electricinca.com

The BBC reports that North American cinemas are experiencing a record-breaking summer at the box office. Takings are expected to top the $4bn (£1.98bn) barrier for the first time.

Box office analysts Media By Numbers say the $4bn figure outclasses summer ticket sales of $3.95bn (£1.95bn) set in 2004.

Their estimates suggest that this summer's box office returns will stand at $4.15bn (£2.05bn) by the time the season officially ends on 3 September.

But they added that actual summer ticket sales are expected to be about 606m, only the sixth-best in modern times.

There's a similar picture at our cinema, we've experienced a better summer than the past few years and that's without any summer blockbusters as we tend towards the arthouse end of the market.

It seems that the death knell of the movie industry sounded by the MPAA in the US has been premature to say the least if in spite of rising numbers of people using BitTorrent to download movies that box office revenue is on the up too.

In fact MPAA research statistics would seem to indicate that it has not only been a good summer 2007 at the box office but that the figures for the year 2006 showed a rising trend across the board.

Labels: cinema, copyright

Copyright rights, unregulated uses, and fair use is kid's stuff



Lawyer Erik J. Heels explained copyright law to his friend's daughter using the above drawing. [via]

Nice simple breakdown of copyright in my opinion.

Labels: copyright

BBC News: YouTubers to get ad money share

It was bound to happen at some point that Youtube would have to start pay those people that make the site what it is today - the video makers. Although to be honest the success has mostly been off the back of material that infringes copyright rather than the truly user-generated stuff.

But with other video sharing sites such as MetaCafe and Revver already having business models that reward the creators of well viewed movies then YouTube had to do the same or risk losing their number one spot.

Labels: copyright, YouTube

Alan Moore writer of seminal graphic novels Watchmen and From Hell faces controversy and accusations of copyright infringement over his latest work Lost Girls.

Moore not only faces criticism for the pornographic content of the graphic novel but also because Great Ormond Street Hospital maintains that it holds the copyright for the character of Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, who is one of the main charcters in Lost Girls.

But is Peter Pan in the public domain and if it isn't are the characters copyrighted. Never Neverland: Peter Pan and perpetual copyright

Alan Moore discusses Lost Girls and the issues surrounding it in this BBC Radio interview.

Neil Gaiman has written in his online journal about Lost Girls.

Labels: books, copyright

Read the following article in today's Guardian which read just like a press release from the BPI.

Keep off cut-price music site, downloaders told.

A website for music download fans offering chart albums at a fraction of their usual cost looked like it was too good a deal to be true, and now legal experts are warning that Britain's second-biggest download service probably is.

Thousands of internet users download music tracks and albums from the Russian-based website AllOfMP3.com which poses as a legitimate online store but actually sells pirated recordings.

Has The Guardian become the mouthpiece of the BPI?

What legal experts have made this warning about the legality of the service I wonder? Alice Gould of Wedlake Bell apparently. Wedlake Bell being a commercial law firm and Alice Gould being the partner who has expertise in intellectual property law and who seems to have been quoted again and again by news sources in recent months in articles concerning filesharing and the associated copyright infringement.

Why I wonder do I get the feeling that Wedlake Bell is the law firm that represents the BPI rather than being an independent firm offering their expert advice.

Having then checked the BPI's website it does look like that in fact the BPI had released a press release today about them suing the site AllofMP3.com in the UK courts amongst many other things (including yet again the argument that term of copyright for sound recordings should be extended but I'll address that issue in a different post) following an address to a House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee. The story has been covered by many other news sources including the BBC and The Register.

AllofMP3 claim that they are a legal service under Russian copyright law and that claim seems to stand up however much it dismissed by organisations like the BPI and the IFPI.

This seems to me to be nothing more than blatant scaremongering by the BPI. Regardless of whether AllofMP3.com are selling the files illegally or legally it is not I believe illegal under UK copyright law to purchase and import into this country any article which is, and which one knows or has reason to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work if it is solely for ones private and domestic use.

The relevant subsections of UK Copyright law are subsection 107 and subsection 22, the former is regarding Secondary infringement: importing infringing copy and the latter is regarding criminal liability for making or dealing with infringing articles.

The BPI claims that users are making copies of the works themselves when they make a purchase which could indeed be an interpretation of the law.

UK copyright law states that

Copying in relation to a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work means reproducing the work in any material form.

This includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means.

