Copyright Laws // Current TV

AP’s content licensing venture NewsRight – another Righthaven threat in the wings?

The latest iteration of publishers trying to ensure that its content is being paid for — which is obviously well within their rights when they actually own the copyright — is NewsRight, launched by the Associated Press. TechDirt had this to say about the venture:

It doesn’t sound like they’ll totally pull a Righthaven, where their first move is to sue, but rather (from the various vague descriptions) it sounds like NewsRight will be going around simply trying to get blogs and aggregators to buy a license. But here’s the thing: on what legal basis? That’s the part that’s not clear. Much of what blogs and newspapers do is simply not infringing (even if the AP likes to pretend it is). There may be some extreme cases where there is infringement, but most standard cases seem like classic fair use. And that’s where it gets worrisome that this turns into a legal shakedown — whereby sites are pressured to pay up just to avoid a legal fight, no matter how strong the legal position of these sites might be.

But, much more to the point, nothing in this plan appears to be about adding value. That’s the key way to determine if a business model is heading in the right direction, or if it’s really just someone trying to “free ride” on the work of someone else. NewsRight appears to be the worst kind of free rider, honestly. They’re not adding any value — they’re just demanding people pay up to avoid a negative cost (the legal threat). Also telling? The company admits that half the staff is… lawyers, and that appears to include the company’s CEO.

The licensing fees aren’t public yet; the question is – who will be able to afford NewsRight’s license if the model is aggressive? From the publisher’s standpoint, NewsRight says it is “accepting new applications for news organizations and bloggers who want to syndicate their content.”
BusinessWeek explains the dilemma facing the AP with its Righthaven-lite NewsRight:

The fundamental problem the AP faces is the same as that faced by virtually every traditional news entity as a result of the “democratization of distribution”—namely, how can it control the flow of content as it used to? The short answer is it can’t, which has disrupted the way the AP functions in more ways than one. Twitter and other tools have taken on many of the aspects of a real-time newswire. The AP faces other competitors as well, including such upstarts asNewsCred, which has built a content-licensing system, and even Google itself.

News entities such as the Guardian have tried to take advantage of the new ecosystem of news by turning themselves into open platforms—but others like the AP seem determined to reinvent the monopolies they used to have before the Web existed. For NewsRight, the big test will come when it offers onerous licensing terms to an aggregator: What happens when an organization such as The Huffington Post says “no, thank you?” That’s when it will become obvious how much of NewsRight’s business model is based on carrots—and how much of it is about waving a big stick.
http://tinyurl.com/6ozt3lvThe latest iteration of publishers trying to ensure that its content is being paid for... more

LOrion
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The case for piracy

A mainstream media outlet has published an article called 'The Case for Piracy.... more

Tyrannous
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4 months ago
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Corporations have Hijacked Copyright Law, too !

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/the_history_and_meaning_of_copyright_20110831/... more

figgdimension
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5 months ago
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Embedding YouTube Videos May Soon Be a Felony

Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 – a bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes – may be used to prosecute people for embedding YouTube videos.
According to Mark Masnick, if a website embeds a YouTube video that is determined to have infringed on copyright and more than 10 people view it on that website, the owner or others associated with the website could face up to five years in prison.
Read Masnick’s article here. He explains how the new law would expand copyright violations from reproducing and distributing to performing – including streaming video over the internet.
As readers of Infowars.com know, many videos are removed from YouTube after copyright owners complain about infringement. This happens with thousands of news clips every year. Most people are familiar with the now common black box replacing a video that says the video has been removed for copyright reasons.
If enacted, this law will go one step further and turn people who embed a copyrighted video into criminals. It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media.
It will also make people think twice about putting up all kinds of videos, from news reports to clips from documentaries and other educational material.
It does not take a vivid imagination to realize the political implications of this legislation.
Here is the full text of the bill.
Addendum
It should be noted that outlawing certain activities on the internet is instrumental to the Obama administration’s copyright policy.
In March, the White House’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, provided Congress with a White Paper (available for download here), outlining a series of the Obama Administration’s recommended legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting.
“Significantly, the recommendations include making it a felony offense to stream infringing content and giving Federal agencies wiretapping authority to obtain evidence of criminal copyright and trademark offenses,” David Makarewicz wrote for Infowars.com on March 17.
Obama’s emerging policy on streaming media dovetails with his administration’s effort to seize web domains. The Department of Homeland Security now arrests web site operators under its “In Our Sites” program.
“On the pretext of protecting intellectual property from infringement and counterfeiters, it’s about fast-tracking Internet distribution and information technology rules to subvert Net Neutrality, privacy, and personal freedoms – global rules for unrestricted free trade, undermining universal, affordable free access, civil liberties, legitimate commerce, and the right of sovereign nations to go their own way,” writes Steve Lendman.
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In addition to outlawing video streaming, new legislation “would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime, with new cooperation requirements upon (ISPs), including perfunctionary disclosure of customer information. The proposal [the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement] also bans ‘anti-circumvention measures which may affect online anonymity systems and would likely outlaw multi-region CD/DVD players. The proposal also specifies a plan to encourage developing nations to accept the legal regime,” imposing consequences for opting out,” a Wikileaks document disclosed in May of 2008.
So-called “secondary copyright liability” will be used to criminalize what is now routine behavior on the internet. It will also be used by the political establishment to eliminate the internet activity – primarily in the form of alternative media – of those who oppose what is shaping up to be a totalitarian state.

http://www.infowars.com/embedding-youtube-videos-may-soon-be-a-felony/Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 – a bill to amend the criminal penalty... more

bundlebear
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Massachusetts voters can now register as ‘Pirates’

The Massachusetts Election Division has approved the Massachusetts Pirate Party as a... more

WakeUpPeople
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11 months ago
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45 comments

MPAA threatens to disconnect Google from the Internet

Over the last few months, Google has received more than 100 copyright infringement... more

bundlebear
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1 year ago
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Gene Simmons Doesn't Understand the Internet

KISS frontman Gene Simmons, besides being a rock god, is the biggest blowhard on the planet. So when he gets in an internet fight with the 4chan-affiliated internet vigilantes Anonymous... well, you end up rooting for Anonymous.

