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UK's RIAA Goes After Google Using the US DMCA
An anonymous reader passes along a DMCA takedown notice directed at Google and authored by the British Phonographic Industry, Britain's equivalent of the RIAA. P2pnet identifies the BPI as the outfit that "contributed to the British government's Digital Economy bill, complete with its ACTA Three Strikes and you're Off The Net element, with hardly a murmur from the UK lamescream media." Are there any precedents for a UK trade organization attempting to use an American law to force an American company to take down links to UK-copyrighted material?
I don't get it.
Google does not host material it indexes.
Material it indexes is offered publicly.
People who follow the search results ALSO get authorized copies. It's only if they copy them that they might run afoul.
Google has no more contributed to copyright violation than a shop selling copyright materials advertising its wares.
In Liberty, Rene
What did look scarey is including a bunch of queries that would evidently produce some/all of the content they object too. It's as if they want to claim that Google's ability to find such stuff makes them liable ... so that they should then work with the UK's RIAA to block searches for those
bits of material ... ugh!!...
Hmmm, my last double-retraction for the evening. This page on Google's policy for removing links to allegedly infringing material is relevant: http://www.google.com/dmca.html
Time for bed, I'm obviously babbling. Sorry, folks.
I'm a nature photographer.
I run a site that archives the BBC's Essential Mix radio show. We (my users and I) have been collecting these shows for the past 6 years. We've built a community around it that didn't exist anywhere else. These shows aren't available for purchase or download so we had no choice but to offer them in somewhat of a grey legal area.
June 1st, 2010 I received a Cease and Desist EMAIL from a company called Somthin' Else. They are the producers of the "Essential Mix" show, which then gets licensed to the BBC.
They said they wanted to discuss possible deals in their email but never responded to any of my 5 attempts (from different addresses) to contact them. I'm not sure if there was some other legal path I should have taken but I would think if they can contact me in an email then we should be able to convers further over email, but that is besides the point.
The main point is that this content is not available anywhere else so we had no option but to collect it ourselves. Not to mention all the free publicity it directed towards the DJs and the musicians.
I posted the letter on my site, mixriot.com, and my users barraged this guy with emails. Eventually he responded over TWITTER saying that they weren't the biggest hurdle. I'm assuming that means the BBC is starting to swing its hammer. I don't understand why the BBC would need to be aggressive, they are government funded, not advertising driven.
Below follows the entire email:
stuart.smith@somethinelse.com
Dear Sir / Madam,
It has come to our attention that mixriot.com is serving streamed and download content which includes BBC Radio programmes “The Essential Mix” and “In New DJ’s we trust”.
As the producer and copyright holder of both shows we have not granted rights to any third party at this time. We view any attempt to stream or to offer this content as a download in breach of copyright and therefore instruct mixriot to cease and desist any use of this content immediately.
As mixriot is the recipient of advertiser and subscriber income based on content delivered to date can you please deliver to Somethin’ Else within 30 days a statement of earnings to date and how much of this is due to SE for the above content.
Somethin Else welcomes new business opportunities throughout the world and would be interested in discussing applications and uses of our content with genuine business partners. If you would like to discuss these opportunities then please contact me.
If you do not respond within 7 days then we will pursue other courses of action.
Yours faithfully,
Stuart Smith
Finance Director
Somethin' Else
20-26 Brunswick Place
London
N1 6DZ
UK
Switchboard: +44 (0) 20 7250 5500
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7250 0937
IANAL, but afaik...
International copyright is bound by WTO treaties and other international law. The USA acknowledges international copyrights. The DMCA may have controversial portions, but much of it is good, providing means and method of having infringing data removed from the internet and requires certain compliance by intermediary parties (i.e. hosting companies) of infringing content. Note that by invoking the DMCA, they are clearly using US law, not UK law which would clearly not apply to data or services hosted by a US company on US soil, even if the content was created in the UK.
As for examples, I know of many happening in the other direction, as the US is a bit more "lawsuit happy" than the rest of the world... Allofmp3.com was an interesting example as while Russia was party to WTO treaties, the site was still legal according to Russian law. Ultimately, when pressured, Russia changed their law to be more friendly to their WTO allies and the site was shut down. Had the Russians already had such laws on the books, the RIAA, a US-based organization, would've been able to immediately bring suit against allofmp3.com according to international law.
So essentially... international law means that copyrights are unified within WTO-participating countries, but domestic law applies where-ever the law is broken, the law of the country under which the copyright is registered is NOT applied, afaik.
It is possible that I got some or all of this wrong, because, again, IANAL!