Everyday Copyright Violations

Schneier has pointed out a great law review article about the problems with copyright. The author takes a look at normal daily practices and how many commonplace actions actually result in what can be considered copyright violations. "By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John's activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing."

Comments

Imminent destruction!

[pwnies]

From the .pdf the article quotes:

In the late afternoon, John takes his daily swim at the university pool. Before he jumps into the water, he discards his T-shirt, revealing a Captain Caveman tattoo on his right shoulder. Not only did he violate Hanna-Barbera's copyright when he got the tattoo--after all, it is an unauthorized reproduction of a copyrighted work--he has now engaged in a unauthorized public display of the animated character. More ominously, the Copyright Act allows for the "impounding" and "destruction or other reasonable disposition" of any infringing work. Sporting the tattoo, John has become the infringing work. At best, therefore, he will have to undergo court-mandated laser tattoo removal. At worst, he faces imminent "destruction." Look on the bright side, at least we wont be seeing more of the Zune tattoo guy.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[mOdQuArK!]

Was there a court decision which has verified this?

Re:Imminent destruction!

[idontgno]

Unfortunately for the author's hyperbole, tattoos of copyrighted art on one's person fall under fair use.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

I had no idea that a functional majority of the Supreme Court of the United State (A) had issued a writ of certiorari in an appellate case involving copyright and fair use; (B) has chosen to collectively blog on Slashdot under a single pseudonym "bconway"; and (C) has decided to publish a definitive opinion on the scope of fair use in personal body art under the aforementioned pseudonym in the aforementioned Slashdot. As opposed to, say, The United States Reports, which is the oh-so-last-century "official" recording mechanism for SCOTUS decisions.

I personally think you're right. But since Section 107 of US Code Title 17 doesn't call out "personal body embellishment" as one of the explicit examples of fair use, it's a judgment call. Not your judgment, not my judgment, but a court's judgment. And, if the appeal process runs far enough, the Supreme Court's judgment.

ObDisclaimer: IANAL, but neither are most of y'all.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[amokk]

You know what, people like you are the reason that Slashdot has such a bad reputation for providing dubious legal advice. You are one of the people that must firmly believe "If I read it on a blog, it must be the law."

Since you are such a damn good lawyer, I'm sure you'll have reasonable sources to back up the claim that you're making. As another poster has already asked, please provide us some sort of peer-reviewed documentation to support your claim. Claiming that something is fair-use just because you don't like the alternative does not make it so.

More statements along those lines:

Killing somebody in self-defense is completely justified.
Making 14,567 copies of a song is fair-use.
Ripping an encrypted broadcast and distributing it to my group of friends is fair-use.

Note, I'm not defending copyright law, as I personally think it's gotten to the point where it's ridiculous. Basically, the purpose of this post is to call you a fucking retard. Thanks.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[theMerovingian]

Based on a cursory Westlaw search using the terms 'copyright' & 'fair use' & 'tattoo', this issue has not been litigated in the US. A personal tattoo does not fall into the listed categories of fair use such as criticism, teaching, scholarship, or research. See here.

Ordinarily, non-commercial uses that do not affect the value of the copyrighted work tend towards fair use. This limitation applies regardless of the medium of the purported infringement. In order to get some real closure to our tattoo debate, what we need is a porn star with a Mickey Mouse tattoo clearly visible in a video.

(warning: puns incoming) That would give us reproduction in a commercial context, and someone with deep pockets to sue. /ducks

Re:Imminent destruction!

[Znork]

"Ordinarily, non-commercial uses that do not affect the value of the copyrighted work tend towards fair use."

Yep. More reasonably the copyright holder would sue the tattoo artist, who would be the one performing the actual copying and the main commercial beneficiary of the possible infringement. As far as I can recall, simple possession of an infringing copy has rarely been considered illegal for the purpose of copyright law.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[sledge_hmmer]

That "Mickey Mouse tattoo in a porn flick" sounds like an interesting idea. Quick, find out which one of us geeks does the IT for Hustler magazine. That way we might be able to get in touch with Larry Flynt and see if he wants to take on another fight! I do have a suggestions to make though - the tattoo should be Donald Duck and the man can get a blowjob while we have that audio clip of DD getting a bj actually being the soundtrack. I wonder how many copyright laws that would violate?

Re:Imminent destruction!

[masterzora]

But a professionally-done tattoo is indeed a commercial use, which could potentially make the tattoo artist liable, giving John liability for knowingly aiding blah blah blah. And he's still the work, and thus subject to destruction.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[hedwards]

Fair use is sort of equivalent to a plea of insanity. Both are affirmative defenses in that you must first admit that you did indeed commit the action that you were accused of in order to invoke it.

So most likely it wouldn't mean that you haven't violated copyright law, but instead that one isn't liable for doing so. But IANAL so I may have gotten that somewhat incorrect.

Affirmative defenses tend to be risky, in that if the jury decides that the defense isn't strong, then you've effectively pleaded guilty without the benefits of a plea bargain in place.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[DragonWriter]

But a professionally-done tattoo is indeed a commercial use, which could potentially make the tattoo artist liable, giving John liability for knowingly aiding blah blah blah. And he's still the work, and thus subject to destruction.

He is not the work. The tatoo is the work. "Destruction or other reasonable disposition of the work" is not a license to kill; destroying the body of a living human being on which an infringing work is made is not even remotely a "reasonable disposition" of the unauthorized copy.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[Von Helmet]

Never mind the Zune guy, how about the chap who spent a year getting Albus "Homo" Dumbledore tattooed on his back.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[Petrushka]

Unfortunately for your hyperbole, you haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about. In addition, you were too lazy to read an extremely interesting article. I refer you to footnote 38:

See, e.g., Christopher A. Harkins, Tattoos and Copyright Infringement: Celebrities, Marketers, and Businesses Beware of the Ink, 10 LEWIS & CLARK L. REV. 313 (2006) (using the recent infringement suit involving NBA star Rasheed Wallace's tattoo as the starting point for analyzing the minefield of ink-related copyright issues).

Obviously the point is not very heavily tested, but it sure sounds like there's some leeway for lawsuits there.

