Game of Thrones is taking action against Pornhub for breach of copyright; BBC News, 6/1/16

BBC News; Game of Thrones is taking action against Pornhub for breach of copyright:

"The makers of Game of Thrones are taking action against Pornhub over breach of copyright.

HBO says it's because some scenes from the show have appeared on the site.

Some other videos even include parodies of porn stars pretending to be characters such as Cersei Lannister and Lord Varys from Game of Thrones."

Why U Can’t Find Prince’s Music Online; Slate, 4/21/16

Dan Kois, Slate; Why U Can’t Find Prince’s Music Online:

"The singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/genius had a famously fraught relationship with distributive technology: He embraced it in disseminating his music, as long as he maintained control over his own work. But he battled for decades with his record company, subverted traditional channels of distribution, and even last year removed his catalog from nearly every streaming service. And he was fervent in defending his copyright against exploitation, to a degree that seemed, at times, excessive, including issuing takedown notices to Vine users, threatening fan-site operators for running his photo, and filing a DMCA complaint against a mom who posted a video of her kids dancing to “Let’s Go Crazy.” (That case made it to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in September.)

The practical result of all this is that, through Prince’s own efforts and expressed wishes, the standard methods of mourning a great artist are a little bit cockeyed this afternoon. Sure, everyone is digging up whatever remarkable videos they can—we’re on it—but nearly all his fantastic live performances, his surprising covers, his leaked material are nowhere to be found on my Twitter feed and Facebook news feed. And while I’d love nothing more than to stream Prince on Spotify right now, he’s not there."

Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free; Atlantic, 1/26/16

Jane C. Hu, Atlantic; Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free:

"Whitaker, who founded two other Elsevier journals and has a combined 50 years of editorial experience with the company, came into his new position after he heard about the former Lingua board’s actions and contacted Elsevier to express his dismay. “I disagreed with just about everything they were doing,” he said. He came out of retirement to sign a new contract with Elsevier in early January, and has since recruited several interim editors. He says that he and his editorial staff have received a fair amount of animosity from Glossa supporters.

But Whitaker stands firmly in favor of for-profit publishing; noting that publishers’ profits allow them to invest in new projects. (Elsevier gave Whitaker funds to found two new journals—Brain and Cognition and Brain and Language.) Plus, he says, profits ensure longevity. “That’s one of the many reasons I support the idea of a publisher that makes money,” he says. “Lingua will be here when I retire, and Lingua will be here when I die.”

The fate of Cognition, meanwhile remains to be seen. Barner and Snedeker plan to submit their petition to Elsevier on Wednesday. “The battle has been taken from a very small region—linguistics—to a much larger one,” says Rooryck. Barner and Snedeker are staying silent about their long-term plans, but their request sends a clear message to publishers: Scientists are ready for change."

Appeals judges hear about Prince’s takedown of “Dancing Baby” YouTube vid; ArsTechnica.com, 7/7/15

Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica.com; Appeals judges hear about Prince’s takedown of “Dancing Baby” YouTube vid:

"A long-running copyright fight between the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Universal Music over fair use in the digital age was considered by an appeals court today, a full eight years after the lawsuit began.

EFF and its client Stephanie Lenz sued Universal Music Group back in 2007, saying that the music giant should have realized Lenz's home video of her son Holden dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was clearly fair use. Under EFF's view of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Universal should have to pay damages for a wrongful takedown.

If EFF wins the case, it could have repercussions for how copyright takedowns work online. The group is trying to make Universal pay up under 17 USC 512(f), the section of the DMCA that penalizes copyright owners for wrongful takedowns. Currently, victories under that statute are exceedingly rare and happen only in extreme circumstances."

YouTube Not Liable on Copyright, but Needs to Do More: German Court; Reuters via New York Times, 7/1/15

Reuters via New York Times; YouTube Not Liable on Copyright, but Needs to Do More: German Court:

"A German court reaffirmed on Wednesday that YouTube was only responsible for blocking copyright-infringing videos which had been brought to its attention, but the judicial panel said the Google video unit could do more to stop breaches.

The Hamburg regional court rejected an appeal by German performing rights association GEMA, upholding a lower court ruling that said sites such as YouTube do not actively have to search for illegal activity by their users.

The appeals court rebuffed a Google appeal on a secondary issue in the case, finding that YouTube had failed to act promptly enough to takedown infringing videos in seven of 12 cases brought before the court. For the remaining five video clips at issue YouTube had no duty to remove them, it said."

