#digital copyright

[mikeand2sugars]

Irving Azoff Leads Coalition Demanding Digital Copyright Reform Posted: June 20, 2016 (Hypebot) – Many in the industry agree that digital copyright laws (DMCA), last updated in 1998, are antiquated. An unprecedented group of artists and music organizations has joined together demanding change. Unfortunately, their open letter to Congress is short on solutions.

[songtradr]

Brandon Christy, host of The Needle, talks to Michelle Lewis, singer, songwriter and founder of SONA (Songwriters of North America) about how songwriters got...

Video Of The Week - "Songwriters And Streaming: What Happened?" Songwriters are struggling. Lets change this. Music is valuable and so are the people who create it! Sign the petition for Digital Copyright Reform today: http://www.petition2congress.com/17226/make-congress-pass-songwriters-equity-act

[colormp]

History and Analysis of Design: Week 6, Assignment 1

For the final week, I answered questions 1 and 4.

1. What new typographic possibilities did digital graphic technology open up?

Apple Computers helped to give individuals greater control over page layout regardless of past computer programming or editing experience.  The Pagemaker software (created by Paul Brainerd) was released in 1985 for the Macintosh and stood at the forefront of what Brainerd would call desktop publishing.  With the program, headings could be created and type could be set with different point sizes and fonts.   The lengths and widths of columns could also be set.

Adobe Systems worked to improve the quality of digital typography.  The PostScript programming language developed fonts that were more suitable for print than the bitmap fonts that were introduced on early Macintosh models.  The letterforms for PostScript fonts were produced by the creation of outlines, which would be filled as solid forms.  Adobe Systems eventually established itself as one of the leading digital type foundries in the 1990’s as software was produced that allowed users to create their own typefaces.

QuarkXPress was a page layout program released in the 1990’s. It allowed users to set type as well as adjust the kerning (“Expanding”).

Here, I revisited the copyright question, but this time for websites.

4. What new copyright issues arise because of Web sites?

Websites carry with it the limitations of and concerns about the spread of information via computers.  Information, which includes text, images, and audio files, can be digitized and quickly replicated.  Websites may host this information either with or without authorization, users can find ways to download files, and those actions happen with or without authorization.  Ultimately copyright issues arise due to concerns about money.  The artists or authors or certain information or files may want to control how their intellectual or artist property is used especially when profits stand to be made from it.  

For a musical example:  Back in 1999, a website named Napster appeared and it allowed users to download songs for free.  Many of those songs were from well-known artists and a number of them, as well as their record companies, called for that site to be shut down due to the fear that the site might ultimately threaten their livelihood. There was the question of whether listeners would buy albums if they could download individual tracks for free.  Eventually, the authorized downloads for songs became available for a price in time to keep up with the trend as listeners moved away from purchasing CD and toward storing audio files on their computers and MP3 (-inspired) devices.

As audio files could be downloaded, so could text and image files and the creators may want to control how they are distributed and used.  For example, I have visited some image hosting sites.  Some allow users to take images for their own personal use and without restrictions.  Others have watermarked thumbnails and require users to purchase photographs or other pictures.  On deviantART, artists have the option to make their works available for prints and they can receive a percentage of sales.  Whether or not the images are available for print, they and/or their thumbnails can be watermarked to discourage others from downloading the content and trying to take credit for or sell it.  From the font websites I visited, some offer from typefaces and others offer some fonts families for a fee.  There may even be restrictions place on the usage of free fonts as some of us may see by the “Read Me” files that come with the fonts.  Some creators want their typefaces to be used only for personal use and may want to be contacted about commercial use of the typefaces.

Work Cited

“Expanding Technology and the Global Village.” Week 6 Lectures (G132 P05). AiPOD. 2012. Lecture.

[lawandtech-blog]

Implementation games: how to make CMOs fit for the future?

Efforts to implement the CRM Directive (2014/26/EU) have started and quite interestingly the UK Intellectual Property Office launched a consultation on the implementation yesterday.

It can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/implementation-of-the-collective-rights-management-directive 

[lawandtech-blog]

Artposters - not about digital exhaustion, but what about digital exhaustion?

TL;DR: Argh, the CJEU doesn't want to talk about digital exhaustion. But what does that mean for digital exhaustion? Probably that we have to wait for another case. And that starting a second-hand service for digital products might still be risky biz in Europe after all.