(Naturally I avoid quoting your post as I don't want to be guilty of infringing your copyright on it. Oh, hang on -- my quotation from n. 38 above might be defensible under the "fair use" defence in the US, but unfortunately there's no such thing as the fair use defence in my country, so I guess I'm an infringer after all. Dammit!)

Re:Imminent destruction!

[Roger W Moore]

A personal tattoo does not fall into the listed categories of fair use such as criticism, teaching, scholarship, or research.

Ah...but since the person in the example was a law professor couldn't he claim that the Captain Caveman tattoo was legal research because he wanted to see if he could get sued for having it and so therefore he couldn't be sued? Or would that much circular logic make a judge's head implode?

Re:Imminent destruction!

[cuantar]

Hey RIAA, are you listening?

Re:Imminent destruction!

[tyme]

Smordnys s'regrepsA wrote:

This was a decent discussion on BoingBoing not too long ago.

"Is it true that it's 'not infringement once fair use kicks in' ?

Fair use is a defense to infringement where you admit infringement but say it was justified, isn't it? You affirm the boundaries of copyright but justify crossing them, rather than arguing that the boundaries should be moved. This is why it's argued on a case-by-case basis.

This article suggests some good reasons to move the boundaries, I think."

Not sure if that's right (IANAL), but it sure sounds like it to this lay-person.

While IANAL, I have taken business law, so I needed to learn some of this stuff:

Fair Use is an affirmative defense to an accusation of copyright infringement. I'm not certain, but I think an affirmative defense is more than simply an admission of guilt with an excuse. I think that an affirmative defense implies that, though the facts of the case may support the accuation ("I did make a copy of that copyrighted work"), you are asserting, as a matter of law, that you didn't violate the statute in question ("but my copy is allowed under the doctrine of fair use"). You are, in effect, claiming that no actual crime occurred, because you actions don't fall under the specific language of the statute (or are exempted by other specific language).

In any trial there are two broad groups of things at issue: issues of fact (what things actuall happened) and issues of law (how to interpret the things that happened). Fair Use is an issue of law, not of fact. When an accusation is made against you in a court of law, you may defend yourself in several ways: you can deny the facts of the case ("I never did the thing that I am accused of doing.", "I never made any copies of the copyrighted work.") and you may deny the illegality of your actions ("I did the deed, but it is allowed under the law for this reason.", "I did make a copy of the copyrighted work, but it is allowed under fair use for this reason."). You can even defend yourself on both the facts and the law ("I never did the deed, but If I had it wouldn't have been illegal under the law for this reason.").

Re:Imminent destruction!

[AeroIllini]

Citation needed.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[Opportunist]

Depends on your country. The things you mention can be legal where I live.

Killing a person in self-defense is justified, when there was no other option for you to keep you or someone else from bodily harm from the person you killed, provided you can credibly claim that you could have suffered the same fate from his actions. I.e. it's not ok to shoot someone who is unarmed and obviously weaker than you (for example, shooting a drunk staggering to you with a good chance to fall over before reaching you is not ok).

Making 14,567 copies of a song is no problem. Distributing them is, unless you can credibly claim that you have 14,567 friends you know personally. Could be hard to claim, but in theory...

And the ripping is already legal here, so is the distribution to your friends. Friend being defined as someone you know personally (i.e. not everyone on the internet is your friend).

So, if anything, whether or not something is legal or not depends highly on the country you're in. Someone says "X is legal" and people readily assume that applies to them. Given the international nature of the internet, the cardinal fallacy is to think it immediately applies to you, without questioning whether the person stating something resides in the same country you do.

Re:Imminent destruction!

[chthon]

I think that the biggest problem currently is that the copyright law has been defined by publishers, not creators.

Artistic protection should start by the premise, that whatever happens, the creator stays the owner, and that publishers only have the right to negotiate with the owner if they want to publish. The owner should even have the right to negotiate with more publishers if there is interest enough. This would create a real market with competition.

link to the actual article

[UnCivil Liberty]

Link in the story is a blog, here is the pdf that the blog links to: http://www.turnergreen.com/publications/Tehranian_Infringement_Nation.pdf

As an earlier poster pointed out I found the caveman tattoo bit about destruction quite funny, was also shocked to hear that "Happy birthday to you" is still under copyright, according to wiki it will expire in 2030 in the United States.

Re:link to the actual article

[djones101]

The validity of the copyright for Happy Birthday to You is also greatly in question, given the origin of the song itself. The copyright information on that can be found here.

Re:link to the actual article

[twistedsymphony]

Yup, if you ever wondered why all the Chotchkie's and Flinger's of the world sing their own obnoxious and flamboyant versions of the birthday song... now you know.

Re:link to the actual article

[je ne sais quoi]

I was also quite surprised by the following passage:

Clearly, we are only beginning to grasp the massive changes afoot with the advent of digital technology. Yet amidst the flux, one constant emerges: the 1976 Copyright Act lies always at the heart of these debates, inextricably mediating our relationship with cyberspace and new media. Three decades have passed since the current Copyright Act went into effect. Without dispute, tremendous economic, technological, and social changes have occurred in that time. And although these changes do necessarily warrant concomitant reform, this symposium follows on the premise that we have reached an appropriate point to evaluate the efficacy of the extant Act and think holistically about the issue of reform.

I had no idea that the Copyright Act was made in 1976. Such a recent law, yet I thought the copyright law was from antiquity. Definitely something I'll have to read up on. I agree completely that we need to rethink copyright law, but how can that be done when the money is all on the side of the copyright maximalists? (RIAA, MPAA)

Re:link to the actual article

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

it will expire in 2030 in the United States

No. It won't.

Sometime before that, DisneyCo will go to Congress and instruct them to extend Copyright terms again.

And Congress will obey, like the subservient little corporate bitches they are.

Re:link to the actual article

[davetd02]

No, quoting parts of a work for the purpose of criticism (which is exactly what you were doing) is the prime example of fair use. No liability, you're OK. Look, I'll even quote yours to prove it:

since I quoted the article, I engaged in illegal duplication of a copyrighted work for public display

If you had quoted the entire article on your blog and just added one or two sentences of commentary then it's unlikely that you'd be engaging in fair use, but here you quoted a very small part of the total article and added a substantial amount of commentary (even if it was in part inaccurate). Fair use saves the day.