Anonymous is a shady, loosely-organized band of bored internet "vigilantes" who like to hang out on the anarchic 4chan message and, embarrassingly, wear V for Vendetta-style Guy Fawkes masks at Scientology events. Recently, with a typically ostentatious and self-important "open letter," they kicked off "Operation Payback," a coordinated attack on law firms, trade groups and other organizations and individuals with strong pro-copyright stances, and took down the MPAA website pretty quickly.

But that wasn't all that funny. This was. According to observers who were hanging out in the Anonymous IRC channel, there was a bit of a split over whether or not to go after "individual artists" like Simmons, who had made some typically aggro comments about copyright lawsuits recently. Some members of the group decided to take down Simmons' site, and were able to do so partially with a DDoS attack—essentially, a flood of traffic that overwhelms the target server.

Tieve.tk, the "official" Operation Payback site, apparently "distanced" itself from the attack. Until Simmons responded, as Slyck reports, with maybe the most clueless lashing out since Jesse Slaughter's dad back-traced it:

"Some of you may have heard a few popcorn farts re: our sites being threatened by hackers.
Our legal team and the FBI have been on the case and we have found a few, shall we say "adventurous" young people, who feel they are above the law.
And, as stated in my MIPCOM speech, we will sue their pants off.
First, they will be punished.
Second, they might find their little butts in jail, right next to someone who's been there for years and is looking for a new girl friend.
We will soon be printing their names and pictures.
We will find you.
You cannot hide.
Stay tuned"

Oh, Demon. Dude. Dude. The blog DANGER NAZI ZOMBIES AHEAD writes:

'I read the announcement on his own page, roughly five minutes before Anonymous's IRC channel did apparently, because a few minutes later the site was completely and utterly dead. It's fair to say Anonymous didn't take the threat seriously. He's now made himself a real target and Tieve is happily advocating attacking him. Stay tuned, Gene Simmons is set to shortly become the first man with a negative IQ.
As several people have pointed out, Simmons' threats are pretty empty and his claims are nonsensical. You can't exactly pinpoint which of the IP addresses visiting a site during a DDoS attack are part of the attack, nor which ones are intentionally attacking and which have been roped into the attack as part of a "botnet." Also, Gene: Where did you get their pictures?'

As of the writing of this post, genesimmons.com was still down, and "I Was Made for Loving You" was still a jam.KISS frontman Gene Simmons, besides being a rock god, is the biggest blowhard on the... more

lordsbassman
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1 year ago
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U.S. Copyright Group ‘Steal’ Competitor’s Website

The U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) has been all over the news in recent months. The... more

atomiclegion
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1 year ago
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Police To Receive Evidence Against ‘Large Scale’ File-Sharers

An IFPI-affiliated anti-piracy group has announced that it has gathered evidence on... more

CarolineS
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1 year ago
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Viacom Loses To YouTube In Landmark Copyright Case

A federal judge in New York sided with Google Inc. in a $1 billion copyright lawsuit... more

atomiclegion
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1 year ago
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5 comments

Glee vs copyright: do as I say, not as I do

Fox's Glee sounds like a fun bit of TV, and it's true to life in that it... more

atomiclegion
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1 year ago
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Marvel sues Spider-Man, Hulk artist heirs for rights

Marvel is suing the family of the late artist Jack Kirby in a bid to retain copyright... more

viva_canuks
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2 years ago
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25 comments

Google Found Guilty Fined 10,000 Euros A Day

Recently News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch had blamed Google for stealing content from... more

ksantani
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2 years ago
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1 comment

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement start in a few hours in Seoul, South Korea.

This is quite alarming and very involved, I suggest you read the article for yourself.

Peacey
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2 years ago
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3 comments

Pirate Party Gets Second Seat in European Parliament

With the Lisbon Treaty being signed by all European Union member states, the Pirate... more

atomiclegion
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2 years ago
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7 comments

Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties

An assistant at a grocery store in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, was ordered by the... more

Tyrannous
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2 years ago
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7 comments

Massify: Your Film & Copyright Law

For all or you budding film makers this is the article for you to read now, before you... more

MCPFILMS
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2 years ago
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Copyright holders prefer piracy now

Exploiting fear of legal action can bring unexpected riches In a somewhat cynical... more

stupidy
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2 years ago
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3 comments

Jack Kirby's Estate suing Marvel/Disney

LOS ANGELES — Walt Disney’s proposed $4 billion acquisition of Marvel... more

jlichman
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2 years ago
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9 comments

In Sweden, 'Pirates' Make The Web A Political Cause

A political movement growing in Europe is focused on a single issue — the... more

atomiclegion
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2 years ago
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