Here’s How Celebs Can Get Their Nude Selfies Taken Down; Time, 9/2/14

Alex Fitzpatrick, Time; Here’s How Celebs Can Get Their Nude Selfies Taken Down:

"Some of the celebrities, like Lawrence, have pledged to go after whoever’s responsible for the privacy violation. While the hacker remains unidentified, the victims have at least one weapon to try and stop the images from spreading any further: Copyright law.

Here’s how that could work: In the United States, copyrights on photos are granted to whomever took the image. Since so many of the stolen images are reportedly selfies, that means the women in the images took the photos themselves — and, therefore, they get the copyright on them."

Yes, It's Fair Use To Mashup Charlie Brown And The Smiths; TechDirt.com, 9/24/13

Mike Masnick, TechDirt.com; Yes, It's Fair Use To Mashup Charlie Brown And The Smiths: "We had mentioned in our post about Universal Music sending bogus DMCA takedowns over Lauren LoPrete's This Charming Charlie tumblr mashup, that LoPrete had been contacted by various copyright and internet free speech lawyers offering to represent her. It appears that among the lawyers reaching out to her were the good folks at Booth Sweet -- whom we've covered many times for their efforts to fight copyright trolls and other bogus threats -- have taken on her case. Lawyer Dan Booth has sent a short and simple counternotice to Tumblr, arguing that the strips that were taken down were covered by fair use."

Artist who sued Twitter over copyright declares victory—via settlement; ArsTechnica.com, 11/2/12

Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica.com; Artist who sued Twitter over copyright declares victory—via settlement: "Two months ago, an artist named Christopher Boffoli sued Twitter for copyright infringement because, he said, the company refused to take down copies of his artwork uploaded to Twitter by its users. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, sites like Twitter are granted a "safe harbor" against prosecution as long as they take copyrighted content down when they are notified of its existence. Boffoli, who made a popular series of photographs of miniature figures posed on and near food, sent Twitter numerous requests to take his artwork off the site, and many of them were ignored..."The matter was settled amicably out of court and I'm pleased to say that we had a productive conversation about copyright, and that I'm satisfied with the outcome," Boffoli told Ars via e-mail."

EFF opens the "Takedown Hall of Shame"; Ars Technica, 10/28/09

Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; EFF opens the "Takedown Hall of Shame":

Missing that wonderful surge of anger that comes from hearing about some bogus attempt at shutting down free speech with a DMCA takedown notice? The EFF has you covered, opening a new "Hall of Shame" to highlight the worst of the worst.

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a big fan of naming and shaming. When it launched its patent-busting project a few years back, the activist group put up a "Wanted by EFF marshals" poster; eight of the ten patents on the list have already been narrowed, invalidated, or reexamined.

So when it wanted to highlight the overzealous use of DMCA takedown notices on the Web, the EFF went a similar route with its new "Takedown Hall of Shame."

Initially, eight items have been granted the coveted laurel wreath of infamy:

NPR's takedown request of some All Things Considered audio used in a recent same-sex marriage ad

The National Organization for Marriage's takedown request on audition footage for its anti-gay marriage ad

Nativist radio host Michael Savage's takedown request against the Council on Islamic-American Relations for posting clips of the rhetoric found on Savage's show

Polo Ralph Lauren's takedown request against Boing Boing and the Photoshop Disasters blog over a ridiculously photoshopped model whose head looked like a pumpkin on a toothpick

Warner Music Group's YouTube takedowns against "literal videos" and teens singing Warner songs a cappella for friends

Diamond giant DeBeers' attempt to shutter a parody site that looked like the New York Times and contained a fake DeBeers ad reading: "Your purchase of a diamond will enable us to donate a prosthetic for an African whose hand was lost in diamond conflicts. DeBeers: from her fingers to his."

Diebold's 2003 takedown attempt against internal e-mails revealing problems with the company's voting machines

NBC's takedown request of an Obama campaign video in which Tom Brokaw calls the election for John McCain...

One other item of interest: Big Content is represented less than one might think. The complete list does mention NBC, NPR, Warner Music, CBS News, and Universal Music, but it's dominated by smaller, non-media players like Union Square Partnership, Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, Uri Geller, Diebold, and DeBeers.