Re:link to the actual article

[Znork]

"I know the people who made laws establishing copyright went into it with noble intentions"

Mmm, actually, no they didnt. Originally the 'copyright' had nothing to do with authors but were a pure and simple monopoly of the licensed printers guild, granted by the king in exchange for censorship control.

As it got slightly more codified the authors were used as an excuse to lobby for it; the authors didnt particularly matter anyway as they couldn't afford the printer, leaving them in pretty much the same situation as before.

IIRC, as far as the US was concerned, integration of IP rights into the US constitution was mostly with great hesitation and doubt about its legitimacy.

"it was originally intended to prevent exploitation of creators."

Except, of course, that was never the intended purpose. Which is why copyright law is the way it is, or we'd have an actual system guaranteeing a specific cut to authors, a tax/benefit scheme, or something like that. Think 'monopoly', 'control' and 'aristocrats' or you will just get confused about why IP law is the way it is. It's a 16th century throwback from the time the king granted monopolies on salt and spices to enrich his friends (as the population tended to be on the brink of killing him over taxes so it was much less troublesome to grant monopolies that didnt seem quite like taxes...).

Re:link to the actual article

[elrous0]

I took a class once taught by my grad school mentor that dealt with copyright law. He used to teach the standard thing of "x number of years after the author's death." I spoke with him more recently and asked him about this and he said that he now just tells his students bluntly "Anything copyrighted after the mid-20's will likely never fall into the public domain." Even in cases where stuff HAS fallen into public domain for whatever reason (abandonment, dissolution of the owning company, etc.), it can easily be de facto reclaimed if there is any financial incentive to do so (as the legal maneuverings over "It's a Wonderful Life" illustrate).

Re:link to the actual article

[westlake]

Sometime before that, DisneyCo will go to Congress and instruct them to extend Copyright terms again

When Steamboat Willie comes into the public domain you get the right to publish derivatives based on Steamboat Willie: eight minutes of silent era sight gags linked by a thin narrative thread.

You do not get the rights to the trademarked character designs.

You do not get the right to use the Mouse and his companions in any of their later incarnations. No Sorceror's Apprentice. No Phantom Blot.

You do not get access to primary sources.

Steamboat Willie was released on 35mm nitrate stock with synchronized sound on phonographic disk.

Re:link to the actual article

[cpt kangarooski]

I had no idea that the Copyright Act was made in 1976. Such a recent law, yet I thought the copyright law was from antiquity.

The current Copyright Act is the 1976 Act (with a number of amendments since then). However, it was preceded by the 1909 Act, and so on, with the first US copyright law being the 1790 Copyright Act. The US didn't previously have the power to enact copyright laws, but many states did during the 1780's. And of course, we were British colonies, and Britain had the Statute of Anne, which was the first modern copyright law, and it dates back to 1710.

Copyright isn't from antiquity (and neither are patents, which date back to the 1474 Venetian Patent Act) but they're not all that new either. Trademarks and trade secrets, OTOH, pretty much are from antiquity. The specific laws have changed a lot, but the basic idea has been around for a long, long time.

that was a freebie

[fmobus]

for Bruce Schneier!

Why a link to his blog, when all he says is boilerplate comment about the original article. Yeah, I know it's a PDF, but anyway. I believe does not need techniques like Roland's Piquepaile to get hits.

hmm maybe I should watch my back now, considering I have bad-mouthed Bruce Schneier... brb, unplugging my box from the netwoGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAfldsfjadlkfw35r$@#%$ETW#TE%$T

Re:that was a freebie

[fmobus]

good God, this guy is fast! look what he done to the grammar on my previous post! I don't remembert typing it like that!
*runs*

Yay for something everyone hear already knows!

[explosivejared]

Any good /.er can see that copyright is reaches way too far, but now what good is that doing us. The only way this can change is to break through the lobbying stranglehold that the content-producing cartels have on our legislatures. Short of that there isn't much that can be done other than just hope you aren't one caught by someone trolling for a lawsuit.

Re:Yay for something everyone hear already knows!

[sm62704]

The only way this can change is to break through the lobbying stranglehold that the content-producing cartels have on our legislatures.

And there's the rub - you're talking about making fire cold, at least in the US. Sony gives ten million to the DemocRATs and ten million to the Re(prehensible)publicans and it doesn't matter which candidate loses, Sony wins. And as they own all the politicians, the only two chances this will change are slim and none.

You should not be able to "contribute" to more than one candidate in any race. That's clearly a bribe. Clearly bribery is legal in the US.

You should not be able to contribute to the election of someone you aren't eligible to vote for. John Shimkis is supposed to be MY representative, not Sony's or Bill Gates'. But a Sony lobbyist Bill Gates has easy access to Shimkis, while I have next to none.

We have the best politicians money can buy. So long as our laws are for sale to the highest bidder, I refuse to respect them and will instead follow my own conscience.

-mcgrew

PS- I have a friend who reports to prison on the 1st for a drug posession charge. I have another friend whose brother spent five years in prison for loaning a drug dealer money, while the dealer spent 2 years. There is no justice in the US!

Applicable for all laws?

[TheGoodSteven]

Isn't this concept applicable to laws in general? How many of you think that you could drive to work without making a single violation? Hell, when was the last time you got on the highway and the majority of the traffic wasn't going at least 5 mph over the speed limit? And depending on what state you live in, you have varying laws that you most likely break every day. The law is getting so intricate that few people understand exactly what it entails anymore. Ideally, the law should be easily understood; written in the vernacular. We shouldn't need lawyers to translate it for us.

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[gEvil (beta)]

Ideally, the law should be easily understood; written in the vernacular. We shouldn't need lawyers to translate it for us.

Yes, someone should come up with a short list of laws. Ten seems reasonable. And they should be very concise and to-the-point. But something tells me that even then, people would still have a hard time obeying them...

