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Author Drops Copyright Case Against Scribd Filter
natehoy writes "Apparently, monitoring for copyright violations is not in itself a copyright violation, lawyers for Elaine Scott decided. As a result, they have dropped the lawsuit against Scribd, who was being simultaneously sued for allowing copies of Scott's work to be published, and retaining an unlicensed copy of the work in their filtering software to try and prevent future copyright violations."
Of course, I knew that already. My hard-drive contents, including the "diff" program are one big copyright violation monitoring tool.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
What do you even say to that kind of idiot?
"Case dismissed."
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
1 - forbid site from avoiding copyright infringements.
2 - sue when copies of copyrighted works appear on site.
3 - PROFIT!
I don't know if it is getting ridiculous as much as the law itself is just confusing and unclear. It requires court arbitration to figure out the simplest of questions. "Is ripping CDs for a backup 'fair use'?", etc. Unfortunately, law is worse than code in terms of legacy support. Think of this as the ultimate code bloat legacy application. All you want to do is gut the whole thing and start over, but management will not entertain that motion at all.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
The law SERIOUSLY needs to be gutted. I think the common law system is fatally flawed in this way. There's no way for a reasonably informed and intelligent citizen to be able to scratch the surface of the thousands of laws, decisions, precedents which could be brought to bear on him at any moment. How can that possibly be fair?
Let us suppose we are an image hosting site, that has in the past been used to host child porn (Think Flickr or ImageHost). By the same logic, it would then be appropriate for us to maintain copies of child porn in order to filter new uploads against it. In my opinion, the only organizations that should be allowed to retain copies of c.p. are those government organizations actively involved in policing it -- regardless of motive. So when our company gets v&, do you think they'll accept our filtering excuse? Notwithstanding that the IP laws are screwed up, It was still an illegal copy, and I feel the author's case has merit.
>What do you even say to that kind of idiot?
"I'm sorry, from now on I'll use a hash instead"?
Sorry, a hash is a derivative work.
The ______ Agenda
I don't know if it is getting ridiculous as much as the law itself is just confusing and unclear.
It doesn't need to be, the original laws on the subject were pretty easy to understand, and pretty reasonable. Each time they revise it though it just gets worse and worse.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
The deposition goes like so:
Plaintiff's attorney: Are you blocking users from uploading content belonging to my client?
Defendant: Yes.
Plaintiff's attorney: How?
Defendant: We compare uploaded items to a copy of the book on our server.
Plaintiff's attorney: I see. And did you pay for it?
Defendant: What?
Plaintiff's attorney: This book, that you have on your server.
Defendant: Uh, yes. We bought it at Borders and scanned it in.
Plaintiff's attorney: Did you buy a license to make an electronic copy of the hardcopy you purchased?
Defendant: A what?
Plaintiff's attorney: (makes a note).
Defendant: Aw, shit.
Except that your #1 is not the facts of the case.
The site was using an unauthorized copy of the work to check for other unauthorized copies.
Stealing a car to look for stolen cars doesn't make you a cop.
I swear, judge! I downloaded that copy of Backyard Vixens 7 because I was trying to make sure nobody infringed on their copyright to do doggie style...that way.
The purpose of America's laws is to benefit the socioeconomic elite, keep everyone else in line, and prevent major social upheaval. The laws are doing just what they are designed to do.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, 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. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers. --Ayn Rand
Can you explain how Scribd knowingly made a copy of her work and profited from that copy?
Scribd's users knowingly made copies of her work. Once Scribd was made aware of the infringement, they reacted properly and appropriately to the DMCA notice and implemented a filter to prevent further distribution of the work. So they did not knowingly make the copies that they profited from. Case one for the defendant, DMCA "Safe Harbor" protects them from prosecution since they acted swiftly and appropriately in response to a perfectly valid and reasonable DMCA notice.
Scribd themselves knowingly made one copy of the work, to put it in their filter. No profit was made from that copy, and that copy was made for the sole purpose of benefiting the author. Scribd made no profit from that work, it simply allowed them to protect the author's interests extremely effectively.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
If they found them guilty, then it would have been impossible for them to filter copyrighted stuff, making many people's lives easier. "Sorry, we can't do copyright filtering without violating copyrights..."
Just yesterday I saw a copy of the full criminal code, in all its fine print 700 page glory. I don't know how anyone can possibly say with a straight face that "ignorance is not an excuse".
Abundance has ZERO to do with ownership.
Stealing a blade of grass off my lawn makes you a thief.
Got it?
Now, get off it.
Well, it is certainly on the silly side and the money-grubbing-greedy-bitch side as well. But legally speaking, aren't they correct? Especially if they really were holding an entire copy of the work for their filter?
I'm no expert, but it doesn't seem to me like they actually need to hold a full copy of the work to do their filtering. Can't they just take a random sampling of phrases and search for those, or something else entirely?