Can Copyright and the DMCA be used to silence critics? October 13, 2007
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about AT&T’s terms of service that included termination of your service if you said critical things about them. After a great deal of criticism AT&T has changed their terms of service. It now reads in part:
5.1 Suspension/Termination. AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns.
This is not the last we’re going to see of corporations trying to censor their critics on the internet though. Not by a long shot. The law firm Dozier Internet Law is demanding that InfomercialScams.com take down negative consumer comments about DirectBuy. Dozier Internet Law claims they are specialists in a list of things including getting “websites pulled down without notice“. They don’t think the public should be able to express their opinion if they think “DirectBuy is a scam“. Worse yet, Public Citizen is being threatened with copyright violations for posting the threat letter claiming copyright on that too! I don’t know if DirectBuy is a scam or not but I read the comments on InfomercialScams.com and I can see why DirectBuy would want to erase them from the Internet.
These sorts of cases are becoming all too common but here’s something to keep in mind. “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.“
Support Creative Commons October 6, 2007
Creative Commons (CC) is holding their 2007 fundraiser now through Dec 31st and they need your help. Creative Commons licenses enable artists (an artist is you!) to grant some or all of their rights to the public while retaining others as opposed to an “all rights reserved” copyright. For example you can grant your fans the right to download your works for non-commercial uses as long as they give you credit, or not, it’s up to you. Creative Commons was officially launched in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig (wiki). Today there are many millions of works licensed under Creative Commons and that number is growing fast.
There’s a lot more to the Creative Commons web site than just Licenses though. CCmixter “is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in whatever way you want.” There are tens of thousands of samples and tracks from artists and recording labels like the freesound project, Magnatune, Fort Minor and more. All available for download legally, for free.
There are many more projects and tools on their Projects page and while you are there, think about supporting Creative Commons with a donation or buy some geek gear.
Sony BMG lawer says copying music you own is stealing October 4, 2007
Sony BMG’s chief litigator, Jennifer Pariser, made some astonishing statements in the first RIAA file sharing law suit to make it to jury trial this Tuesday.
As reported here, when asked if making even one copy of music they have purchased was wrong Pariser said “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’,”
Another choice statement, “Selling music is the only way a record company makes money.” That’s not true. Wired’s Threat Level notes that Pariser said “I’ve seen thousands of hardworking employees lose their job because of piracy.” You would think they would publicise something like that more. Not just in a file sharing trial.
The trial is over now. The defendant lost with a judgement of $222,000 in damages for sharing music. Not murder, rape or treason, but sharing music. Seems like a wonderful way to reward a long time customer who has admittedly spent thousands of dollars on physical cds.