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[way2trivial]

well now, I love a good nitpick.
depends on where you live, and what your net income is.

http://www.trafficticketsecrets.com/speeding-ticket-news-finnish.html

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[merreborn]

Ideally, the law should be easily understood; written in the vernacular. We shouldn't need lawyers to translate it for us.

The vernacular is ambiguous. Ambiguity in laws is a bad thing. If you try to write unambiguously in English, you end up with legalese. Additionally, legal jargon is efficient -- a single word in legal jargon communicates an idea that would take many words to describe unambiguously in the vernacular.

Legalese is almost like a programming language -- it must be precise, and ideally, efficient. And lord knows you'd be laughed off of slashdot if you suggested that "programming languages should be easily understood; written in the vernacular. We shouldn't need programmers to translate it for us."

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[Kazrath]

I am glad you pointed out the parent's flaw in his understanding in what is being asked. The point is not the amount of laws or the expectation that the laws will not be broken, it is about the average persons ability to know right from wrong.

For example: You get pulled over by a police officer for speeding. You knew you were speeding the "Law" was posted and quite easily understood. The police officer then writes you a ticket for speeding and adds on the additional "crimes".

(Non comprehensive list)
Exhaust hangs to low (My buddy actually got this one on a stock exhaust)
Tail lights out/dim
Tinted windows are too dark.

And now your speeding infraction turns into something worse because the officer is taught a portion of the laws that the average civilian had no idea existed. This is the current problem with our law system and why your intended jab at the 10 commandments put mud on your face.

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[sm62704]

Do you always signal at least 200 feet before a turn and 500 in residential areas?

In Illinois it's 100 feet, and yes. And not signalling is a pet peeve of mine, as I try to conserve gas; when I see a signal I take my foot off the gas. The brakes convert my kinetic energy to heat and throw it away. And stopping on the crosswalk is another pet peeve, especially when I'm on foot.

The last time I was pulled over it was because I gave two young ladies a ride to a house in the ghetto after certain illegal services that should NOT be illegal in a free society were performed, and they pulled me over because it was a "known drug house".

"Have you ever been arrested for crack?"

"I ain't been arrested for NOTHIN'!"

"We can check."

"I figured you already did."

"Did you know those girls smoke crack?"

"They do?" (note that I did not make a false statement; yes I knew they were crackwhores but neither admitted nor denied it)

I wasn't actually pulled over; I was cut off by a big black SUV and several large men, armed sith firearms and tasers, with shirts that read POLICE, FBI, abnd DEA (one DEA fellow was wearing a ski mask in July) ordered us out of the car. After my 4th amendment rights against unwarranted search and seizure were violated (and I didn't appreciate that cop, who I assume was a homosucksyouall, grabbing by balls) we were let go after it was found that there was, in fact, no conrtaband.

When what happened to me hapens to enough people we will have another revolution. I fear that day more than I fear the God damned Gestapo that stopped us that day.

You don't have to do anything wrong to get pulled over, just be in the wrong part of town with the wrong color of skin!

-mcgrew

Re:Applicable for all laws?

[sckeener]

My parents are lawyers and I remember them telling me when I was growing up that the FBI estimates that 99.8% of the population has committed some crime worthy of jail time.

As always, your duty is not to get caught and remember the "Computer is Your Friend"

And Fonts...

[popo]

Does anyone even understand copyright on fonts?

Re:And Fonts...

[DustyShadow]

Their copyrightability is questionable. The U.S. Copyright Office will not register them.
My 2 second google search brings up this. Disclamer: I haven't read that page though other than the title.

Re:And Fonts...

[gEvil (beta)]

Does anyone even understand copyright on fonts?

I believe I have a semi-reasonable grasp of it, but welcome anyone to correct any errors I might make. The outlines of the characters in a font are not themselves copyrighted (nor can they be). However, the digital representation of these characters is copyrighted (i.e., the font files you buy or that come with software). This also includes derivatives based upon modifying the original digital files. However, if you were to print out the characters in a font, then redraw them in FontLab or Fontographer, you could claim the copyright to your new creation. However, you will then be scorned by the typographic community for doing so unless you at least make a few modifications to some of the characters. It's somewhat similar to software in that a disassembly and reimplementation of it must take place.

Re:And Fonts...

[RealErmine]

However, you will then be scorned by the typographic community for doing so

I wonder exactly how it would change my life for the worse should this occur. Would I be relegated to dictating correspondence to a shady "letter merchant" in dark alleys? Would the psychological oppression from being a typographic outcast cause me to break under the steady gaze of traffic signs and theater marquees? Would all children's educational programming be mysteriously absent from all the PBS channels I receive? Would the BIC company blackball me from future writing implement purchases? Truly, these are the questions that keep one awake at night.

Re:And Fonts...

[Haeleth]

It's the same typographic community that is charging the price for fonts that the free market will bear. If you don't want to pay the going rate, don't use the product. It works the same way for fonts as it works for DVDs or any other bundle of bytes that costs money to make. It's hardly a difficult concept to grasp.

Maybe you should make your own high quality fonts and sell them at a price you consider reasonable? If you're right that the current going rate is "ridiculous", you could undercut them massively and still make a tidy profit. Think of the market share you could grab! I mean, it's not like making fonts requires a massive time investment up-front with no guarantee of any returns whatsoever or anything, is it?

Re:And Fonts...

[IthnkImParanoid]

They'll just make sure your eulogy is written in Comic Sans.

This is by design, not by accident.

[Tackhead]

> At worst, he faces imminent "destruction."

He has no time to survive! Make his time! (Move Zune! For great injustice!)

Sorry. I had to.

Since we've all seen and we all know Cardinal Richelieu's "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." quote, and Rand's "There's no way to rule innocent man..." quote, let's go for something a little closer to home in US jurisprudence.

"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him."

-Former Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice, Robert H. Jackson, April 1, 1940

Unfortunately, it wasn't an April Fool's joke.

Re:This is by design, not by accident.

[fastest fascist]

actually copyright infringement is relatively new, since the whole concept of copyright isn't so very old.

Re:This is by design, not by accident.

[Opportunist]

Erh... no. Simply no. I'm fairly sure some of the greatest composers in history would have loved if it was, but simply... no.