This might necessitate a court to clarify the meaning of this. But if you take the BPI's line then any music file you download and store electronically is a copy that you the user has made even if you download it from a legal site such as iTunes, MP3.com or Tesco and surely such copying is an infringement unless licensed by the owner of the copyright.

Presumably the case is that these sites have acquired the right from the copyright owners for their users to make copies and the licence that AllofMP3 claims is has doesn't cover this. At what point can it be said that the work is in the process of being stored electronically? Is the act of downloading the infringement or is it just the state of having a work in an electronic format stored on a medium.

Is an MP3 stored on your hard disk defined as being a copy of an artistic work, or is it defined as being the act of making a copy of an artistic work? If the former then the importation of that MP3 for personal use is not infringement if the latter then it is.

This would appear to me to be a legal grey area and a question of metaphysics.

There is clearly a moral issue to be highlighted here also as musicians are being deprived of any royalties they may have accrued if their works were purchased in the UK rather than via the AllofMP3 service.

AllofMP3 have released a statement in reply to the various accusations levelled against them. [via]

Labels: copyright

London's High Court has ruled that The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown did not infringe the copyright of an earlier book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

The claim was clearly without merit as copyright law only protects the expression of an idea not the idea itself. Also if the idea itself is one which the authors claim is historical fact that would surely undermine their case further, but whether or not that is truly the case is pretty irrelevant.

Worryingly Jon Silverman a BBC legal affairs analyst does not think that the judgement represented a significant victory for creative freedom.

But to suggest, as Gail Rebuck, the chief executive of Random House, did outside court, that the judgement represented a significant victory for creative freedom, is probably going too far.

The judge himself acknowledged that nothing in the plaintiffs' case would have stultified creative endeavour or extended the boundaries of copyright protection.

I wasn't at the court so I don't precisely know what the plaintiffs' case actually hung on. Was it just idea theft as was portrayed in the media or was there claims that passages of their book appeared in virtually the same form in The Da Vinci Code?

I think that if the judgement had come down on the side of the plaintiffs and extended copyright law to cover ideas as well as the expression of those ideas then creativity would have been stifled. Corporations would start a landgrab of ideas and we'd find ourselves in a situation where every single new literary work would have to license the basic ideas from the corporate owners of those ideas.

But this is a nightmare situation that I believe is unlikely to come to pass as even corporations that otherwise lobby for extension to copyright protection could see that this would be an extension too far, it would be damaging to their own interests.

Labels: books, copyright

An amalgamation of what would have been a number of seperate posts that I then decided to unite under the banner of the Surveillance Society. Every day there seems to be further incursions into the public's privacy.

Firstly we'll llok at the recent news that media companies wish to use legislation that was proposed to combat terrorism, by allowing the police access to communications data, in order to tackle illegal file-sharing.

Fight for your right to privacy

BBC News: Media companies want to take advantage of laws designed to counter terrorism. Bill Thompson thinks they have to be stopped.

The Guardian: Music industry seeks access to private data to fight piracy

The music and film industries are demanding that the European parliament extends the scope of proposed anti-terror laws to help them prosecute illegal downloaders. In an open letter to MEPs, companies including Sony BMG, Disney and EMI have asked to be given access to communications data - records of phone calls, emails and internet surfing - in order to take legal action against pirates and filesharers. Current proposals restrict use of such information to cases of terrorism and organised crime.

"The scope of the proposal should be extended to all criminal offences," says a letter to European representatives from the Creative and Media Business Alliance, an informal lobby group representing media companies. "The possibility for law enforcement authorities to use data in other cases ... is essential." The attempt to pressure MEPs comes as they prepare to vote on an extension to the period for which data must be held by telephone networks and internet service providers. The plans, championed by the British government, would harmonise and extend the broad range of policies across the continent.

The Home Office says such moves are necessary in order to assist proper investigation of suspected terrorist activity. But if successful, it would mean communications companies would be obliged to keep information on phone calls, emails and internet use for as long as three years.

"It is not for us to get involved in the wider issue of national security," said a spokesman for international music industry association IFPI, parent body of the CBMA.

If the demands were met by European legislators, it would open use of such private information across any number of criminal cases. "Even the Bush administration is not proposing such a ludicrous policy, despite lobbying from Hollywood," said Gus Hosein, a senior fellow at Privacy International.