Last week, the CJEU delivered its decision in C-419/13 Art & Artposters, a much-awaited copyright case dealing with the exhaustion principle.

The defendant, Allposters, sold through its website posters and other reproductions depicting the works of famous painters. Besides others, Allposters used authorised posters of copyright-protected artworks to transfer images from those paper posters to canvas. The image from the paper posters disappears during this technical process.

The claimant, Pictoright, a Dutch collective management organisation, which administers the exploitation of copyright of the artworks, opposed the sale of “canvas transfers” reproducing works protected by copyright without the consent of its clients.

The CJEU had to answer inter alia the referred question whether the exhaustion principle of the distribution right set out in Article 4(2) of Directive 2001/29 applies in a situation where a reproduction of a copyright-protected work, after having been marketed in the EU with the rightholder’s consent, has undergone an alteration of its medium, and is placed on the market again in its new form.

In its decision, the CJEU held that the exhaustion rule set out Article 4(2) of Directive 2001/29 does not apply in the case because

“the consent of the copyright holder does not cover the distribution of an object incorporating his work if that object has been altered after its initial marketing in such a way that it constitutes a new reproduction of that work. In such an event, the distribution right of such an object is exhausted only upon the first sale or transfer of ownership of that new object with the consent of the right holder” 

(para 46, C-319/13 Art & Allposters)

The court also took a closer look at the wording of the exhaustion principle in Article 4(2) referring to “that object” (para 34) and recital 28 to “tangible article” (para 39). The CJEU concludes that “it should be found that exhaustion of the distribution right applies to the tangible object into which a protected work or its copy is incorporated if it has been placed onto the market with the copyright holder’s consent” (para 40).

So it's not about digital exhaustion - but what about digital exhaustion?

Whereas the court’s decision does not contain an explicit obiter dictum and even though the present case deals with physical objects, the interpretations of Article 4(2) of Directive 2001/29 might impact on the question whether the Directive allows for the exhaustion of digital goods, as Eleonora Rosati comments on the IPKat blog (http://ipkitten.blogspot.dk/2015/01/breaking-news-cjeu-says-exhaustion-only.html) too. In 2012, the CJEU has answered this question in relation to computer software in C-128/11 Used Soft, where it applied the lex specialis norms of the Software Directive and spurred debates about the applicability to digital goods within the 14-year-old InfoSoc Directive.

A recently published Draft report by the European Parliament's rapporteur Julia Reda on the implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC from 15 January 2015, does not explicitly mention the exhaustion principle (it does, however, broadly talk limitations and exceptions). Also, in an internal draft for a white paper from 2014, the European Commission noted “policy initiatives on the exhaustion principle would seem premature at this stage”.

Thus, a further judicial clarification of the exhaustion rule in relation to intangible (digital) goods and the InfoSoc Directive seems still very topical. Allposters is not really guiding us the way (considering the broad variety of argumentations the court comes up with e.g. in UsedSoft - everything is open?).

Nevertheless, it might be a great idea for the lawmakers to take a look at digital exhaustion as well when examining the "teenage"-InfoSoc Directive. 

The full CJEU decision can be found here: http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf?doclang=EN&text=&pageIndex=0&part=1&mode=lst&docid=161609&occ=first&dir=&cid=188744

What do folks think - would you start a second-hand service for digital products right now?

[mehyewll-blog]

RightsCorp, DMCA, and college networks: an anecdote

Hey all, I just want to make a quick post about a DMCA notice issue I ran into recently, because I think it could be helpful to other people googling this! Please read if you use bittorrent often, especially if you ever connect your computer to a university network.

Storytime: The other day, I was torrenting a Beatles album, and forgot to shut it off before coming to campus. Knowing that torrenting on a school network is a bad idea, I exited the client as soon as I opened my laptop in my office. But in those ~5 seconds, a few bits of data must have transferred on a school network, because I later received a rather scary email demanding that I pay $20 per infringement (that means, per song on the album-- adds up fast) to avoid getting sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Shit!

Of course this sent me into Super Google Search Mode, and here is roughly what I've learned.

If you get an email from something called RightsCorp, DON'T PANIC. They are using scare tactics to try and get your money and information.