Copyright is a fairly recent concept. Until the advent of the printing press, there was quite obviously no reason for one. Aside from a few prior examples, where kings granted their immediate artists personal exclusive rights to their art, it took until the 17th century until the first copyright acts came into existance.

International copyright took even until the Berne convention, which came into existance in 1889.

So, in computer terms, it may be old, but we're still talking about a concept that's only a bit over a century old. Or, in copyright terms, a copyright expiry period.

Re:This is by design, not by accident.

[Opportunist]

Sure, people break the law every day. What's problematic with copyright is that on one hand, we get tighter and tighter laws every day, while at the same time the prosecution takes on the level of a witchhunt.

To get back to your example, we're now facing laws where even the most minor speeding is punishable by jail and behind every other traffic sign you have a copy with a laser gun. Will that result in every driver in jail? Sure, over time. Everyone speeds some time. Not even intentionally. But maybe your kids are distracting you, you're late for a meeting or your speedometer is faulty, and there you go, off to jail.

That's what's wrong with it. Not that everyone breaks it now or then, and most of the time in a negligible way. The problem is that those negligible copyright infringments are now treated like criminal offenses by the law, and that they're prosecuted as such.

Re:This is by design, not by accident.

[mr_matticus]

Copyright is neither a recent concept nor limited to the Berne Convention (which should be a clear indicator to you--an international accord doesn't spring from thin air, but rather evolves from domestic policies and practices that are standardized by treaty). The word copyright is about 150 years old, but the concept is far, far older.

The bit about classical composers is a total red herring. The reason copyright didn't apply to them is because there was no technology to make copies. Composers enjoyed state protection throughout the era you dismiss.

it took until the 17th century until the first copyright acts came into existance. Existence, and not strictly true. The first copyrights, if we're to accept the "monopolistic control" premise, are older than the Magna Carta. Further, Shakespeare in the 16th century battled reproductions of his Second Folio. He was not by any means the first to do so.

Copyright is an evolution of the premodern patent (before it took on the primary meaning of dealing with inventions), itself of course derived from letters patent, which have been issued for artists since before the printing press. The grant of commission was a patent granted by the sovereign to artists and performers.

The modern form is quite different, and the term copyright arose out of industrial-era technology first allowing the production of copies, no longer requiring reproduction by hand. Such protection was therefore very different in character in an era before reproductions were possible--royal protection by patent and recognition was itself sufficient. After the printing press, monopolies on printing extended that royal patent to restrictions on printing. After the phonograph, legal rights extended to protect that field. After vinyl albums and cassettes, after personal computers, after the Internet, you know the story. The protection has evolved and expanded over the course of a thousand years. It didn't just pop up one day in the 1880s.

Re:This is by design, not by accident.

[mr_matticus]

So I'm not aware of a legal copyright (in the sense of having the exclusive right to determine how and where a work may be printed, performed or played) on the continent before the 18th century. Printing patents were granted as early as the 15th Century. The legal restrictions on printing are for all intents and purposes as old as printing itself. Those printing restrictions themselves were not unprecedented--they are derivatives of commission and letters patent granted to artists and artisans dating back well before the printing press was invented.

The performer's royal commission granting monopoly rights, stretching back to Renaissance times (depending on whose research you believe, even further--there is evidence of protected scribes in ancient Egypt) was such a patent and granted certain rights and benefits to the creators of certain works of art and performances. In a time when reproduction had to be achieved by hand and staggering effort, a royal commission not only identified the author, but granted such individual(s) exclusive rights and privileges. We now recognize those rights in the forms of Contract and Property.

Ownership of 'works of the mind' in the modern sense has been part of European jurisprudence since, at the latest, the mid-16th Century. Property rights (typically, monopoly rights) in creators and producers dates back much, much further. Certainly no one can set a date for copyright's lineage after 1450 or so, since printing patents are at least that old in Western society--nearly 600 years ago in Venice (as old as Roman Typography itself)! That, of course, ignores several relevant earlier developments, but still proves the point: the concept of a copy right is not new unless you're also arguing that our othographical and punctuation system is also "new." If the popular argument on Slashdot is that copyrights are the granting of "monopoly rights" then you must follow that through to its logical origin, over a thousand years back. Of course, copyright is much more complex than that and the Slashdot argument is largely invalid, but it's a concession I'll make.

Copyright is, as previously mentioned, a derivative of the printing patent, which supplemented and in some cases replaced some RP letters patent, which have been granted going very far back indeed (at least to the Crusades, though different people interpret the evolution differently). Whether you want to draw the line at printing patents 500-some years ago or letters patents for performers and artists several centuries before that, it's certainly not a "new" idea in any practical timescale.

Re:Puh-lease!

[morgan_greywolf]

That's nothing! I upload 90 gigabytes of copyrighted material every day! This 'John' ain't got shit on me. Whodaman?! Your IP address has been noted.

Thanks,
The MAFIAA

Encoding and Distributing

[WED Fan]

O.K. if I encode the opening chords of Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" into a barcode and have it tatooed on my schlong, then sleep around, and then the RIAA comes after me, do I have a leg to stand on? Do I have a shot? Will they cut me off? Am I in violation? Can I be infected by a rootkit? Does taking viagra count as intent to mass distribute?

Re:Encoding and Distributing

[Mr. Underbridge]

O.K. if I encode the opening chords of Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" into a barcode and have it tatooed on my schlong, then sleep around, and then the RIAA comes after me, do I have a leg to stand on?

Sounds like you have three.

Re:Encoding and Distributing

[SteveWB]

if I encode the opening chords of Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord”

Actually, if it’s just the chords, you’re fine. As I learned in a jazz arranging class, chord progressions are not copyrightable.

Re:Are emails copyrighted?

[fastest fascist]

Copyright is automatic, you do not need to register a piece in order to have copyright on it.

The spectre of selective enforcement

[dpbsmith]

That's a very good article. The example surprised me. I thought that one would need to be much more far-fetched than he was to get the total that he gets.

