michael.cervieri.com » law

Copyright and the Discontented

Michael Cervieri — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:28:05 +0000

Is the current copyright system the right and only tool to achieve our objectives? Not really.

Citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it.
Sadly, many see the current system as a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward.” — Neelie Kroes, European Union Digital Agenda Commissioner, in a speech to the Forum d’Avignon in Paris.

As ZDNet UK notes:

Rights-holders have long complained about the damage done to their industry by online copyright infringement. Governments and courts in countries including the UK have responded by blocking access to websites that help people unlawfully share music, videos, games and software.

Some countries, such as New Zealand and France, also threaten repeat infringers with suspension or disconnection of their broadband services.

A reminder that in the United States there are currently legislative attempts to essentially privatize copyright enforcement by giving copyright holders the power to issue takedown notices — without judicial oversight — against Web sites they believe are infringing on their content.

Pazzi Italiani

Michael Cervieri — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:10:00 +0000

As the Italian government considers a law that would require Web sites to remove any content any person finds libelous, Wikipedia has shut dow the Italian version of its site.

The law requires publishers to remove content “within 48 hours of the request and, without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.”

Via a notice currently up at it.wikipedia.org:

Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge – the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website.

Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request to publish a “corrected” version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources…

…The obligation to publish on our site the correction as is, provided by the named paragraph 29, without even the right to discuss and verify the claim, is an unacceptable restriction of the freedom and independence of Wikipedia, to the point of distorting the principles on which the Free Encyclopedia is based and this would bring to a paralysis of the “horizontal” method of access and editing, putting – in fact – an end to its existence as we have known until today.

Originally posted at the Future Journalism Project.

Patent Troll Wants Your WiFi

Michael Cervieri — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:24:02 +0000

Via Patent Examiner:

Delaware company Innovatio IP Ventures, LLC is scaling up its patent litigation assault against businesses that offer wireless Internet to customers, filing six infringement lawsuits this month against individual branches of some of the country’s largest hotel chains. It’s a new tack for the company, which began filing patent claims in March against coffee shops and restaurant chains, including Caribou Coffee, Cosí and Panera Bread Co., and department stores.

Contemplating the company’s approach – suing the users of the technology rather than its manufacturers – a logical question emerges: Will the onslaught reach the front doors of average, WiFi-using, American households?

When asked, Innovatio legal counsel responded that the company is not planning on going after individual WiFi users in their households “at this stage.”

Instead, they are casting their patent net far and wide, asking for one-time licensing settlements of $2,300 to $5,000 from businesses such as cafes and hotels that offer their clients wireless Internet access, according to Patent Examiner.

As Patent Examiner explains, “By demanding a few thousand dollars, Innovatio ensures that, for many small business owners, taking up a legal defense won’t make financial sense.”

Originally posted at the Future Journalism Project.

Governments Co-opting Internet Firms for Surveillance

Michael Cervieri — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:47:28 +0000

Via Reuters, from an Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi:

Internet companies such as Google, Twitter and Facebook are increasingly co-opted for surveillance work as the information they gather proves irresistible to law enforcement agencies, Web experts said this week.

Although such companies try to keep their users’ information private, their business models depend on exploiting it to sell targeted advertising, and when governments demand they hand it over, they have little choice but to comply.

Suggestions that BlackBerry maker RIM might give user data to British police after its messenger service was used to coordinate riots this summer caused outrage — as has the spying on social media users by more oppressive governments…

…Demands from governments for Internet companies to hand over user information have become routine, according to online privacy researcher and activist Christopher Soghoian, who makes extensive use of freedom-of-information requests in his work.

“Every decent-sized U.S. telecoms and Internet company has a team that does nothing but respond to requests for information,” Soghoian told Reuters in an interview.

Soghoian estimates that U.S. Internet and telecoms companies may receive about 300,000 such requests in connection with law enforcement each year — but public information is scarce.

Somewhere arguments about Internet privacy just got more academic.

Originally posted at the Future Journalism Project.

The Government Wants Your Sources

Michael Cervieri — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:53:57 +0000

“A criminal trial subpoena is not a free pass for the government to rifle through a reporter’s notebook”

—Leonie Brinkema, US Federal Judge. United States of America v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling.

In a case involving an ex-CIA agent accused of revealing classified national security information, the US government tried to force New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources for his 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (NPR review and excerpt).

Earlier this month Brinkema ruled Risen would not have to testify.