I have yet to figure out exactly what the legal status of RightsCorp is, to be honest. But all sources seem to agree that (1) you are not actually going to get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars if you fail to pay up; nobody has. It's not in their interest to sue you when they have lots of suckers paying them $20 a pop without any trouble. (2) It may actually be a bad idea to pay them. Although their $20 "settlement" is not exactly fake (they do, apparently, represent some rights-holders... almost entirely musicians/groups who are now dead/disbanded), the lack of any actual legal precedent means there's no real evidence they'd save your ass in the extremely unlikely event that you did get sued. And not paying certainly won't condemn you to a lawsuit.

(3) Most importantly, until you respond to them, they don't actually know who you are. Paying the fee gives them your information. They will ask for your phone number along with other information, and are known to spam/call people who have already paid, usually with demands for more money. If you're really really worried about the lawsuit thing (you shouldn't be), note that paying up basically gives them more evidence to say you did it, as well.

College students: don't be fooled by the air of institutional authority that the email will gain if you are unlucky enough to receive it through your university.

(This is actually true for any ISP, but I'm focusing on college campuses because it happened to me, and because there are a lot of university students here on tumblr. As a sidebar, apparently Comcast has decided that it will not forward settlement information, just the infringement notice, which effectively shuts down RightsCorp's racket on that provider.)

This is the one that really got me. When I received the email, it came from an official .edu email address at my university, and addressed me by name. Freaky, right? But when I went searching through my university's copyright infringement policy and the internet, I discovered several things.

My university-- and most others-- has a policy of forwarding any such emails they receive to the appropriate user, but the information on who that user is does NOT make it to RightsCorp. Due to official policy, what I got was a sketchy RightsCorp email in an official-looking university-sanctioned wrapping.

Does this mean my university knows I torrented Rubber Soul? Yeah, sure. But their policy on torrenting is far less scary than a lawsuit. They don't even care about a first offense, and a second or third will result in nothing more than having to take an online quiz/course about digital copyright. Basically, from a university standpoint, the whole matter can be solved by turning off your torrent client and saying "oops". They lawsuit threats are not from them, no matter how hard that is to see through the wall of text in your inbox. The threats are from RightsCorp.

In sum: don't get scared, don't just give 'em your money, do your research. Tell your friends.

For more info, check out https://torrentfreak.com/tag/rightscorp/ which contains a series of articles on the subject.

[kathywaller1]

Laura Oles presents Inside Photo Secrets for Authors, March 9 @ Sisters in Crime (Austin) - Free and Open to the Public

Laura Oles presents Inside Photo Secrets for Authors, March 9 @ Sisters in Crime (Austin) – Free and Open to the Public

Laura Oles

Inside Photo Secrets for Authors

Storytelling through photography has long been a powerful method of connecting people emotionally. For authors and writers, the use of photography can greatly assist in reaching and retaining readers. However, the digitization of photography has left the public largely confused about this new medium’s rules and regulations.

At Sisters in Crime –…

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[letgroup]

I found it on Google Image Search...So I can use it wherever I want.

The title of this post is wrong. Unequivocally and dangerously, wrong.

Digital copyrights on the internet are important to content creators and they will do whatever it takes to assure they are compensated for their work. This is important to remember when you’re scouring the web looking for images to use on your website. Unless an image you find is explicitly noted as “Free for public or commercial use” or an image is purchased with an unlimited license for commercial use, chances are, it can't be used on your website or any other type of media. Repercussions can be very severe — here is what can happen (Source: About.com):

If you are found guilty of copyright infringement, civil law allows the copyright owner to seek damages against you for illegally using their property. Under the Copyright Act, damages may be set as low as $200 for innocent infringements and up to $150,000 for willful infringements. In some cases, punitive damages may also be assessed

So what can you use? Plenty of great websites exist where royalty-free stock photography can be purchased. Examples include: BigStockPhoto.com, ShutterStock.com, AgeFotoStock.com, Veer.com, iStockPhoto.com, and many more. Each of these sites offers a large selection of royalty-free photos for business use. Just make sure the license you purchase covers your intended use. If you frequently need to download images for use in online or offline marketing collateral, many of these sites also offer subscription based services that can be purchased by the month or year offering unlimited image downloads.

Much more information about digital copyright law is available via a simple Google Search. However, common sense also applies if there is doubt about whether or not an image can be used on your website. DO NOT use it unless you paid for it, know the photographer or took the photo yourself. Jason Reuter L.E.T. Group CTO & Social Guru