It even failed to mention some potential liabilities. When he "emails his family five photographs of the Utes football game he attended the previous Saturday," the point is the infringement of the copyright of his friend who took the pictures. He doesn't pile on the possibility that the images themselves contain copyrighted team logos, or that... this is so weird that I'm not sure I'm remembering it correctly, but I believe the owners of some buildings are now claiming that the appearance of the building itself is copyrighted and that photographing the buildings infringes... so the photographs might be infringing by showing the stadium itself.

What he does not mention is the spectre of selective enforcement. It is very convenient for authorities if everyone is a law-breaker, because then you always have a valid pretext for prosecuting/persecuting them.

Re:The spectre of selective enforcement

[Scrameustache]

I believe the owners of some buildings are now claiming that the appearance of the building itself is copyrighted and that photographing the buildings infringes... We had to take pictures of a building complex downtown for a college class, and security came out and asked me and my partner to leave. Our teacher had to sort it out with the building's manager to get us a special permission for educational purposes.
All of that before 9-11 of course.

Re:Are emails copyrighted?

[geoskd]

Is that really a copyright violation? How is an email copyrighted? I thought something has to pass through the copyright offices in the basement of the LoC to actually have a copyright.

The copyright act of 1976 basically dictates that, unlike previous copyright law, all new works are automatically covered by copyright law, and are afforded its protections. This means that all new original and derivative works are protected by copyright whether they are registered or not, and whether the owner chooses to enforce their rights or not.

-=Geoskd

Why Fair Use doesn't help

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing someone will raise the point of Fair Use, so I'll repost the comment I posted on Schneier's blog as to why that doesn't really help you any. Oh, and a bonus link to USC 17 (copyright law) so you can see that I'm not making this crap up. Mind you, IANAL, but you need one to make sense of that. Any layman can figure out where and how it does NOT make sense, though, which is why I encourage you all to read it.

-----

You guys realize that Fair Use is something you have to *prove in court* right? By the time you're proving that your use was fair, you're already on the hook for big money in legal fees.

And how many of the copyright rules do you know? Did you know that having a TV that's too large can be copyright infringement in some cases? You can rent console games that meet very specific requirements, but you can't rent PC software (I really have to wonder where the X-Box games fall, legally speaking, given that the X-Box is just a PC, but it doesn't seem like Microsoft cares to test it and they may still meet the statutory requirements).

Honestly, read USC 17 sometime. It's positively mind-boggling. We've got everything from international treaty created super-trademarks (the Olympics & Red Cross spring to mind), loads of crap meant to serve various lobbies, and so many screwball statutes that I don't understand at all.

Granted, IANAL, but I think that the average person would be surprised by just how many rules there are. And those are just the statutes!

God help you when you find out that, while "facts" aren't copyrighted, facts about a fictional work aren't really "facts" according to at least one court! That's right, the fact that Harry Potter attends Hogwarts may not be a "fact" per the law. So I might just have infringed upon Rowling's copyrights right there.

She won't sue, you say? Actually, she IS suing someone right now over that very issue because they want to publish an unauthorized encyclopedia...

Is it really Fair Use when there are so very many confusing rules you have to follow to maybe, hopefully be protected (with that assuming the courts decline to make a new precedent or extend existing law)?

Or to sum up this entire post, isn't it bad if we each need our own personal lawyer just to be able to *OBEY* the law?

Olig. quote

[vertinox]

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -Ayn Rand

Of course the same applies to copyright. The copyright laws have become so over reaching that everything we do on a daily basis could be construed as breaking a law, so if we displease the wrong person then they already have something to pin on us.

Re:Are emails copyrighted?

[Billosaur]

Theoretically, a copyright exists the moment a document is created, which is to say that if I have a half-written story somehwere which someone takes and finishes, I still have copyright to the original story and they have violated my copyright without including the section I wrote via attribution a.k.a. without my express consent. Now, copyright law was a lovely idea when the world was traversable in months, only a small fraction of the population could read and write, and everything was committed to paper, but the dawn on fast travel, the Internet, and digital media makes it iffy, because it requires much more effort to establish that a work is in fact yours to begin with and then the possibility a work gets onto the Internet will cause so many copies to be created that anything short of a global corporation is going to have the resources to sue everyone for infringement. The gist of the article is simple -- the old way of handling copyright (and by extension, intellectual property) is ineffectual at best.

Law on Everybody

[Gadzinka]

Watching as US Copyright goes south is particularly painful for someone who grew in a communist country. I was old enough before '89 to take part in political discourse, which often took form of political jokes. It was a kind of very bitter humor, uninteligible for someone who didn't breathe this air of suspicion and fear. So this is a kind of nasty flashback for me, as it reminds me the joke/saying from those times: there is a law on everybody*. As soon as you stick your head too high, to far, put your nose where it doesn't belong, someone will find a law that will punish you severly. It's kind of bitter irony, that it is US, the mythical Land of the Free of my youth.

Robert

* pl. na kazdego jest paragraf

PS The nineties called and they want their "iso-8859-1 hardcoded webpages" back. Need I wait for "Web 5.0" to be able to use non-latin1 characters in /. comments?

Re:Law on Everybody

[Fallingcow]

PS The nineties called and they want their "iso-8859-1 hardcoded webpages" back. Need I wait for "Web 5.0" to be able to use non-latin1 characters in /. comments?

In the mean time, see this for how to get UTF-8 characters to show up in HTML.

It's not a pretty solution, nor quick, but it will work.

Re:Law on Everybody

[spikedvodka]

Reminds me of a good joke:
A Soviet, An American and an Austria are talking in a bar
Soviet: You see, where I come from, we have the best system of laws: if it's not allowed, it is forbidden
American: No, no, no, you have it backwards, in the USA we have the best system: If it's not forbidden, then it is allowed
Austrian: Bah, both of you are wrong, we know what we're doing when it comes to the law: If it's forbidden, then it is allowed!

*sigh*

[sm62704]

I respect Schneider, I am for copyright reform (but never expect to see it un the US so long as we remain a plutocracy with a more or less meaningless vote), yet I was disappointed. I should not have RTFA; I only did so because it was Schneider's blog, yet the entire post was in the slashdot summary.

I clicked on his link to the paper, and was disappionted to find a PDF. Google failed me when I made a cursory effort to find an HTML version.