As explained by Charlie Savage in the New York Times:

The judge wrote that Mr. Risen was protected by a limited “reporter’s privilege” under the First Amendment, meaning that prosecutors had to prove that there was a compelling need for the reporter’s testimony and there that were no other means of obtaining the equivalent of that testimony. The government argued that such a privilege did not exist, but she recounted numerous other cases -– though none as high profile as the C.I.A. leak case -– in which other federal judges had invoked it.

Some background as we’ve followed this case is here.

Blogger Reports Truth, Gets Hit With $60,000 Fine

Michael Cervieri — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:31:20 +0000

A Minnesota blogger was fined $60,000 for publishing posts that implicated a community leader in mortgage fraud.

Despite the accuracy of his reporting, a jury awarded the former community leader $35,000 for lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress.

The blogger, John Hoff, says he will appeal, writing, “The First Amendment itself is under attack, and this blogger will not back down from the battle.”

First Amendment scholars are watching the case to see what effect it may have on citizen journalism.

Originally posted on the Future Journalism Project.

Criminalizing Photography

Michael Cervieri — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:07:26 +0000

See this photo? It’s from a farm. In Florida.

It was taken in 2008.

Now that it’s 2011, a Florida State Senator wants to make it a felony to take photos of a farm without the owner’s permission.

According to the New York Times, the bill introduced by Jim Norman reads:

A person who photographs, video records or otherwise produces images or pictorial records, digital or otherwise, at or of a farm or other property where legitimate agriculture operations are being conducted without the written consent of the owner, or an authorized representative of the owner, commits a felony of the first degree.

Cause photographers hate freedom, of course. Or at least environmentalists and activists armed with cameras do.

Originally posted on the Future Journalism Project.

What Could Have Been

Michael Cervieri — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:00:52 +0000

Sorry everyone, republishing Marilyn’s 1953 Playboy cover violates US copyright law.

In 1978, American copyright changed.

Previously, copyright protection held for 28 years at which point the copyright holder could either renew for one more 28-year “term” or their work entered the public domain. Only 15 percent of creators ever bothered. Most felt there was no longer an economic imperative to do so.

Book authors were especially remiss, renewing a mere seven percent of the time after the initial 28 years passed. The important point to note is that one’s initial copyright lasted 28 years and maxed out at 56 years if one opted to renew.

All that changed in 1978.

That was the year the genius squad got together and increased copyright not a few years, but 67 years. Yes, copyright protection for commercial “work for hire” went from 28 years to 95 years. Better yet, they grandfathered in previous works. Individual copyright (say, for a novel) extended 70 years from the date of an author’s death.

Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has a great rundown of works published in 1953 that would have entered the public domain this year were it not for this legal change.

What might you be able to read or print online, quote as much as you want, or translate, republish or make a play or a movie from? How about Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel? Fleming published Casino Royale in 1953. If we were still under the copyright laws that were in effect until 1978, Casino Royale would be entering the public domain on January 1, 2010 (even assuming that Fleming had renewed the copyright). Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2049. This is because the copyright term for works published between 1950 and 1963 was extended to 95 years from the date of publication, so long as the works were published with a copyright notice and the term renewed (which is generally the case with famous works such as this). All of these works from 1953 will enter the public domain in 2049.

Other great works published in 1953 that would have entered the public domain this year so that you or I or anyone else could remix, remash and remake them in any medium we wanted: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain (a personal favorite).

As the Center writes:

That means that all these examples from 1953 are only the tip of the iceberg. If the pre-1978 law were still in effect, we could have seen 85% of the works created in 1981 enter the public domain on January 1, 2010. Imagine what that would mean to our archives, our libraries, our schools and our culture.

Well — bright side of life — let’s go back 95 years to 1915.

Israelis Says Actions Did Not Violate Law

Michael Cervieri — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:51:53 +0000

…The military said in a statement that it had “maintained a high professional and moral level” during the 22-day Gaza war, which ended Jan. 18, though it faced “an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians whilst taking cover” among Palestinian civilians and “using them as human shields.” — NY Times

Bullies on the Block

Michael Cervieri — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:16:11 +0000

So a judge allows the Recording Industry Association of America to obtain the names of “John Does” at the University of Southern California in order to file injunctions against their file downloading activities, not to sue or otherwise obtain settlements. The RIAA says, Thank you very much, and starts calling students and their families demanding $4,000 a piece.

There’s a joke in there somewhere. We’re just trying to find it.