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Star Wars Rekindles Old Copyright Hassles
Roast Beef
wrote in to send us a news.com article about
Lucasfilm's form letter to ISPs.
Somewhat related to the recent story about
Bootleg Movies for Download, but
it boils down to the age old "Are ISPs responsible for the
content on their servers" debate.
Hey, someone pull out that random movie storiline generatork that was mentioned some time ago, then use all the 'trademarked' words from the form letter.
;)
Who knows, if someone keeps running it long enough, it might actually come up with Episode I's plot
Did anyone happen to notice this in the News.com article? I would find it extremely amusing if CNN went after the law firm for unauthorized reproduction of their article.
"It goes on to list Lucasfilm trademarks and also provides a photocopy of a *copyrighted* article from CNN Interactive about movie piracy on the Net."
Now that this letter has gone out and pissed people off, I'm quite sure Episode I will be the most pirated movie in history. Any guesses on how long bootleg DVD's will take?
Shouldn't Lucas be responsible for creating an attractive nuisance? These companies create items
with limited availability and then act suprised when someone tries get around these restrictions.
lucasfilm = the empire
george lucas = darth vader
its called 'lucasfilm' remember?
"oh i'm an innocent bystander, sorry
your 15 yo kid got locked up in jail, nothing i can do about it" yeah right my ass!
remember when he went against the actors guild
or whatever, in order to not use 'opening credits' in star wars I? i dont think hes powerless, i
just think he sees his lawyers as 'good guys'
and people who steal the movie as 'bad guys'.
Will it change? Not likely. Gov't today seems to want to be able to lay blame wherever they like, be it the movie studios, video game makers, Ozzy Ozbourne, what have you. Doing anything to reduce the number of legal scapegoats hurts this cause. After all, when children die, *someone* has to take the blame. So even though all those guilty of anything in the Colorado shooting are themselves dead, a witch hunt continues to put somebody's head on a pole for the public to see and denounce.
Cool! I could use a job as a highly paid investigator. Oh wait, they're not paying anyone anything for assisting in tracking down copyright violators. Devoting time to this taks without pay would be a financial hardship for me. So no thanks, it's not my job. I suppose I'll be indicted as an accomplice or have to shut down my campus dept's. Yeah, that's justice being done to the 99.9% other students and researchers just tryint to get some work done. I should have to shut down everything because of a few w4r3Z K1DD3Z.
How do the bar patrons travel when they leave the bar? Do they all have designated drivers who aren't drinking at all? I highly doubt it. Will they all take cabs and leave their cars for later pick up? Yeah right. By having a parking lot, bars are encouraging drinking and driving. We need a law to prohibit bars from offering parking spaces. How many more have to die?
You, my friend, are a Slashdot user, which means that you *will* be there when the new movie comes out. You can feel the urge to go see the new movie flowing through you. It is no use denying it - join the dark side! You will be a Lucasfilm customer - it is your DESTINY!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
To the whining radical of 'Boycott Starwars':
Begone troll bait!!
I sincerely hope you were joking.
but i still think it's silly.
rebellion this, the force that,
and by the way dont say 'wookie' on your
web site or we will sue you because you are
an evil criminal.
i mean come on, GNU is more revolutionary than
star wars ever will be. why should i give 7 bucks to
see some bits on a big screen when i could be watching
bits built by my friends and myself? i'm not going.
by the way, do you have a url about
that Dead stuff? that would be an interesting case
to know the 'turn out' of.
Should ISPs kick the asses of customers who post copyrighted material they don't own? Yes.
Should ISPs waste their time and money and invade their customers' privacy examining every file to decide whether or not it is an infringement? No.
Should ISPs take down material when they are notified? Of course.
Should ISPs _censor_ the Internet by removing routes/firewalling? Never!
If, at some point in the future, there is ever a request by Lucasfilm to block access to sites and thereby become unpaid censors on their behalf, I suggest that all ISPs join me in enforcing blocking of _ALL_ official Star Wars sites.
Someone must have got hold of it because
there are copies of the entire movie on ftp sites.
I didn't attempted the download it, because it's huge and I'm not a fun of Star Wars anyway.
Check your favorite IRC channel, you'll find it.
Begs the question. How bright are these lawyers?