The paper he links is itself incorrect in its very first page when it speaks of "the rights of owners and users of creative works." The US Constitution makes it quite clear that the "owners" of creative works are we, the people. The copyright holder is NOT the "owner". He has a "limited time" monopoly on publication, NOT "ownership".

When I've paid off my house, I will own it. I can pass it down to my decendants who can hand it down to theirs. My two registered copyrighted works, however, pass into the public domain after a rediculously long time.

When I see an inaccuracy in the very first page of a paper, especially a whopper like this, hat's as far as I read. Sorry.

-mcgrew

Re:*sigh*

[Bogtha]

I clicked on his link to the paper, and was disappionted to find a PDF. Google failed me when I made a cursory effort to find an HTML version.

Huh? Paste the link to the PDF into Google. It provides a "view as HTML" link.

The paper he links is itself incorrect in its very first page when it speaks of "the rights of owners and users of creative works."

"Owners" is the correct term, check the law yourself. At worst, you could say that the wording was ambiguous by not explicitly saying "copyright owners".

The US Constitution makes it quite clear that the "owners" of creative works are we, the people.

No it doesn't. It says:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

It says nothing at all about public ownership.

Also, read this.

Oh shit, my birthday's coming up

[RockMFR]

Should I get a license to sing "Happy Birthday to You" from Warner Chappell? I guess I will, just to be safe...

Name of the Client: me
Description of the Presentation: birthday party
Who will view the presentation? friends and family
How many people will be attending the presentation? 20
What is the number of locations where the presentation will take place? 1
How many copies will be made? 25
Will any copies be sold? No
Please give a detailed description, including timing(s), of how the song will be used in the presentation: The song will be sung once before I blow out the candles on my birthday cake. There will be a camcorder set up and the recording will be sent to everybody at the party and some people who could not attend.
Are you going to license an original master recording or are you going to re-record the song? Rerecording
Will you be altering the Song's lyrics in any way: Yes
If yes, please type new lyrics.
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday To You
Happy Birthday Dear RockMFR
Happy Birthday To You
And Many More
On Channel 4
And Scooby Doo
On Channel 2
And Frankenstein
On Channel 9
General Comments: no gifts, please

*submits*

Fee: $0.00

:)

Huge stretches....

[cfulmer]

The example has a number of things which either (1) are fair uses, (2) aren't infringements at all or (3) aren't subject to copyright at all.

For example, the cell phone snapshot that happened to capture a copyright picture in the background -- that's clearly fair use. Displaying your tattoo in public doesn't make it a "public display." The forwarded emails are probably subject to an implied license and, even if they weren't, they may not contain sufficient creative expression to be copyrightable. The rough drawing of an architectural building is not an infringement (see 17 U.S.C. 120(a)). Reading the e.e. cummings poem is probably also fair use, especially if each student has a textbook containing the poem.

Copyright law is generally *civil*, not criminal. In general, this means that a lot of wrongs are ignored by potential plaintiffs, just as a matter of tradition, convenience and politeness, just as they are with a lot of other civil wrongs -- nuisance, trespass, assault** (especially among children), etc..... Nobody goes around saying "Look at how many acts of trespass you committed today. We need to fix trespass law."

[Note: I agree that copyright law needs some reforms; the repeal of Sonny Bono would be a great start. I just don't find this example to be very persuasive.}

Re:duh

[sm62704]

Everyone treats the internet like laws can't apply, but were the laws reasonable there would be no problem. Take copyright for example - if copyright law were written in such a way that noncommercial use of a work would automatically be non-infringeing, there would be no problem.

IMO, anyone who believes that P2P really costs artists money has not given much thought to the matter. Clearly, if I've never heard of you I'm not going to buy your CD or book.

Plagairism is another matter entirely; it should be severely punished.

-mcgrew

Blogs are the bane of Journalistic Integrity

[SnowDog74]

This is why I do not read blogs... because they are rife with poorly researched theses such as this.

The entire argument made in the excerpt is predicated upon completely ignoring 17 USC 1, Section 107, "Fair Use". Period.

TFA is not newsworthy material.

Re:Blogs are the bane of Journalistic Integrity

[pla]

The entire argument made in the excerpt is predicated upon completely ignoring 17 USC 1, Section 107, "Fair Use". Period.

Fair use does not, however, count as a "right" in the normal sense of the word.

It counts as a legal defense.

Which means, even if you win, you've already lost - Time, at the very least, and money (lawyer's fees) if you want any shot at all of winning the case.

Re:most violations are or were 'fair use'

[davetd02]

I know I shouldn't feed the anonymous cowards, but this is obviously a vast over-simplification. IP obviously has plenty of drawbacks--you suggest some of them--but nobody has come up with a better way to create incentives to put R&D into ventures which pay only IP rewards. For example, it costs billions of dollars to develop a new drug, but manufacturing drugs is incredibly easy. Everybody complains about the patent system for drugs, but nobody has come up with another system that would give sufficient incentives for a pharmaceutical company to invest billions in lab research and clinical testing of new drugs. A system without IP would not lead to innovation in pharmaceuticals; there's no way to recoup a billion-dollar investment if generic manufacturers could undercut the price of the drug from Day 1. No new drugs means none of the new drugs that have changed the lives of millions, from Lipitor to Prozac to Viagra.

The same goes, to some extent, for movies. It's true that it costs tens of millions of dollars to produce a movie. If there were absolutely no IP laws and commercial copyright infringement were allowed then nothing would stop ABC from showing a movie that was out in theaters and not paying the studio. Or for a theater to show the movie and not pay the studio. Or for cut-rate vendors to sell the movie openly on DVD the day it comes out in theaters. With absolutely NO IP protection then movies just won't get made.

There might be a better balancing point than what we're at now, but it's far from clear that "no IP" is the right solution.

simply trying to commercialize the fruits of mind, but since we depend on the free exchange of ideas, such laws hinder society and must be resisted

Re:Lost in translation?

[Archangel Michael]

I would suggest that the current "limits" on copyrighted material doesn't fit the Constitutional definition of "limited". Would a "limit" of 200 years still be a "limit", how about 300, 400 or even 500 years?

