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!

[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!

[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!

[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!

[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?

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

[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

[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).

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

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.

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.

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:Are emails copyrighted?

[fastest fascist]

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

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.

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.

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?

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

:)

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

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: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!

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.

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:And Fonts...

[IthnkImParanoid]

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