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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.
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.
This wasn't about "lost sales" or "misappropriation of the artists material", this was about somebody else trying to prevent Mr Bell from using his own material by claiming that they owned it. Essentially using the legal system to bully somebody, that's a different scenario to what you're suggesting. Don't think you're going to get many hands...
I believe that the majority of the people you seem to be raging against in your post don't like the record labels for quite a few reasons. The biggest being is that the contracts are largely on the record label's side, and any damages they'd win in any copyright infringement case wouldn't go to the creator, but to the copyright holder.
I could be going out on a limb here, but I suspect they like rewarding people for their creations, not for their ability to sue anyone and everyone because they can. I'm fairly certain we all have discussed this topic to the point where I don't need to cite relevant articles for this... i.e. suing dead people, grandmother's who don't know how to use a computer, etc...
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.
Your argument is nothing more than a equivocation of the word misappropriation, trying to draw parallels between two very different cases:
A - Someone claimed a copyright monopoly over someone else's work, cutting off the original creator from all his rights and prohibiting him from licencing and distributing the work he created;
B - Someone enjoyed a copyrighted work without a licence from the creator, case in which the creator still has all his rights and can still distribute his work as he pleases;
There is a big difference between A and B.
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 can't imagine what circumstances would lead that to be a common occurrence for you.
(1) You shouldn't have been modded troll. We can disagree with one another w/o the name calling.
(2) Most record labels are seeking their OWN wealth, not to compensate the artist. I think this was more than proved when record labels stole over 1 billion dollars worth of songs from Canadian artists (for use on greatest hits compilation CDs) and never paid those artists for use of their material.
Record labels are in it to enrich themselves, and screw the singer or writer or musician. As is true with most corporations & their employees.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Currently,the United States views copyright infringement as a form of theft, but as Stuart Green points out
From its earliest days, the crime of theft has been understood to involve the misappropriation of things real and tangible. For Caveman Bob to “steal” from Caveman Joe meant that Bob had taken something of value from Joe — say, his favorite club — and that Joe, crucially, no longer had it. Everyone recognized, at least intuitively, that theft constituted what can loosely be defined as a zero-sum game: what Bob gained, Joe lost.
Copyright infringement can be understood as a "theft" of a monopoly-- the monopoly is destroyed,but that's stretching things a bit.
But here, the artists are prevented from exercising their rights to publish. Not only are they prevented from enjoying the fruits of a monopoly, they cannot even exploit their own property under less monopolistic conditions. The thief now has something of value, which the original artists do not.
If you understand copyright as a form of trespass, and fair use as a kind of stipulation that others have the freedom to roam and that man traps are illegal, the misappropriation of copyright can be understood as someone forcing you off your land, at gunpoint, and erecting an electrified fence to keep you out.
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.