get FBI warnings in Australia and they are similarly meaningless. What pisses me off the most is that these rude (and largely hollow) threats are always attached to media I PAY FOR. They hijack my DVD and even in the fucking theater I have to PAY FOR and sit through someone lecturing me with "the FBI will get you if you don't watch out" - what's next - make us all stand up for the FBI like we used to do in the 60's to "god save the queen".
It's not the warning itself I object to, or even the hyperbole contained within, but the fact that their ogliopoloy makes it such that( like the guy in clockwork orange with his eyelids wired open) I am "forced" to watch their bullshit "message".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I dunno. On the web, where all information is specified by its location (url), I think "here here" is rather apt.
I guess this would be a good instance of copyfraud... where people are marking as copyrighted things that aren't.