Just the concept that they would claim the right to effect routing should be troubling. Whether it makes sense or not, they will try.
How can they copyright such generic terms like "Episode I" and "Droids"?? I'd like to see that hold up in court(tm). There, I've trademarked that too. Did you read the part about denying access to any sites that contain it and remove any results from searches that match said files? Yeah, right... Let me just scope out the entire Internet and every site and build me a deny-list. Not gonna happen..
some people say that "lucas doesn't know whats going on, with his legal department, and
he wouldn't let them be so heavy handed if he knew"
i say, "lucas knows exactly what's going on. he considers the people his legal
team is going after to be theives."
DO YOU GET IT NOW?
GOD I HOPE SO CAUSE IM TIRED OF FUGGIN TYPING
saying that lucas is like 'darth vader'
has nothing to do with whether you think stealing
copyrighted movies is bad.
his heavy handed vague 'threats' sent out to ISPs
are in and of themselves questionable legality. thats
why he is darth vader.
in other words, two wrongs don't make a right.
After getting one of these diatribes we contacted their lawyers. They do understand the law, they just don't appear to care. Chilling effect is what they seem to be looking for.
:-)
Yes, the letter is merely a warning, but after actually talking to their counsel, they do intend to conduct an agressive and active search of the Net for these materials and demand ISPs remove them. So far so good.
But if they find this material internationally? They expect ISPs to maintain routing blacklists to suppress this material and related sites based merely upon their demand. Suppress it on the basis of their questionable legal opinion or bear the risk of marginal nuisance litigation by an overfunded muddy white shoe lawfirm.
Saying Lucas is not responsible is to ignore the Attorney-Client relationship. Maybe we should boycott Star Wars. I, for one, am waiting for video tape or at least pay per view after this experience!
Another thought: When someone wants to control routes, play the disagreeable genie. You want us to shut off routes to illegal Star Wars material? Why don't we shut off ALL routes to ALL Star Wars material. Does the Net have a legal duty to carry their material?! Makes it easier for ISPs, and demonstrates to users what a slippery slope blacklisting routes can be! Control us and the Net generally at your Peril. (They seem a little thick on anonymizer services and redirection - Their answer? A list upgraded daily!)
P.S. - If their attorney calls you, talk a _very_ long time. Orrick Harrington is pretty #$%^ pricey.
Yes and no. It would be a technical impossibility for an ISP to monitor everything posted. However, they should be required to excercise "due dilligence" to assist in handling copyright infringement (which, like it or not, IS currently illegal). In my opinion, if copyright infringement is explicitly forbidden in the Terms Of Service, and if the ISP reacts in a timely manner (within 24 hours) of being notified of an infringement to make that material no longer available on their server, that should be sufficient to remove them from liability.
An analogy is: Is the phone company responsible for phoned in death threats? Nobody expects them to be held responsible. However, they ARE expected to cooperate with law enforcement to track down the problem, and prevent it from reoccuring.
George probably has nothing to do with the letter itself.
the lawyer wrote it, blame him. not the guy who said , "They're not supposed to do that, can you do something about it?" George is probably plying ith his kids or something.
whee -Me
I will be happy to scan my systems for the files you've specified. Attached, please find my pricing sheet. Please call to discuss your payment options.
Regards,
drwiii
First, Lucas himself probably has very little to
do with this (he's reportedly going to make
a cool billion based off his initial contract
with 20CF and the movie sales (he's getting 90%
of the profits)). If anything, this is most
likely Lucasfilms in general, and if more specific,
the lawfirm hired.
Also, read the story: LucasArts is trying to warn
the ISPs that if they (the ISPs) let SW:TPM
electronic media through their lines, LA will
follow up with lawsuits. This is against the
nature of the law recently passed by the US
Gov't that says that ISPs are not responsible
for media served by their customers. Many
analaysts are saying that this letter is
a bullying tactic, and that ISPs do not need
to heed it's warning, because LA does not
have a leg to stand on.
My expectation is that the larger ISPs (AOL,
Earthlink, etc) will seek legal help, then
release a press release or a rebuttal against
the letter, stating their freedom from
prosecution by this law. There will be a bit
of word battles to resolve this, but in the end,
LA will back off (I hope). However, I suspect
that LA will launch (if not already in progress)
a large campaign to block the distrubution of
electronic media of SW:TPM related stuff, and
this will be rather strong if the ISP route
fails.
