Andy Mulkerin, Pittsburgh City Paper; Facing the Music:
"Last June 28 wasn't an especially noteworthy night at Howlers Coyote Café. It was the monthly Sunday Night Hayride -- a country show hosted by Howlers regulars The Beagle Brothers that typically features a guest band or two.
"The featured act was a band from West Virginia -- nobody really knew them," recalls Jo Albright, the Bloomfield club's booking manager. "They proceeded to do about two hours' worth of covers. And they did them badly."
Even worse, among the sparse crowd that night was an undercover representative of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), a rights and licensing agency for songwriters. And although the music eventually stopped, for Albright and bar-owner Susan Coe, the headaches had just begun.
Later in the summer, BMI served Coe with a federal complaint alleging seven counts of copyright infringement. Among the songs the agent heard that night, seven apparently belonged to artists covered by BMI, who demanded the bar pay for the rights on that music.
That complaint was the culmination a seven-year dispute between BMI and the bar."
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A76306
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
New eCourse decodes the mysteries of digital licensing; American Libraries, 3/9/10
American Libraries; New eCourse decodes the mysteries of digital licensing:
"ALA Editions, the publishing imprint of the American Library Association, announces its first eCourse “Digital Licensing Online,” by Lesley Ellen Harris--an entirely self-directed, self-paced continuing education course that uses an online interface.
The digital revolution has resulted in an important, and sometimes daunting, change in the way libraries and other organizations procure, access and store information available for internal use and for use by researchers. Librarians have become negotiators and interpreters of legal agreements. To help them fulfill these important new roles, renowned copyright expert Lesley Ellen Harris has adapted her popular ALA Editions book “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians” into this eCourse, designed to teach librarians how to read and understand a contract as well as how to negotiate with vendors. Among the many topics addressed are
industry standards in licensing
determining when a licensing policy is necessary
key dimensions of licensing agreements
legal concepts in licensing agreements
step-by-step analysis of the main clauses in a digital licensing agreement
The course includes short quizzes at the end of each of the 27 modules. Each module is designed to take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Additional resources include sample agreements, an assortment of boiler plate clauses, and links to helpful Web sites.
Harris is a copyright, licensing, and digital property lawyer who consults on legal, business, policy, and strategic issues in the publishing, entertainment, Internet and information industries. Since 1991 her practice has served a broad range of clients, and she frequently works with libraries, archives, museums and educational institutions. She often speaks at conferences and teaches in-person and online courses on copyright and licensing. Harris began her career in copyright in 1984 working with a lobbying group interested in revising Canada’s copyright laws. From 1987 to 1991 she was senior copyright officer with the Canadian government, in which capacity she helped revise the country’s copyright laws. Harris is the author of the books “Digital Property: Currency of the 21st Century,” “Canadian Copyright Law,” “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians,” and numerous articles. Since 1997 she has been the editor of The Copyright and New Media Law Newsletter. She maintains the website Copyrightlaws.com and the blog Copyright Questions & Answers.
ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.
ALA Editions develops resources for the library and information services community. Tens of thousands of librarians are helped and supported professionally each year by 30 or more new and revised titles. ALA authors are leaders across their fields, and their books are distributed and valued worldwide."
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/march2010/diglicens_pub.cfm
"ALA Editions, the publishing imprint of the American Library Association, announces its first eCourse “Digital Licensing Online,” by Lesley Ellen Harris--an entirely self-directed, self-paced continuing education course that uses an online interface.
The digital revolution has resulted in an important, and sometimes daunting, change in the way libraries and other organizations procure, access and store information available for internal use and for use by researchers. Librarians have become negotiators and interpreters of legal agreements. To help them fulfill these important new roles, renowned copyright expert Lesley Ellen Harris has adapted her popular ALA Editions book “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians” into this eCourse, designed to teach librarians how to read and understand a contract as well as how to negotiate with vendors. Among the many topics addressed are
industry standards in licensing
determining when a licensing policy is necessary
key dimensions of licensing agreements
legal concepts in licensing agreements
step-by-step analysis of the main clauses in a digital licensing agreement
The course includes short quizzes at the end of each of the 27 modules. Each module is designed to take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Additional resources include sample agreements, an assortment of boiler plate clauses, and links to helpful Web sites.
Harris is a copyright, licensing, and digital property lawyer who consults on legal, business, policy, and strategic issues in the publishing, entertainment, Internet and information industries. Since 1991 her practice has served a broad range of clients, and she frequently works with libraries, archives, museums and educational institutions. She often speaks at conferences and teaches in-person and online courses on copyright and licensing. Harris began her career in copyright in 1984 working with a lobbying group interested in revising Canada’s copyright laws. From 1987 to 1991 she was senior copyright officer with the Canadian government, in which capacity she helped revise the country’s copyright laws. Harris is the author of the books “Digital Property: Currency of the 21st Century,” “Canadian Copyright Law,” “Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians,” and numerous articles. Since 1997 she has been the editor of The Copyright and New Media Law Newsletter. She maintains the website Copyrightlaws.com and the blog Copyright Questions & Answers.
ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.
ALA Editions develops resources for the library and information services community. Tens of thousands of librarians are helped and supported professionally each year by 30 or more new and revised titles. ALA authors are leaders across their fields, and their books are distributed and valued worldwide."
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2010/march2010/diglicens_pub.cfm
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Google's digital library faces key hurdles; San Jose Mercury News, 3/7/10
Mike Swift, San Jose Mercury News; Google's digital library faces key hurdles:
"Sometime in the near future, a federal judge will decide whether Google can proceed with its plan to create a digital library and bookstore out of millions of old books scanned from libraries around the world.
Google Book Search has already spawned a class-action lawsuit, and now, a surge of opposition from scholars, consumer advocates and business competitors who claim the plan gives Google too much control over a priceless store of information. The legal issues are complex. But the impact and implications of the plan, which would create a copyright framework for old books that would persist into the 22nd century, could be huge, some say.
"It really is the most important copyright dispute we're currently facing," said James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School and a former Microsoft programmer. "I would say this whole controversy has the potential to really affect how we access all kinds of media, not just old ones, but also new ones."
If Google is successful in rewriting a major area of copyright law through its proposed settlement of the lawsuit, someone else could try something similar for music or photographs. "It's a really interesting way to break a lot of logjams in copyright law," Grimmelmann said. "But are we opening a Pandora's box?""
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14521165
"Sometime in the near future, a federal judge will decide whether Google can proceed with its plan to create a digital library and bookstore out of millions of old books scanned from libraries around the world.
Google Book Search has already spawned a class-action lawsuit, and now, a surge of opposition from scholars, consumer advocates and business competitors who claim the plan gives Google too much control over a priceless store of information. The legal issues are complex. But the impact and implications of the plan, which would create a copyright framework for old books that would persist into the 22nd century, could be huge, some say.
"It really is the most important copyright dispute we're currently facing," said James Grimmelmann, a professor at New York Law School and a former Microsoft programmer. "I would say this whole controversy has the potential to really affect how we access all kinds of media, not just old ones, but also new ones."
If Google is successful in rewriting a major area of copyright law through its proposed settlement of the lawsuit, someone else could try something similar for music or photographs. "It's a really interesting way to break a lot of logjams in copyright law," Grimmelmann said. "But are we opening a Pandora's box?""
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14521165
European Parliament unites against 3 strikes, ACTA secrecy; Ars Technica, 3/9/10
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; European Parliament unites against 3 strikes, ACTA secrecy:
"The European Parliament is fed up with the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Today, representatives from all the major parliamentary coalitions introduced a resolution demanding that the European Commission release all negotiating texts, inform Parliament about the negotiating process, and absolutely refuse to countenance any sort of "three strikes" Internet disconnection penalty for online copyright infringement.
The measure comes up for a vote tomorrow and looks set to pass—it has the support of all the important groups in Parliament, including the EPP, S&D, ALDE, and the Greens/EFA. One notable supporter: Christian Engström, the Pirate Party's lone MEP in Parliament, who aligns with the Greens/EFA group.
The resolution doesn't take long to get to the point. Parliament wishes to "express its concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations" and complains that "no parliamentary approval has been asked for the mandate [to negotiate the agreement]." Parliament wants immediate access to all documents and demands that it be "immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations." If not, the resolution threatens legal action against the European Commission.
The resolution specifically demands that European negotiators not assent to "any so called 'three strikes' procedures" given the European Parliament's long dislike for such practices.
The resolution does not call for ACTA to scrapped, however. Instead, negotiations should center only on more effective "counterfeiting" enforcement. As Engström put it in a blog post on the new resolution, "If there is to be an ACTA agreement, the parliament wants it to be about combating goods counterfeiting (i.e., fake Rolexes and hand bags, fake Viagra on the net, fake cigarettes that are even more harmful that proper ones, etc.). It should not be about restricting our fundamental civil liberties on the net... Today is a day when it feels good to be a Pirate in the European Parliament."
Parliament has called for such information before; as long ago as March 2009 it asked the Commission to turn over all documents related to ACTA. Nothing happened. But the resolution claims that, thanks to the Treaty of Lisbon coming into force on December 1 2009, Parliament will have to approve ACTA before it comes into force. If the Commission refuses to involve Parliament, a "no" vote might be the eventual result of two years of negotiating work."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/european-parliament-unites-against-3-strikes-acta-secrecy.ars
"The European Parliament is fed up with the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Today, representatives from all the major parliamentary coalitions introduced a resolution demanding that the European Commission release all negotiating texts, inform Parliament about the negotiating process, and absolutely refuse to countenance any sort of "three strikes" Internet disconnection penalty for online copyright infringement.
The measure comes up for a vote tomorrow and looks set to pass—it has the support of all the important groups in Parliament, including the EPP, S&D, ALDE, and the Greens/EFA. One notable supporter: Christian Engström, the Pirate Party's lone MEP in Parliament, who aligns with the Greens/EFA group.