The music industry has already pursued a large number of cases against illegal downloaders, but the letter claims that wider access to private information would be an "effective instrument in the fight against piracy" and help secure more legal actions. Critics say it is simply a case of litigious industries attempting to gain access to protected data by the back door.

The proposals, to be put to the vote on December 13, have already faced censure. More privacy-conscious nations such as Germany have voiced concerns about long-term data retention, and telecoms companies say they cannot afford to keep more information about their customers.

"The passing of the data retention directive would be a disaster not just for civil liberties and human rights in Europe," said Suw Charman, director of digital rights campaigners, Open Rights Group.

The music industry has been waging war against illegal filesharing for some time, with film companies closely behind. An Australian court this week ordered Kazaa, one of the biggest file-swapping services, to filter out copyrighted music from its systems or face closure. Last week the British Phonographic Industry announced its latest batch of cases against illegal downloaders, taking the total number of UK actions to over 150.

Such prosecutions already rely on voluntary data supplied by internet providers, but the music industry would like it made compulsory. At the same time, the legitimate digital download industry continues to grow at a startling pace.

It seems to be that every time that there is some harmonization of EU intellectual property laws they are brought in line with the most restrictive laws that exist in a EU state. But in this case there is no harmonisation taking place as no state has such legislation currently.

Even the US isn't seeking such powers and they're the home of the most powerful music industry lobbying for more and more powers to tackle filesharing and to extend the term and scope of copyright.

I oppose the legislation in any case as I believe this wholesale retention of data is a violation of innocent citizens privacy and is unlikely to be more effective in combatting terrorism than a specific targetted wiretap of a suspect's communications.

But to extend such legislation to cover cases of copyright infringement is ludicrous, government's should wiegh the demands of industry against the rights of the people they represent. The average filesharer is indeed infringing copyright but they do not pose a major threat to the businesses of the music and movie industries. It is the criminals that are making millions by selling pirated copies of CDs and DVDs that are the real threat and it these criminals that the proposal will not catch.

Unfortunately I don't have faith in the British government to weigh the arguments and consider the rights of the people.

There was a debacle several months back concerning the proposed UK National ID card. The main stumbling block for the government is that the majority of the British public is opposed to the ID card on the basis of the high cost.

(I wish the public would be opposing it due to civil liberties infringements and the complete uselessness of the proposal to tackle any of the major issues it is supposed to solve but that's another story)

Anyway there was a leak that the Government was intending to offset the probable cost of the ID card scheme and thus make it more palatable to the British public by the selling of the data in the National Identity Register to private companies. Which caused an uproar and the Government soon announced that in fact they had never considered doing any such thing.

Governments really should not be trusted with our personal data in my opinion. It's very easy for our privacy to be given away but far harder for us to reclaim it. The obvious counter-argument being that they must hold certain data or else how can such things as passports and driving licences be administered. In fact it is possible to create systems based upon crytographic principles that would allow officials to check whether an individual was authorised to drive a car or leave the country without knowing who they are or where they live or any other personal information about that individual.

I wrote earlier that

Even the US isn't seeking such powers and they're the home of the most powerful music industry lobbying for more and more powers to tackle filesharing and to extend the term and scope of copyright.

but that was merely in regard to media companies having access to all communications data.

Of course as you would expect the U.S. government wants to peer into phone service networks

The federal government wants to peer into your computer communications, forcing companies that provide high-speed access or Internet-based telephone service to design -- or redesign -- their networks to accommodate surveillance...

"This is like saying, `Everybody has to keep their doors unlocked because the FBI might need to get in,"' said Mark Rasch, a former attorney who handled computer crime cases for the Justice Department and is now senior vice president and chief security counsel of Solutionary Inc., an Omaha, Neb., computer security consulting company. "The harm of everybody keeping their doors unlocked all the time is much greater than the benefit."

As I argued above as they already have legislation in place to allow targetted wiretaps such a proposal is unnecessary and overreaching.

On a far more local level my car number plate is being read every time I drive into Bath to work and checked against a database to see whether I'm a wanted criminal. The Bath Chronicle: Cameras scan for criminals

Now I don't know if the data is retained or if the number plates are only in the system as long as it takes to make the check against the database. But I am worried that this data is indeed being retained and thus my and every other communter or Bath resident movements are being in effect tracked.

I have therefore pledged to create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK.

The pledge is currently only a small number away from reaching it's target.