If you talk to lawyers for the big content providers (which we do so you don't have to! I kid, they're nice people), they will point out that the flood of DMCA takedown notices they issue results only in a handful of problem cases. These are then—unfairly, in their view—harped on repeatedly to suggest that they care nothing for fair use, have no sense of proportion, and probably nibble on succulent children for breakfast."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/eff-opens-the-takedown-hall-of-shame.ars

Corporate bullying on the net must be resisted; Guardian, 10/20/09

Cory Doctorow, Guardian; Corporate bullying on the net must be resisted:

The entertainment industry's plans to attack copyright violators is plain embarrassing – and ignorant of real-world implications

"Back in September, my Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin blogged a photo of a Japanese Ralph Lauren store display featuring model Filippa Hamilton with her proportions digitally altered so that "her pelvis was bigger than her head." Xeni posted the image as a brief and pithy comment on the unrealistic body image conveyed by couture advertising – in other words, she posted it as commentary, and thus fell into one of the copyright exemptions that Americans call "fair use" and others call "fair dealing".

Ralph Lauren – as with many corporate giants – would prefer not to be criticised in public, so his lawyers sent our internet service provider (the Canadian company Priority CoLo) a legal threat, averring that our use was a violation of copyright law and demanding that Priority CoLo remove our post forthwith.

The story has a happy ending: Priority CoLo is a wonderful ISP and don't take these legal notices at face value. Instead, they talk them over with us, and since we all agreed that Lauren's legal analysis didn't pass the giggle test, we decided to respond by posting the notice and making fun of Lauren's insecurity and legal bullying. The story resonated with the public – who are tired of legal bullying from the corporate world – and was picked up by major news outlets around the world. Lauren apologised for his photoshoppery (but not for the spurious legal threat – and the model was fired for not being skeletal enough to appear in Lauren's campaigns). Lauren learned a thing or two about the Streisand Effect, wherein an attempt to suppress information makes the information spread more widely...

So, the notice-and-takedown system – a feature of copyright law the world round, thanks to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties that require it – has become an easily abused, cheap, and virtually risk-free way of effecting mass censorship on the flimsiest pretence. Everyone from the Church of Scientology to major fashion companies avail themselves of this convenient system for making critics vanish.

Of course, we predicted this outcome in 1995, when the treaties were being negotiated. A system that removes checks and balances, that requires no proof before action, that replaces judges and laws with a deepest-pockets-always-wins "begs" to be abused. As Anton Chekhov wrote: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off." Leaving naked power without consequence lying around where anyone can find it and use it is an invitation to an abuse of that power.

It's been 13 years since the WIPO treaties passed in 1996, and we have an abundance of evidence to support Chekhov, and yet we continue to repeat the notice-and-takedown mistake. Today, the entertainment industry is bent on establishing a "three strikes" system, with the enthusiastic support of Peter Mandelson, whereby someone who is accused of three copyright violations would lose his internet connection (as would all the household members who shared that connection). Even if we accept the entertainment industry's assurances that "they" would never abuse this power (admittedly, you'd have to be a fool to believe this), what about "everyone else"? What about the Ralph Laurens of this world, or the mad-dog racists who'd love to have their critics vanish from the debate, or the school bullies who want to add new torments to their victims' lives?"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/20/corporate-bullying-internet-users-resist

Pirates vs. University Presses, Inside Higher Ed, 2/24/09

Via Inside Higher Ed: Pirates vs. University Presses:

"Princeton University Press has emerged as something of an expert on the issue -- a distinction the press wishes it didn't have. Over the summer, an author the press declined to identify informed the publisher that his book was being made available for downloading in its entirety on one of these Web sites. For several months, Princeton had a staffer focused on identifying piracy sites with its books, and following up with "take down" notices that threaten legal action for keeping the books up. Some of the Web sites take the books down, but then others pop up. Most of these sites operate outside the United States and take advantage of countries with relatively loose copyright laws, at least as applied to digital publishing...

Some of the pirate sites themselves are proud of their role.

Peter Sunde, one of the founders of the Pirate Bay, a Swedish operation that is at the center of these disputes, said via e-mail that he doesn't care if university presses are bothered by his organization's actions. "If I say the world is flat, does that make it true?" he asked.

He said copyright was irrelevant because "we're letting anyone share whatever they want with whomever they want. That's it.... Blaming us for what people do is like blaming the people who build roads for helping people rob banks, for God's sake.""

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/18/pirate