Mind you, I disagree that piracy and bootlegging
are answers to Evil Corporate Clones. LA has
every right to protect their IP on the net.
On the other hand, a smart Hollywood company
would think that releasing offical snippets and singles in electronic form to satisfy the pallete of fans out there is a Good Move; this is
basically free advertizing for them. If you
feel you must protest this action by LA, write
letters instead of pirating the (expected)
MPEG movie from someone's camcorder used on
May 19th.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I'm not going to be a customer to a coorporation or polititions that actively attempt to destroy the internet. It was the Clinton administration, RIAA, and now Lucasfilm... Did I miss anyone? Who's next?
Well I wasn't going to watch it anyway (maybe on video some day down the road) but now I got one more reason past that annoying 'countdowns' in everything from a rinky dinky personal web site to USAToday.
I found of interest the link to the LOC site where they keep the designation of who's responsible for a given site. It's good to have if you need to get a hold of someone. Bookmarked here.
The ISP business gets more complicated each day..
Great article title. :)
An easy way to fix this: Have the ISP customers sign an agreement in which they asume responibility for information they post, and absolve the ISP of liability.
But really... how in the heck is a large ISP supposed to enforce controls on all the content on its server? As someone else said, we might as well have the Post Office open and scan every letter for infringements and such. Bye bye privacy!
I think we should boycott Starwars...it's overhyped anyways. I'm not gonna see it.
Later,
WebDosa
Currently (99-5-4) there is a case going on in the UK involving Demon internet and a physicist who had a defamatory message posted on its news server. If Demon loses, it will affect all ISP's in the UK and would mean that LucasFilm could easily get it's request for removal of unofficial Star Wars files enforced here.
9 .stm andm
See http://news.bb c.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F304000/30486
http://news.bbc. co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_278000/278482.st
(no pun intended)
;).
>Problem is, the Net in general doesnt like to be manhandled or bullied.
..problem is, the two tactics most often seen on the net to counteract bad policy are piracy and boycotting.
...No matter how bad LucasFilms were to get tho, you'd never see nerds apply the latter
ISPs can't monitor every bit that goes through their server. I'm also pretty sure that ISPs (like mine) make their clients sign all kinds of waivers that state that the ISP is not responsible for the clients actions and that illegal activity will constitute ... blah, blah, blah....
Again, Let's be responsible for our own actions.
-----Don't Take life seriously, you'll never make it out alive.
The news.com article isn't as explicit about it -- merely noting that specific files and location aren't mentioned -- but the letter text posted below makes it clear that this is a preemptive strike intended to make ISPs police their users just in case they start sending streaming digitized Ep I video around.
... I don't know what is.
Now, if that isn't as far from citing a specific violation as possible
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
about the legality of bootlegs and such. But say you were making a movie, and everyone is HIGHLY anticipating it's release. Do you really want to see pre release copies of itfloating around anywhere? I for one wouldn't. Lucas is paying for this movie out of pocket, while that doesnt in any way endanger his financial future, it is his idea and his movie. Geez you people cast him as Darth Vader and whatnot, HE CREATED DARTH VADER. No one could bitch about bootlegs of Star Wars if he didntfirst create it. I dont think people should bootleg movies that havent been released yet. Its just rude to show off someone's hard work before it's finished or before they want to show it off. Grow up people, Lucas doesnt HAVE to make these movies for us to all watch, he does because he enjoys it and wants to tell other people his stories. Show some respect.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Lawyers send threatening letters to ISP's all the time, and most of the time they are threats which have little basis in law and are designed to frighten ISP's into caving. ISP's are very afraid of lawyers because the laws and precedents are not always clear, and litigation is expensive and time consuming for a small business. OTOH a good lawyer will make quick work of something like Lucas's letter which has dubious basis in law and is just trying to spread fear.