Also I intend to use the Write to Them service to contact my MP and MEP in order to express my opposition to the EU data retention legislation.

Labels: copyright, Security, Surveillance, Terrorism

Guardian: Music file sharing to be offered legally

Online music fans will for the first time be able to legally share tracks by big names such as Oasis, Beyonce, David Bowie and Elvis Presley after the artists' record label signed a ground-breaking deal with a new internet service provider.

In what some see as signalling a dramatic shift in the way consumers buy music, the provider, Playlouder, has licensed acts from SonyBMG, the world's second largest record label, and is confident that the other two big record labels, Universal and EMI, will follow suit...

Because there will be no restrictions on the format in which the traded music is encoded, users will be free to transfer songs to any type of digital music player, including the market leading Apple iPod, or burn them to CD...

Because all Playlouder subscribers will share tracks over its own network Mr Hitchman said that the company could track the files and, through digital fingerprinting technology, make sure that record companies were remunerated accordingly from money set aside from Playlouder's revenues each month.

I find this newspaper report to be very weird if it is entirely accurate. I cannot see how this service can function in the way it is intended if users truly are allowed to trade files in any format without restrictions. If true then a typical music track could be digitised and formatted in many different formats at various different bitrates and shared over the network, yet through digital fingerprinting the service is able to ascertain what music track it is and pass on appropriate payment to the copyright owners.

Such a file could even be concealed through a steganographic type application to resemble some other file such as a movie file of a home video that has no licensing problems as the user is freely allowed to share what they themselves have created.

Furthermore record corporations seem to be heavily in favour of DRM technologies in order to add restrictions to prevent piracy their willingless to license their music to Playlouder without the DRM technologies would seem to me to be counterproductive to their aims. Any non-DRM file that is legally shared using this service can in the future be illegally shared in the way that current legally downloaded files from services such as iTunes cannot.

But then again they may have read Chris Anderson's fascinating piece on the economics of "piracy" and whether a little piracy can actually allow for more net revenues to vendors. Via BoingBoing and Waxy.

Labels: copyright

In these times of increased Werewolf activity it is a good thing that the dying art of forging silver bullets has been given life again.

Actually, not many people ever made silver bullets. It’s a difficult process, and their efficacy against werewolves has never been scientifically proven.

Scientifically proven or not I believe that the growing threat of Werewolves must be addressed somehow and I'm putting my trust in silver bullets. [via]

Please not that the above post is not a thinly veiled allegory where the threat of Werewolves can be be replaced with the threat of Copyright infringement and the term silver bullet can be replaced by DRM. I believe that DRM technologies have even less efficacy against copyright infringement than silver bullets do against Werewolves.

Labels: copyright

David Rowan writes in today's Times Copyright wrongs: we can't let the music industry suits stifle creativity

The essayist and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay understood the perils when a similar battle to extend copyright was being waged in 1841. Amid calls to stretch the protection to 60 years after death, Macaulay saw no public benefit from a monopoly lasting longer than 42 years or life. "Are we free to legislate for the public good, or are we not?" he asked in the House of Commons. "Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right? An advantage that is to be enjoyed more than half a century after we are dead, by somebody utterly unconnected with us, is really no motive at all to action." Many valuable works, he argued, would be suppressed — and publishers treated with such contempt that the reading public would happily turn to "piratical booksellers".

A 20-year patent limit forces other industries to innovate, so why should the innately risk-averse record labels need any more than a 50-year monopoly? If Mr Purnell truly wants to foster creativity, he ought to broaden his musical tastes.

It is in my opinion a well argued case that Mr. Rowan makes for not extending copyright if the goal is to foster further creativity.

Labels: copyright

Matt Locke's report on the keynote speech at Institute for Public Policy Research given by James Purnell, the creative industries minister.[via]

The speech announced the successor to Chris Smith's 'creative industries task force' - a new policy initiative to support the creative industries in the UK. Most of the speech was quite routine, but he did announce a new project to deliver the Government's manifesto pledge to review the copyright/IP laws for a digital world.

It would be a shame if the DCMS assumed that a monolithic protectionist approach was the best model for the creative industries, whilst 'older' industries were moving towards models that maximised the return on IP through more flexible approaches. Creative Commons, Backstage and the BBC's Creative Archive License are breaking new ground in this area, and the DCMS should be encouraging more experiments like this, not discouraging them.

