Katie Allen, (London) Guardian; Call for study of threat from "offline" filesharing:
Swapping of music and video on hard drives and memory sticks could be just as big a threat as online firesharing, says report
"Policymakers urgently need better information on people's attitudes to copyright law, according to a report out today warning that friends swapping hard drives and memory sticks could pose as great a piracy threat to media companies as online filesharers.
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (Sabip), a body set up to advise the government, has been looking into "offline" copyright infringement after its research last year into online piracy threw up questions about how consumers get films, music and games for free.
"There's a whole big question here around what is happening offline digitally, the swapping of discs and data in that world. There's a lot of it going on," said Sabip board member Dame Lynne Brindley.
Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, said existing research did not give a clear picture of consumer behaviour. While there was some data on the proportion of people buying counterfeit CDs, DVDs and video games – estimated at between 7% and 16% of the population – Sabip was concerned that more needed to be known about other copyright breaches, such as hard-drive swapping and files being shared by wireless Bluetooth connections.
David Lammy, minister for intellectual property, said such offline copying had to be addressed. He said the Sabip research moved the focus from "geeky teenagers" and on to adults as well.
He said: "The need for research into this area is hugely important so we can understand consumer behaviour, to understand how to enforce copyright and to understand the scale of the problems we are experiencing."
Sabip's review of available national and international research concluded: "Policymakers urgently need a better understanding of how consumers behave in both the online and offline digital environment."
The review, conducted by BOP Consulting, also sought to show that consumers were "more interested in factors such as price, quality, and availability of material, rather than its legal status". It said: "Consumer behaviour online and offline in the digital world needs to be looked at from a new perspective – one that encompasses consumer choice rather than just from the viewpoint of criminal behaviour."
Lammy said that highlighted the need for "public education and for the right pricing and business models to adapt to this environment".
The review also concluded that "evidence" was mixed as to whether illegally consuming content complemented legal consumption – a point of much contention among music industry figures. Some artists claim filesharing can lead people to buy more legal products.
Duncan Calow, a media lawyer at DLA Piper, said the prevalence of offline copyright infringement – whether wilful or unwitting – underlines the need for media companies to better explain to consumers what they could and could not do with the products they bought.
As technology improves and film companies and publishers become more affected by piracy, he expects to see more copyright guidance from rights holders but not necessarily finger-wagging and a list of "don'ts". No one wanted a repeat of the bad press sparked by record labels' pursuit of individual filesharers in the courts.
"Hollywood has learned from looking at the music industry. Those same concerns are also in the publishing industry with the rise of the ebook. They are all desperate to avoid that kind of stand-off," he said.
"So they are starting to try in a fairer way to explain to their consumers what it is they are selling to them ... what is being offered in terms of how you can enjoy content.""
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/15/offline-copyright-breaches-report
Sunday, January 17, 2010
New York Times Ready to Charge Online Readers; New York Magazine, 1/17/10
Gabriel Sherman, New York Magazine; New York Times Ready to Charge Online:
"New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.
One personal friend of Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks...
The Times has considered three types of pay strategies..."
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/new_york_times_set_to_mimic_ws.html#ixzz0ctrjA8pS:
"New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. appears close to announcing that the paper will begin charging for access to its website, according to people familiar with internal deliberations. After a year of sometimes fraught debate inside the paper, the choice for some time has been between a Wall Street Journal-type pay wall and the metered system adopted by the Financial Times, in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe. The Times seems to have settled on the metered system.
One personal friend of Sulzberger said a final decision could come within days, and a senior newsroom source agreed, adding that the plan could be announced in a matter of weeks...
The Times has considered three types of pay strategies..."
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/01/new_york_times_set_to_mimic_ws.html#ixzz0ctrjA8pS:
Adventures of the ‘Wolverine’ Leaker; New York Times, 1/12/10
Michael Wilson, New York Times; Adventures of the ‘Wolverine’ Leaker:
"The man who stole Wolverine opened the door to his Bronx apartment with a grunt, his thin frame hunched at the waist, an unlikely villain with a bad back and pajama pants. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” said Gilberto Sanchez, 47, after flopping down at his desk — the crime scene — and dragging on a cigarette. “I’m gonna get crucified.”
It has been nine months since the theft of the superhero, or more accurately, the superhero’s story. On March 31, someone posted a “work print” — an unfinished copy — of the film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” on a Web site. It was a full month before the movie, starring Hugh Jackman as the famous mutant, was to open in theaters. Hollywood analysts called the leak unprecedented and speculated whether its free, albeit brief, availability to the public — and the unkind buzz that followed — would dampen its box office draw. Mr. Jackman himself was said by the studio to be “heartbroken.”...
In an interview in his $695-a-month apartment in the Parkchester neighborhood, Mr. Sanchez, who was in and out of city jails in the 1990s on drug charges, told his story...