If I were an enterprising young lawyer, I'd argue that once the congress extended the limits from their original standard, are in fact not limits what-so-ever. If we set limits so high that they no longer appear to be limits (you can only earn 1 trillion dollars per year), that they in fact are not limits.

Additionally, when the so-called limits stop the promotion of "the Progress of Science, and useful Arts", it no longer serves its purpose and again, is unconstitutional.

I wouldn't argue with Patents and Copyrights anymore, I'd deal with the Constitutionality of the existing laws.

Regarding Happy Birthday song ... Happy Birthday was written by Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893. The version as we know it was copyrighted in 1935 by the Summy Company as an arrangement by Preston Ware Orem, and is scheduled to expire in 2030 in the USA. The original "Good Morning to All" is public domain, as is the music.

See the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You for more details.

My suggestion is to use my Bastardized version in public; "Hippy Bathday to Ewe" and let the lawyers figure that one out. Please feel free to use my version, especially for GNU parties.

Re:Are emails copyrighted?

[zcat_NZ]

If the copyright is not registered you can only claim 'actual damages'. Emails typically have very little commercial value.

If the copyright is registered, you can claim actual damages + statutory damages.

IANAL but I've read the copyright myths page..

Re:Imminent destruction!TELL THAT TO PRINCE

[Nom du Keyboard]

Based on a cursory Westlaw search using the terms 'copyright' & 'fair use' & 'tattoo', this issue has not been litigated in the US. A personal tattoo does not fall into the listed categories of fair use such as criticism, teaching, scholarship, or research.

Tell that to Prince, who has issued a takedown for a photo of a fan's Prince tattoo.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No, sorry, your schlong is too small... an offence

[SmallFurryCreature]

I also doubt wether it will stand up in court.

Someone stop me!

Re:duh

[pegr]

Everyone treats the internet like laws can't apply, but were the laws reasonable there would be no problem. Take copyright for example - if copyright law were written in such a way that noncommercial use of a work would automatically be non-infringeing, there would be no problem.

IMO, anyone who believes that P2P really costs artists money has not given much thought to the matter. Clearly, if I've never heard of you I'm not going to buy your CD or book.

Plagairism is another matter entirely; it should be severely punished.

-pegr

Re:Lost in translation?

[BootNinja]

I wouldn't argue with Patents and Copyrights anymore, I'd deal with the Constitutionality of the existing laws.

Lawrence Lessig tried that already. He argued that the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act was unconstitutional on the basis that extending the copyright made it effectively unlimited. The court decision was that since copyright was extended before the Sonny Bono Copyright law, it was not against the constitution to do so again. For more information, go here.

All this proves is copyright is broken

[syousef]

What do you expect really.

The entire idea that "I got here first, so I own it" is antiquated in the digital age. If someone can reproduce the steps you took to get there, someone will. The whole idea that the creator should continue to control their creation after it is released is just plain counter-productive. The separate issue of whether they should be compensated for their work is another matter entirely.

Then there's the fact that companies spend billions on marketing then try to sue if someone uses the image they intentionally made popular. How asinine is that!

What we need is a change to the law such that anyone may produce their own copies or derivatives once a work is made public BUT if they profit from a copy of someone else's creation, they must pay part (or all) of their revenue back to the copyright holder.

As it stands copyright law is based on an 18th Century world (or rather part of the world) and the unique conditions of that time and place. They don't belong here and now.

Non-latin1 characters vs. slashcode

[Gadzinka]

It's not a pretty solution, nor quick, but it will work.

Below, you can find the series of character pairs: first latin character, and than Polish diacritical character based on it (e.g. a-with-tail, c-acute, e-with-tail etc).

a -
c -
e -
l -
n -
o - ó
s -
z -
z -

All those characters have been given as html entity of the form � Of them only the counterpart of "o" apears in Latin1 table, and consequently is the only one displayed. The rest of the characters disapears from the HTML source.

So, once again: no matter what your input method, if the character is latin1 plus arbitrary set of other characters, it is displayed by slashcode, otherwise, it gets filtered out from the source. Particularly, Latin2 cannot be displayed, and I suppose the same goes for Cyryllic.

Robert

Important point

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Unfortunately for the author's hyperbole, tattoos of copyrighted art on one's person fall under fair use.

Other people have called you on the fact that you give us no reason to believe this, but I think I ought to call you on one more thing.

If Joe Tattoo Artist gives me, for appropriate compensation, a tattoo of Mickey Mouse, there are three parties involved here:

1. Me
2. Joe Tattoo Artist
3. Disney

You fail to distinguish which of the parties Disney has or fails to have valid claims against. It is quite possible that Disney has no valid claim against me, but has a claim against Joe Tattoo Artist. If Joe offers tattoos of Mickey Mouse customarily as part of the services he gets paid for, and the popularity of Mickey Mouse makes his business that more profitable, I betcha Disney can go after Joe.

Can they go after me? Well, not in general, but I bet you there are circumstances where they can. If leverage the fact that I have a Mickey Mouse tattoo, e.g., by working as a model in a way that displays my Mickey Mouse tattoo too prominently, I bet you I can get in trouble too.

The law is subtle, and how it applies to any given case is a complicated matter. (And no, IANAL, but the fact that I understand this makes me better understand the value of the service that lawyers provide.)

Re:Imminent destruction!TELL THAT TO PRINCE

[PhxBlue]

Prince can tell someone to take something down. Likewise, they can tell Prince to sod off. It has nothing to do with copyright (aside from abuse-as-usual of the DMCA).

Obligatory

[Cryacin]

I for one welcome our new patent overlords. So how many copyright billions am I liable for?

Tell it to the judge

[tepples]

The example has a number of things which either (1) are fair uses, (2) aren't infringements at all or (3) aren't subject to copyright at all. But do you have the money to pay a lawyer to prove it to the judge?

In general, this means that a lot of wrongs are ignored by potential plaintiffs But it also means that plaintiffs have every right under the law to be dciks about it.

Umm

[Chrisq]

what we need is a porn star with a Mickey Mouse tattoo clearly visible in a video.

can I volunteer to do some research!

AnotherWikiTag ~~~~

[Stanistani]

The neutrality of the above post is disputed.