Given this statement at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport website.

DCMS sponsors the music industry acting as its advocate within Government. The Department works closely with leading players and trade associations to identify what the Government and industry can do to improve its economic performance.

It appears to me that the Department sees only the monolithic protectionist approach as a model for the music industry. It would be good if the other side of the argument could be effectively given to the minister, that perhaps British culture is not best served by ever increasing terms of copyright protection. That creative works that pass into the public domain do not enter a black hole but are liberated to be reinvigorated and reinterpreted by other artists.

Labels: copyright

According to this Sunday Times article, which I found via Max Barry, the UK government intends to extend the current copyright term for sound recordings from 50 years to 100 years.

James Purnell, the new minister for creative industries, believes the change will allow record companies to generate extra revenue to look for new talent and nurture it. Purnell, who will outline his plans in a speech next week, said: "The music industry is a risky business and finding talent and artists is expensive. There is a view that long-term earners are needed so that the record companies can plough money back into unearthing new talent.

"Bands like Coldplay will make enough money for their company to help them discover around 50 or 100 bands."

I believe that if this change will actually have completely the opposite effect to that which Mr. Purnell believes, in fact record companies will cease to have an incentive to find new talent if they can continue to generate revenue from their back catalogue.

I think in light of Chris Martin's comment "I don't really care about EMI. I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world." it is ironic that Coldplay should be used as an example for the extension of copyright, the primary effect of which would be to increase the fortunes of future EMI shareholders.

If the government wishes to foster innovation and creativity in the music industry this is not the way to do it. Economically it makes sense for companies to lobby governments to change laws in their favour so that they can continue to profit from their back catalogue which they know to be profitable rather than gamble on new talent that hasn't proven itself to be profitable.

In comparison the current term of protection for patents in the UK is 20 years, this forces technology companies to continually innovate, make new discoveries and invent new technologies in order to remain profitable.

The public benefits from music entering the public domain as it allows other companies to now sell the music and the competition in the industry drives down prices from their artificially high levels. The sound recordings of many artists from the fifties such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat 'King' Cole have now entered the public domain and as such are available on CD at very reasonable prices. These artist's music is still being sold by their original record companies and I'm sure even though the copyright has expired that they continue to generate much revenue.

I believe that the current 50 year term is a reasonable balance between the interests of the record companies and those of the public.

There is further discussion of this article in the follow Slashdot thread: Extending Pop Music Copyrights

If you have any views on this issue you can write to your MP here or write to James Purnell directly via his website here

For further information you may be interested in James Purnell's TheyWorkForYou.com profile

Labels: copyright

A short article in the International Herald Tribune White House Letter: 'Boomer rock' keeps Bush's heart in tune unwittingly reveals President Bush to be an illegal filesharer.

The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist in the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell and "My Sharona,"

With such an obvious case of copyright infringement and for such a high profile infringer I feel the RIAA would be remiss if they did not pursue this individual and take him to court. Such a case would really hammer home to teenage Americans how filesharing is wrong and that not even those in high political office are above the law.

Labels: copyright

Thanks to Jason Kottke.

To start off each year, a question is asked of the Edge membership, an informal group that includes some of the most interesting minds in the world. The question of 2005 is: "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

Of those who responded: -

BRUCE STERLING believes we're in for climatic mayhem.

SIMON BARON-COHEN believes that the cause of Autism will turn out to be assortative mating of two hyper-systemizers.

I believe that I'm experiencing a major case of deja vu after reading all the comments at Kottke.org.

I believe that file-sharing isn't killing the music industry.

I believe that it would benefit the Western world economically in the long term to write off the Third World Debt as it hindering their economic growth and preventing them from becoming markets that we can sell stuff to.

I believe that the expiry of the copyright in the UK of Elvis Presley's That's All Right is a good thing and will spawn creative remixes that will invigorate the music industry in a similar way to the effect Elvis had on the industry in the 1950s.

I believe that time travelling backwards in time is possible. Perhaps that is why I have deja vu.

Labels: copyright

Bloody hell! Bill Gates compares free culture advocates to communists in this interview with News.com, it gets picked up by BoingBoing and then all hell breaks loose.

News.com - In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

Bill Gates - No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.

Whilst there are undoubtedly some people advocating abandoning intellectual property laws altogether, I would think that the majority of people seeking IP reform believe in the principle just not in the current form of those laws.