Wesley Hsu, an assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California, who is supervising the prosecution, said financial gain is not necessarily the sole motive for so-called pirates.
“It’s some sort of Internet prestige thing,” Mr. Hsu said. “That’s sort of how the culture works.”
Mr. Sanchez, who speaks to rehabilitation groups — “I’m Gilberto Sanchez, I’ve been to jail, I’ve been through this, I’ve been through that” — said he has no intention of fighting the charge. “I can’t say no,” he said, pointing to his computer. “That’s like DNA.”
His fate is unclear...
“Wolverine” went on to gross $373 million worldwide, despite mostly bad reviews, and despite the online adventures of a glass installer from the Bronx who, a day after his interview, was laid out flat on the floor of his apartment, the only comfortable position for his back.
He tried to imagine what Mr. Jackman might say to him if they ever met. He hoped it would go something like this: “Hey, you did what you did. You didn’t hurt us.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/nyregion/13wolverine.html?scp=3&sq=copyright&st=cse
"The man who stole Wolverine opened the door to his Bronx apartment with a grunt, his thin frame hunched at the waist, an unlikely villain with a bad back and pajama pants. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” said Gilberto Sanchez, 47, after flopping down at his desk — the crime scene — and dragging on a cigarette. “I’m gonna get crucified.”
It has been nine months since the theft of the superhero, or more accurately, the superhero’s story. On March 31, someone posted a “work print” — an unfinished copy — of the film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” on a Web site. It was a full month before the movie, starring Hugh Jackman as the famous mutant, was to open in theaters. Hollywood analysts called the leak unprecedented and speculated whether its free, albeit brief, availability to the public — and the unkind buzz that followed — would dampen its box office draw. Mr. Jackman himself was said by the studio to be “heartbroken.”...
In an interview in his $695-a-month apartment in the Parkchester neighborhood, Mr. Sanchez, who was in and out of city jails in the 1990s on drug charges, told his story...
Wesley Hsu, an assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California, who is supervising the prosecution, said financial gain is not necessarily the sole motive for so-called pirates.
“It’s some sort of Internet prestige thing,” Mr. Hsu said. “That’s sort of how the culture works.”
Mr. Sanchez, who speaks to rehabilitation groups — “I’m Gilberto Sanchez, I’ve been to jail, I’ve been through this, I’ve been through that” — said he has no intention of fighting the charge. “I can’t say no,” he said, pointing to his computer. “That’s like DNA.”
His fate is unclear...
“Wolverine” went on to gross $373 million worldwide, despite mostly bad reviews, and despite the online adventures of a glass installer from the Bronx who, a day after his interview, was laid out flat on the floor of his apartment, the only comfortable position for his back.
He tried to imagine what Mr. Jackman might say to him if they ever met. He hoped it would go something like this: “Hey, you did what you did. You didn’t hurt us.”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/nyregion/13wolverine.html?scp=3&sq=copyright&st=cse
Courts to Rule on Fan - Created Music Videos; Reuters via New York Times, 1/15/10
Reuters via New York Times; Courts to Rule on Fan - Created Music Videos:
"More than a decade after the launch of Napster, the recording industry's complicated legal relationship with Web-savvy music fans seems no closer to resolution. But a number of cases winding their way through the courts may bring a bit of clarity in 2010 to one particularly fuzzy area of the law: fan-created online videos that contain music.
The major labels have all worked out deals with YouTube to split ad revenue with the site after a user uploads a music video. But considering that labels don't issue explicit licenses to users and YouTube continues to warn against uploading copyrighted material, it isn't clear whether the labels actually want fans to upload their music in the first place. Meanwhile, other copyright owners who don't have deals with YouTube, such as Viacom and music publisher Bourne, are still pursuing copyright infringement suits against the video-sharing giant...
FEW PRECEDENTS
There is surprisingly little case law on this topic. In September, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled against Universal Music Group in its infringement suit against Veoh.com, saying the video-sharing site was protected by the DMCA. But that case isn't binding on a New York federal court, and UMG is appealing. And in a case involving peer-to-peer site isoHunt, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in December that safe harbors are simply unavailable to sites that "induce" infringement.
The other major legal question in the EMI suit is whether lip dubs and similar mash-ups of amateur and professional content are infringing. Copyright reform activists argue that they're examples of fair use tolerated under copyright law as an accommodation to noncommercial, transformative creativity. Of course EMI will point out that, whatever the motivation of the amateur lib-dubber, Vimeo is anything but "noncommercial."
Sources familiar with the labels' thinking on the issue acknowledge these videos' promotional value, but they also note that other video-sharing sites like YouTube have struck deals with the labels and dismiss the notion that copyright owners should forgo a revenue stream simply because it also promotes their artists.
