Happy 4th Annual Fair Use Day July 11, 2008
2008, the year D.R.M. hits your T.V. December 7, 2007
Recently many television subscribers have started worrying about whether or not they will continue getting what they pay for. High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) has begun rolling out through many service providers and could be in use very soon. While this will only apply for premium channels and pay-per-views for now, who knows where it could extend. The service providers can not really be blamed for this as they all have contracts they have to abide by if they wish to continue providing channels to their customers. The content providers have mandated this protection if the service provider wishes to continue showing their channels or pay per-view-movies. (more…)
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.“
No Lending! September 27, 2007
The internet is abuzz with news about Amazon’s DRM free MP3 store. Early reports are positive. High bit rate MP3’s at or below iTunes prices with the top 100 songs costing only $0.89. There is even support for Linux in the works.
On the down side you can’t re-download tracks you buy so you need to back up your music. Also, you can’t lend your music to friends like you can with a physical CD. That is understandable given that the tracks are digital files as opposed to a CD.
Amazon’s “no lending” policy reminded me about a scan of a physical CD label that a reader sent me a while back (click on image to read the copyright notice). Two things caught my attention about the label on this 2-track UK release of the most excellent band Maroon 5. First, the copyright notice got way more ink on the label then the actual artists. That speaks volumes about how high the entertainment industry regards the “artist”. Second, the copyright notice forbids “lending”. I guess you can lend someone almost anything you own, except CD’s from the UK.
Fair Use industries add $4.5 trillion to economy September 16, 2007
We hear about the millions of dollars the entertainment industry claims to lose due to unauthorised use of copyrighted material all the time. But how much does fair use contribute to the economy? A lot, that’s how much! A new study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) found that fair use enabled industries to add 4.5 trillion dollars to our economy in 2006.
“With more than $4.5 trillion in revenue generated by fair use dependent industries in 2006, a 31% increase since 2002, fair use industries are directly responsible for more than 18% of U.S. economic growth and nearly 11 million American jobs. In fact, nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that benefits from current limitations on copyright.”
That’s a good deal more then the measly $819 billion “core copyright industries” generated in 2005. It stands to reason that strengthening fair use rights will generate more jobs, more money, and lead to a stronger economy. Head over to the CCIA web site to read the full press release. There’s more (and better) coverage at Ars, BoingBoing, and the Defend Fair Use web site launched by the CCIA.