The disparity between the term of protection offered by patents and copyrights is huge. For patents it is 20 years and for copyright it is life of author plus 70 years , which could mean well over a century. Yet the principle is the same - To benefit society by encouraging and fostering innovation and invention through offering a limited monopoly to authors of creative works. In the words of the United States Constitution.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

The extension of the term of copyright can only have a extremely limited effect in encouraging new creative works to be produced. I'm sure it would be a challenge to find an author in the UK who would not be prepared to publish something because the copyright would only last 50 years beyond his death rather than 70 years that it has now been increased to in The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995.

In fact such extensions to the duration that copyright lasts for can have a detrimental effect as it discourages investment in new ventures which can be risky in respect to long established profitable products. The relatively short period of protection afforded to patents encourages pharmaceutical companies to constantly research and develop new products to replace those drugs that will move into the public domain and which will then be produced in generic form by other companies.

In this case the competition drives down prices for generic drugs and through encouraging innovation improves the health of the human race. I personally wouldn't advocate a term of 20 years for copyright, I believe that a term of 50 years would be a sufficient duration to balance the benefit to both author and society.

Labels: copyright

Bill Thompson, technology writer and "controversialist" writes a weekly column on technology issues, the latest of which I've reprinted in full below. It is released under a Creative Commons Licence.

Fight for the Right to Copy

It’s somewhat depressing when the mere fact that a court has shown some common sense is newsworthy, but we should applaud the 9th US Circuit of Appeals in Los Angeles for making it clear that file sharing isn’t illegal.

This is just as well since file sharing, which is just copying data from computer to computer, underpins the entire operation of the internet, from email to viewing web pages to downloading the 72Mb of Windows XP SP2.

But of course the argument wasn’t about that sort of data copying.

The court had been asked to rule in a case brought against Grokster and StreamCast Networks over the use of their peer-to-peer networks to make unlicensed copies of copyrighted music.
It’s certainly true that they can be used in this way. I had a copy of KaZaA on my laptop until recently, and a quick search revealed thousands of unlicensed MP3s of songs by a wide variety of artists.

But there is a well-established precedent in US law that just because something is capable of being used illegally that does not mean its manufacturers can be sued or prosecuted.

A peer-to-peer network can be used to share family photos, free software, licensed music and any other sort of digital content. The mere fact that it could in principle be used to exchange dodgy copies of a Britney song is therefore irrelevant.

And since both Grokster and StreamCast’s Morpheus programs are true peer-to-peer offerings, with no central index of files shared and no central node through which requests or data about transfers is passed, the court ruled that the manufacturers of the software could not themselves be asked to stop infringing activities.

After all, they don’t know it’s taking place.

The judge even bothered to point out that just because closing down P2P networks would satisfy “the copyright holders’ immediate economic aims” it might turn out to be bad for creativity and innovation generally, and so any such decision should be left to Congress who can pass new laws if they want to.

This might seem to settle the matter, but the Recording Industry Association of America says it’s going to appeal yet again. And, more worryingly, Congress seems to be thinking about doing what the judge suggested.

A bill introduced by Senator Orin Hatch, a long-term friend of the music industry – and recipient of large campaign contributions from the same industry – would make it a criminal offence to induce anyone to break copyright.

Hatch’s Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act would allow the record industry to sue Grokster because their service makes it so easy to copy music files that it counts as an ‘inducement’.

It would, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, probably allow the record companies to sue Apple for making and marketing the iPod since it indirectly encourages us all to copy our friends’ CDs.

We might think that such an absurd law would never be passed by the US Congress, but it’s important not to underestimate just how much influence the record companies have. They employ expensive lobbyists and make significant contributions to campaign funds, so they may get what they want.

Although this is currently a US copyright battle, the results will affect everyone. European legislation like the EU Copyright Directive is often directly modelled on US law, in this case the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the record companies are just as concerned about protecting their European markets as they are about the US.

It isn’t just an abstract discussion either. The arguments over copyright are the first skirmishes in a serious battle over the shape of our digital world. If the big rights holders have their way then copyright will become a real ‘property right’, like the rights I have over the laptop I am writing this on.

You can’t make me lend it to you, it’s mine forever unless I sell it or give it away, and if you take it from me without asking then that’s theft and you could go to gaol.