Elsewhere, Stephanie Lenz is still battling UMG over its takedown of a video she had uploaded to YouTube of her toddler son dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." Lenz wants damages for the removal of a video she considers an obvious fair use; UMG maintains it acted in good faith to protect its copyright. And Don Henley's suit against U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R-Calif.) over the use of "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" in "parody" political videos is moving forward in federal court in Santa Ana, Calif.
U.S. courts have yet to provide clear guidance regarding the legality of pairing copyrighted music with amateur video and then broadcasting it to the world. That may finally change in 2010."
http://tv.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/15/arts/entertainment-us-copyright.html?scp=6&sq=copyright&st=cse
"More than a decade after the launch of Napster, the recording industry's complicated legal relationship with Web-savvy music fans seems no closer to resolution. But a number of cases winding their way through the courts may bring a bit of clarity in 2010 to one particularly fuzzy area of the law: fan-created online videos that contain music.
The major labels have all worked out deals with YouTube to split ad revenue with the site after a user uploads a music video. But considering that labels don't issue explicit licenses to users and YouTube continues to warn against uploading copyrighted material, it isn't clear whether the labels actually want fans to upload their music in the first place. Meanwhile, other copyright owners who don't have deals with YouTube, such as Viacom and music publisher Bourne, are still pursuing copyright infringement suits against the video-sharing giant...
FEW PRECEDENTS
There is surprisingly little case law on this topic. In September, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled against Universal Music Group in its infringement suit against Veoh.com, saying the video-sharing site was protected by the DMCA. But that case isn't binding on a New York federal court, and UMG is appealing. And in a case involving peer-to-peer site isoHunt, a U.S. District Court judge ruled in December that safe harbors are simply unavailable to sites that "induce" infringement.
The other major legal question in the EMI suit is whether lip dubs and similar mash-ups of amateur and professional content are infringing. Copyright reform activists argue that they're examples of fair use tolerated under copyright law as an accommodation to noncommercial, transformative creativity. Of course EMI will point out that, whatever the motivation of the amateur lib-dubber, Vimeo is anything but "noncommercial."
Sources familiar with the labels' thinking on the issue acknowledge these videos' promotional value, but they also note that other video-sharing sites like YouTube have struck deals with the labels and dismiss the notion that copyright owners should forgo a revenue stream simply because it also promotes their artists.
Elsewhere, Stephanie Lenz is still battling UMG over its takedown of a video she had uploaded to YouTube of her toddler son dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." Lenz wants damages for the removal of a video she considers an obvious fair use; UMG maintains it acted in good faith to protect its copyright. And Don Henley's suit against U.S. Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R-Calif.) over the use of "The Boys of Summer" and "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" in "parody" political videos is moving forward in federal court in Santa Ana, Calif.
U.S. courts have yet to provide clear guidance regarding the legality of pairing copyrighted music with amateur video and then broadcasting it to the world. That may finally change in 2010."
http://tv.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/01/15/arts/entertainment-us-copyright.html?scp=6&sq=copyright&st=cse
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Anti-piracy agency's logo broke copyright; (London) Telegraph, 1/12/10
(London) Telegraph; Anti-piracy agency's logo broke copyright: France's new internet agency set up to protect the rights of artists is facing legal action for using a copyrighted design for its logo:
"The French government's web police force – called Hadopi – was set up to stop piracy and clamp down on illegal downloaders.
The agency's logo was unveiled this by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand, who said that Hadopi "finally had a face".
But within hours of its launch, it was forced to apologise for using a typeface without permission that belonged to France Telecom.
The blunder was spotted by graphic designer Jean-Francois Porchez, who created the distinctive "Bonjour" font and sold it exclusively to France Telecom.
The design agency Plan Creatif that created the Hadopi logo has now admitted it used the typeface by mistake and the design had now been "tweaked".
But Mr Porchez said he was still considering legal action against the government for illegal use of his design.
He said: "My lawyer will contact the culture ministry and France Telecom in the hope of finding a solution.""
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6974249/Anti-piracy-agencys-logo-broke-copyright.html
"The French government's web police force – called Hadopi – was set up to stop piracy and clamp down on illegal downloaders.
The agency's logo was unveiled this by French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand, who said that Hadopi "finally had a face".
But within hours of its launch, it was forced to apologise for using a typeface without permission that belonged to France Telecom.
The blunder was spotted by graphic designer Jean-Francois Porchez, who created the distinctive "Bonjour" font and sold it exclusively to France Telecom.
The design agency Plan Creatif that created the Hadopi logo has now admitted it used the typeface by mistake and the design had now been "tweaked".
But Mr Porchez said he was still considering legal action against the government for illegal use of his design.
He said: "My lawyer will contact the culture ministry and France Telecom in the hope of finding a solution.""