-Rich
I can't imagine that the international FTP sites are going to be that bad anyway. How quickly can anyone, even at a university, download a VCD of the thing from over the ocean? There's no way any ISP is going to blacklist certain international routes, and that's not what the lawyers should go after. Just trying to connect to those site .fr web sites makes me want to hit the computer, it's so slow. And I'm sure the lawyers can get most of the industrialized nations to respect their copyrights by scaring those ISPs. The countries which don't respect our copyright law are the ones with pathetic Internet connections, so it's not going to matter that much anyway.
I suspect that this is just another exampele of George's megalomania; he (or Lucasarts; take your pick) is going a bit nuts controlling the merchandise and related periphery for the new film, and News.com is trying to stir it up for no reason other than ratings (or hits, I suppose).
This is the actual letter which we received here at the University of Chicago. As you can read, they are a bit too gung-ho about things.
I believe that bartenders have the responsibility to cut off their clients, but they can't be held liable for their actions.
These are contradictory beliefs, and you need to reconsider one of them. If I am responsible for X, then I am liable for failing to do X.
Again, Let's be responsible for our own actions.
Yes. And let's be sure bartenders are, too. Remember, for every person who drives drunk, there's someone who made money selling them the alcohol. If you provide me with booze, and you have reason to believe I will drink it and drive, you should be held liable for your actions. A drunk person can't make rational decisions, but a storekeeper can. Right now, he looks at the situation rationally and says "I'm not driving right now, the law doesn't hold me liable, and i stand to make a buck. Screw it."
In Pennsylvania, where I live, bartenders are held liable if someone they serve goes out and causes an accident. This is a stupid law, but it shows that ISP's might be treated the same way. I don't think it is the ISP's responsability anymore then the Post Office should be held liable for illegal materials sent through it's system.
Ryan Dorman, CCNA Network Communications Specialist Millersville Univesrity
Was Droid A StarWars Only thing? they have it listed as a trademark.
Scary *cringes*
I can't beleive some of the stunts these lawyers and hollywood try to pull on the internet.
;)]
As if Lucas isn't going to sit back and watch the profits of the biggest grossing movie ever made in the history of cinema roll in. And they're now putting the squeeze on ISPs who arguably have no legal responsibility for this in any case!
I thing the internet/web has really aided in keeping and growing the community of Star Wars fans [the movies themselves were OK to i guess
and so god damned what if a few mp3s and dodgey quicktimes make their way around the internet?
As if we're not all going to line-up for too long, only to sit in front of a pack of 13 year olds with no idea crunching, spilling and guffawing the entire length of the movie to do it all again a few days later.
C'mon Lucas, embrace the chaos of the internet... You're already loaded anyhow, buddy!
--
Rare Window - free your photos
Title II of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act squarely confronts the issues raised here by Lucasfilm. Essentially, a qualified service provider is not responsible for copyright infringement by its subscribers under many conditions.
One way a copyright owner can pierce the safe harbor is by sending notice of an infringement to the ISP, under certain conditions. This is what this letter is about. There is a laundry list of details setting forth what constitutes a notice that would serve this purpose. In particular, to be effective, the notification must identify particular works "at that site" and information "reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material."
In short, the notice appears intended to be used as a notice of an actual infringement, and not as a blanket, preemptive device to "turn off" the ISP immunity for a given list of works. Clearly the Lucaslawyers are trying to test the limits of the law, or (more likely IMHO) are merely setting up later cases in an abundance of caution. ["Yer honah, we notified them and notified them and notified them a whole buncha' times, but they didn't do nothin'"]
The notice Lucasfilms presents does not appear to qualify, since it is a notice of potential infringements, and not a notice of an actual, present infringement. Here, Lucasfilms is attempting to use something like the notice to effectively "deputize" the world's ISP community as copyright police.
This is probably impermissible. In particular, the DMCA provides that: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to condition the applicability of [the exemption] on-- (1) a service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeking facts indicating infringing activity" provided that the ISP accomodates and does not interfere with "standard technical measures."
Of course, once there *is* an infringement, and once Lucas actually gives notice, that is another issue.
While I am a lawyer, readers should note that the preceding is merely a general summary of a few provisions of the DMCA and should not be deemed legal advice. Legal advice requires application of particular law to particular facts and in DMCA cases, the devil is certainly in the details and particular facts can make the case swing either way. Please forgive the multi-line disclaimer -- my carrier insists upon this sort of thing.