Intellectual property is not like that. It was never supposed to be like that: copyright is a time-limited monopoly on certain forms of use of a book or recording, and was not to be treated in the same way as ownership of a house or car or pair of shoes. But persuading the record companies that they can’t expect to exert complete control over every recording, forever, is not proving easy to do.

Perhaps they’ll be persuaded if we refuse to give them our money.

I have never bought a music file online, even though I’m a big music fan. I don’t do it because I don’t want music files which are crippled by the digital rights management tools that every online store uses to limit what purchasers can do with the songs they buy.

I don’t do it because much of the music I want to listen to is available for around the same cost as a CD, and I can then rip that onto my hard drive and download it to my portable music player myself – keeping a safe copy on disk for when my system crashes and has to be rebuilt.

In fact, I don’t do it for the same reasons I don’t eat meat. I’m vegetarian because I don’t want to be part of a system that raises animals in inhumane conditions and kills them with cruelty. And I won’t buy music online because I don’t want to support a system that is trying to lock down our creative heritage, stifle innovation and claim ownership of our common culture.

The Grokster decision has given me hope that the law around copyright is still understood by the judges.

We need to make sure that this does not change, and we also need to make sure that lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic realise that they cannot give the big rights holders everything they want.

Written by Bill Thompson. It is released under a Creative Commons Licence.

Labels: copyright

International: Isn't 50 years of copyright enough?

Elvis has left the building - time to free his works too.

The international recording industry is preparing to lobby the EU for changes to existing copyright law. But in an attempt to manipulate law for profit, we are being asked to place whole chunks of our culture into a commercial vacuum.

I wrote about this issue in the post titled Elvis: "That's All Right" to end of copyright.

This is clearly a move motivated by money, no one cares about the other music of the fifties that has just entered the public domain in the UK such as 'You Belong To My Heart' by Jo Stafford. But when it's copyright of Elvis that might expire then there must be something wrong with copyright law. This damn loophole must be closed that allows works only to have a limited copyright lifespan.

Yeah right, there is a reason why the creators of copyright law did so with a limitation on the length that each created work would have protection for. They realised that a balance had to be struck between what benefited the author and what benefited the public at large.

The issue is not about getting music for free i.e. with out a monetary cost but about freedom of music.

Labels: copyright

Shed a tear for Andrea Corr.

Not only do recording artists have tax-free status in the Republic of Ireland but they may soon be able to keep earning tax-free on their music for a longer period of time.

Declan Ferry of the Sunday Times writes

The work of a recording artist is currently protected for 50 years after the material is released, allowing royalties to be collected on sales and other airings. After this the work goes into the public domain and people can use it for free.

The Irish Recording Music Association (IRMA), a lobby group for the Irish recording industry, is now demanding European law fall into line with American legislation, which extends royalty payments to 70 years.

Dick Doyle, the director general if IRMA, said Irish artists wanted "a level playing field."

How about leveling the playing field by encouraging the US to reduce the length of their copyright to a more reasonable number of years.

Labels: copyright

An intriguing update to this post here in which I briefly wrote about the INDUCE act.

The creators of the satirical JibJab.com web site have produced a music video parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" featuring George W. Bush and John Kerry. In doing so they may have violated the copyright for the song.

An odd knock-on effect of this is that the TV networks that covered this story in their news reports have encouraged viewers to download the spoof film by providing links to the JibJab website via the online version of the news report. If the video parody is indeed found to be a violation of copyright then these TV networks maybe guilty under the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (aka INDUCE Act).

The Home Recording Rights Coalition has issued a press release making this very argument.

Labels: copyright

My Beef With Big Media: How government protects big media--and shuts out upstarts like me. By Ted Turner

Ted Turner argues that the big media corporations are stifling innovation and should be broken up.

I agree particularly as they are encouraging Senators to produce rather insane bills such as the INDUCE act proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch et al. An overreaching act that would hold technology companies liable for any product they make that encourages people to steal copyright materials. It would in effect ban any device capable of recording a copyrighted work. Wired magazine asks Will Copyright Bill Kill Tech? and Lawrence Lessig (Professor of Law and author of Free Culture) writes even I can’t believe this.

Also in on the act so to speak is the RIAA whose letter in support of INDUCE has been reproduced and annotated by Ernest Miller of Corante.

The RIAA wishes to protect its menbers from loss of revenue due to illegal file-sharing over the Internet even though there is evidence to the contrary.