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6974249/Anti-piracy-agencys-logo-broke-copyright.html
[Documentary] Copyright Criminals; PBS, Independent Lens, Airing 1/19/10 10 PM (in Pittsburgh area; check local listings)
PBS, Independent Lens, Airing 1/19/10, 10 PM EST in Pittsburgh area (check for local listing broadcast times); [Documentary] Copyright Criminals:
"Long before people began posting their homemade video mashups on the Web, hip-hop musicians were perfecting the art of audio montage through sampling. Sampling — or riffing — is as old as music itself, but new technologies developed in the 1980s and 1990s made it easier to reuse existing sound recordings. Acts like Public Enemy, De La Soul and the Beastie Boys created complex rhythms, references and nuanced layers of original and appropriated sound. But by the early 1990s, sampling had collided with the law. When recording industry lawyers got involved, what was once called “borrowed melody” became “copyright infringement.”
COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law and money. The film showcases many of hip-hop music’s founding figures like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground, as well as emerging artists such as audiovisual remixers Eclectic Method. It also provides first-person interviews with artists who have been sampled, such as Clyde Stubblefield — James Brown's drummer and the world's most sampled musician — and commentary by another highly sampled musician, funk legend George Clinton.
Computers, mobile phones and other interactive technologies are changing our relationships with media, blurring the line between producer and consumer and radically changing what it means to be creative. As artists find more inventive ways to insert old influences into new material, COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS poses the question: Can you own a sound?"
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/copyright-criminals/
"Long before people began posting their homemade video mashups on the Web, hip-hop musicians were perfecting the art of audio montage through sampling. Sampling — or riffing — is as old as music itself, but new technologies developed in the 1980s and 1990s made it easier to reuse existing sound recordings. Acts like Public Enemy, De La Soul and the Beastie Boys created complex rhythms, references and nuanced layers of original and appropriated sound. But by the early 1990s, sampling had collided with the law. When recording industry lawyers got involved, what was once called “borrowed melody” became “copyright infringement.”
COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS examines the creative and commercial value of musical sampling, including the related debates over artistic expression, copyright law and money. The film showcases many of hip-hop music’s founding figures like Public Enemy, De La Soul and Digital Underground, as well as emerging artists such as audiovisual remixers Eclectic Method. It also provides first-person interviews with artists who have been sampled, such as Clyde Stubblefield — James Brown's drummer and the world's most sampled musician — and commentary by another highly sampled musician, funk legend George Clinton.
Computers, mobile phones and other interactive technologies are changing our relationships with media, blurring the line between producer and consumer and radically changing what it means to be creative. As artists find more inventive ways to insert old influences into new material, COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS poses the question: Can you own a sound?"
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/copyright-criminals/
Report Says 9 Million Books Pirated Online; New York Times, 1/14/09
Motoko Rich, New York Times; Report Says 9 Million Books Pirated Online:
"A study by a company that helps track pirated digital books estimates that there were 9 million illegal downloads of copyrighted books in the final months of last year. Attributor, which works for publishers including Hachette Book Group and John Wiley & Sons, scanned 25 Web sites that offer readers downloadable content, looking for 913 titles across categories ranging from business and investing to fiction. It found, for example, that illegal copies of “Freakonomics,” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, were downloaded 1,082 times and “Angels & Demons,” by Dan Brown, 7,951 times. The study did not track any titles published by the company’s clients, which would exclude the oft-pirated “Twilight” series published by Hachette. Rich Pearson, general manager of Attributor, said although not every pirated copy represented a lost sale, the potential loss to the publishing industry could be as high as $3 billion. Some analysts doubted that piracy was as big a problem for the book industry as the study suggested. Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical Company, a book industry consultant, said many people who might illegally download an e-book would never have bought it in the first place."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/arts/15arts-REPORTSAYS9M_BRF.html?scp=1&sq=pirated&st=cse
"A study by a company that helps track pirated digital books estimates that there were 9 million illegal downloads of copyrighted books in the final months of last year. Attributor, which works for publishers including Hachette Book Group and John Wiley & Sons, scanned 25 Web sites that offer readers downloadable content, looking for 913 titles across categories ranging from business and investing to fiction. It found, for example, that illegal copies of “Freakonomics,” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, were downloaded 1,082 times and “Angels & Demons,” by Dan Brown, 7,951 times. The study did not track any titles published by the company’s clients, which would exclude the oft-pirated “Twilight” series published by Hachette. Rich Pearson, general manager of Attributor, said although not every pirated copy represented a lost sale, the potential loss to the publishing industry could be as high as $3 billion. Some analysts doubted that piracy was as big a problem for the book industry as the study suggested. Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical Company, a book industry consultant, said many people who might illegally download an e-book would never have bought it in the first place."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/arts/15arts-REPORTSAYS9M_BRF.html?scp=1&sq=pirated&st=cse
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