Australian Federal Court Awards Damages To Artist For False Copyright Claim
New submitter BarryHaworth writes "In a decision handed down earlier this month, the Australian Federal Court awarded damages to Aboriginal artist Richard Bell over a false claim of copyright infringement. The claim related to a take-down notice claiming copyright infringement from film footage used in a trailer for a film being made by the artist. The court declared Mr. Bell the owner of the copyright and awarded him $147,000 in damages for lost sales of paintings and catalogues. At time of writing, YouTube does not appear to have caught up with the decision."
... just one big case would be enough to bring some sanity to our system.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
How could an artist be awarded a copyright? Only corporations are allowed to own those...
At time of writing, YouTube does not appear to have caught up with the decision
It has now... Damn You Tanya Stele!
-- no sig today
And didn't bother having counsel show up.
And lives on the other side of the world to the court's jurisdiction.
Hooray for a meaningless judgement.
While the award was made in FCA246, it is based on background findings in Bell v Steele (No 2) [2012] FCA 62 (7 February 2012) which gives a bit more detail on what happened leading up to the award judgement.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
everyone can copyright, you dont have to be a company
What you say is true in theory. But in practice, defending a work's copyright from the incumbent multinational publishers requires substantial financial resources. If you're not a corporation, you likely lack the resources to defend your copyright from false accusations of infringement. Nor do you have the resources to check the work that you are preparing to publish against every existing copyrighted work to make sure that there is no substantial similarity.
... Show of hands. How many of you think it's OK for a single artist to pursue getting money over a copyright dispute, i.e. collecting money for "lost sales" and due to misappropriation of the artists' material (which is what happened here)? Now how many of you think it's wrong for a GROUP of people, say, a record label, or a group of record labels, to seek the same monetary compensation for misappropriation of material they own? Huh....
The lost sales weren't due to copyright violations, they were due to a baseless legal action (actually, a threat of a baseless legal action) to enforce a non-existent copyright. It's easy for a person to think copyright is over-zealously enforced in general, and also be happy that people fail spectacularly when they try to use that zealous enforcement on copyrights they don't even have claim to.
is the new way. it's about time some sensibility is being pressed on the system.
fyi though, the cases should also penalize the sites which do the take downs based on no merit. of course they don't take down stuff from emi&etc if some random guy claims copyright on them, on pictures used in them or in samples used in the music. that's just how sites like youtube roll right now. the takedown requests should always be accompanied with proof of ownership, if they can't provide that then it shouldn't be copyrighted by them... in worst cases, probably quite many cases, they would need to get a court to agree with them.
in this case, youtube is stil applying the copyright as complainable by steele, despite there being (an australian) court decision saying otherwise.
who benefits from this bullshit? big media companies.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Never report that dude, you're essentially admitting it entered your RAM, and if it ended up on your cache, you're now in posession. DO NOT EVER REPORT THAT CRIME.
Just some free legal advice.
I'm not American.
I can't imagine what circumstances would lead that to be a common occurrence for you.
Copyright was granted to Ms. Steele for a "Motion Picture".
Type of Work: Motion Picture
Registration Number / Date: PAu003596424 / 2011-10-25
Application Title: the blackfella’s guide to nyc.
Title: [No title on deposit]
Description: Portable Hard Drive.
Notes: Collection of audio and film files.
Not a finished product, but the raw files.
Based on this she filed a lawsuit - 1:11-cv-09343-PKC
She was paid for her time and work, and decided she should get more. Reading the lawsuit information from the case filed in Oz, she still has HIS laptop and hard drive. So she took his materials, filed a copyright claim, and then decided to try to get paid more. Her actions caused provable financial loss for Bell and made one of the more hurtful claims to an artists reputation... that he stole anothers work.
That ain't a false copyright claim, THIS is a false copyright claim!
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
http://media.smh.com.au/entertainment/trailer-park/blackfellas-guide-to-new-york--trailer-3148656.html
There's simply no real financial sense to wasting their money trying to extract a few thousand dollars at the expense of much of their own time and money.
Then explain record labels suing individual file sharers, and explain George Harrison losing a million dollar lawsuit.
The onus is not on the accused to cross-check their work against every other work in existence.
Then what should one do to avoid losing a case like Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music or Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton? Accidental infringement cases like these serve to bolster this "fairly hefty misconception about copyright law".
Looks like Tanya Steele is still at it, now on Youtube...
"Blackfella's Guide to ..." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Tanya Steele.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLTZgqSAjQs
Using the Internet.