Yet despite the industry's belief that file sharing is anathema to record sales, a recent study has shown that it may not be so clear cut. "Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero," the controversial report claims, even going so far as to suggest that for popular albums, "the impact of file sharing on sales is likely to be positive".

The US Copyright Office goes further than the RIAA and says that the INDUCE act doesn't go further enough. Ernest Miller writes

Yesterday, Marybeth Peters, the head of the US Copyright Office, testified before the Senate regarding the INDUCE Act. Her testimony was even more radical than the RIAA's. Not only did she (inappropriately) explain what outcome the Appeals Court in the Grokster case should reach and argue (wrongly) that the INDUCE Act wouldn't have a chilling effect on innovation, she actually said she thought the INDUCE Act was not enough. The Register of Copyrights argued that the Betamax decision, which made VCRs legal, should be overturned by Congress. Wow.

Labels: copyright

Reuters: European Copyright Clock Ticking on Elvis Hits

LONDON (Billboard) - Fifty years after it was first released in the United States, Elvis Presley's "That's All Right" is a hit in Great Britain.

The single entered the British charts last week at No. 3. But for BMG, the company releasing the track, the celebration might be short-lived.

If there are no changes in European copyright law, the track will fall into public domain Jan. 1, 2005. Anyone will be able to release it without paying royalties to the owners of the master or the performer's heirs. BMG will start losing a significant piece of its catalog income in Europe.

As "That's All Right" is being hailed by some as the beginning of rock 'n' roll, the implications are that every year after 2005, more recordings that defined the genre will fall into public domain.

As a supporter of Free Culture and Creative Commons I am thrilled by this news, it is a wake up call in more ways than one. Peter Jamieson, executive chairman of British Phonograph Industry, calls for a change in the law to protect artist's rights for a longer duration to gain parity with US law. But I see this as an opportunity for the public to question copyright legislation and ask if we need a further extension.

Elvis Presley can no longer benefit from sales of his recordings so the law doesn't protect his interests it protects BMG the music company that continues to profit from his genius. The expiration will not mean that BMG can no longer sell Elvis records it just opens up the market for others to sell recordings or create derivative works of "That's All Right". This could well spawn a new industry of kids creating remixes of classic pop music in their bedrooms and becoming top selling music stars themselves.

Labels: copyright

When I have a son I'd love him top be like the 3 year old son of James Bloomer. Although given the dire state of my love life I'm a long way off having to cope with the responsiblity of a small human creature.

Here are a few classic Edward Bloomer moments, an Internet star in the making.

The father-son bond

Edward's Birthday Wishlist

A 3 years old's opinion about the cinema copyright warning

Labels: copyright

Last August, Greg Dyke, the former director general of the BBC, announced that the BBC would soon launch its "Creative Archive" -- a project to put much of the Beeb's programs on the Internet, so that the licence-paying British public could have access to it.

This is the most ambitious project of its type ever conceived. A fully realized Creative Archive could transform the BBC's precious, deep archive into a springboard for a new century of participatory creation by Britons. This project stands to make the BBC the banner-carrier for public service broadcasting in the information age, but if the BBC bends to pressure to scale back its ambition, the Creative Archive could amount to little more than brochureware and failed promise.

You can help: if you're a license payer, you can join the Friends,, and there will be lots of opportunities in the near future to petition the Beeb, the Governors, the DCMS and Parliament for this -- there's an open letter now that you can sign onto.

Here are some of the elements critical to the creation of a real, useful, relevant Creative Archive:

* It must be broad: drawing from all areas of the BBC's broadcasting from factual to light entertainment, from drama to sport, and everything in between.

* It must be accessible: files must be made available in open, standards-defined formats without "digital rights management" or other technology locks that will keep Britons from creatively re-using the BBC's offerings.

* It must be free: Material should be licensed under conditions that do not restrict any licence payer from accessing, storing, modifying or sharing archive material for non-commercial use.

* It must be whole: Material should be provided in its entirety for non-commercial use, not only in excerpted form.

* It must be soon: the BBC's own internally produced material should be released into the Archive as soon as possible, to prove to the world that the sky won't fall if you relax your copyright stance.

* It must be complete: the BBC should take steps to clear the rights to the independently produced material in its archive.

* It must be sustainable: the BBC's new licensing agreements with independents should all include the right for the BBC to make the works available in the Creative Archive for full non-commercial use.

Link

Labels: copyright