The resolution doesn't take long to get to the point. Parliament wishes to "express its concern over the lack of a transparent process in the conduct of the ACTA negotiations" and complains that "no parliamentary approval has been asked for the mandate [to negotiate the agreement]." Parliament wants immediate access to all documents and demands that it be "immediately and fully informed at all stages of the negotiations." If not, the resolution threatens legal action against the European Commission.
The resolution specifically demands that European negotiators not assent to "any so called 'three strikes' procedures" given the European Parliament's long dislike for such practices.
The resolution does not call for ACTA to scrapped, however. Instead, negotiations should center only on more effective "counterfeiting" enforcement. As Engström put it in a blog post on the new resolution, "If there is to be an ACTA agreement, the parliament wants it to be about combating goods counterfeiting (i.e., fake Rolexes and hand bags, fake Viagra on the net, fake cigarettes that are even more harmful that proper ones, etc.). It should not be about restricting our fundamental civil liberties on the net... Today is a day when it feels good to be a Pirate in the European Parliament."
Parliament has called for such information before; as long ago as March 2009 it asked the Commission to turn over all documents related to ACTA. Nothing happened. But the resolution claims that, thanks to the Treaty of Lisbon coming into force on December 1 2009, Parliament will have to approve ACTA before it comes into force. If the Commission refuses to involve Parliament, a "no" vote might be the eventual result of two years of negotiating work."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/european-parliament-unites-against-3-strikes-acta-secrecy.ars
A Real Copyright Problem In The UK: The Difficulty Of Archiving Important Websites; TechDirt, 3/8/10
Mike Masnick, TechDirt; A Real Copyright Problem In The UK: The Difficulty Of Archiving Important Websites:
"While UK politicians are arguing over a ridiculous and unnecessary change to copyright law as part of the Digital Economy Bill, it appears there's a much bigger problem with UK copyright law that isn't getting very much attention at all. Slashdot points us to the news that due to the way copyright law currently works in the UK, archiving websites without permission is illegal. Yes, even for the British Library and other institutions who are designated by law to keep a copy of every printed publication. But when it comes to the web, the Library needs to get permission from every website that it wishes to archive. Obviously, that greatly limits the archival activity that the Library can be involved in -- and, as a result, the public suffers greatly. This is a clear case where fair use should cover the issues, but current law does not adequately handle this. Making fair use work better should be a priority -- but instead we have politicians trying to prop up Hollywood's business model by pushing copyright law in the other direction."
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100305/1820068446.shtml
"While UK politicians are arguing over a ridiculous and unnecessary change to copyright law as part of the Digital Economy Bill, it appears there's a much bigger problem with UK copyright law that isn't getting very much attention at all. Slashdot points us to the news that due to the way copyright law currently works in the UK, archiving websites without permission is illegal. Yes, even for the British Library and other institutions who are designated by law to keep a copy of every printed publication. But when it comes to the web, the Library needs to get permission from every website that it wishes to archive. Obviously, that greatly limits the archival activity that the Library can be involved in -- and, as a result, the public suffers greatly. This is a clear case where fair use should cover the issues, but current law does not adequately handle this. Making fair use work better should be a priority -- but instead we have politicians trying to prop up Hollywood's business model by pushing copyright law in the other direction."
http://techdirt.com/articles/20100305/1820068446.shtml
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Pesky kookaburra drops one on the debate over copyright law; Sydney Morning Herald, 2/5/10
Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald; Pesky kookaburra drops one on the debate over copyright law:
"In case you'd forgotten the words, I'll reproduce in its entirety this charming ditty so that we sing along together, preferably in rounds:
Kookaburra sits on an old gum tree
Merry merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra
Gay your life must be.
Quite so. This iconic four-bar slice of Australiana was composed in 1934 by Miss Marion Sinclair, who entered Kookaburra in a competition conducted by the Girl Guides Association of Victoria. Much later, Larrikin Music Publishing came to acquire the copyright in Miss Sinclair's musical work.
Countless people throughout the world studiously missed elements of Miss Sinclair's tiny masterpiece that turned up in Men At Work's much more ''layered'' pop song Down Under. In fact, nobody seemed to recognise that there was a flute riff, or hook, in Down Under that bore some similarity to two bars of Miss Sinclair's music. This might suggest that the objective similarity between the two pieces of music was remote. The first public outing of the connection came on the ABC's musical quiz show Spicks And Specks in 2007.
Even then, the panel of experts had some trouble making up their mind as to whether the similarities were sufficiently strong.
Not so, said Justice Peter Jacobson in the Federal Court yesterday. The Larrikin Music people brought proceedings against EMI Songs Australia, which holds the copyright in Down Under, and the two composers of the music and words, the former members of Men At Work Colin Hay and Ron Strykert.
Even though there was evidence that the pitch, key, rhythm, melodic shape, harmony, musical sentences and context are different, Justice Jacobson found that there was nonetheless a reproduction of a substantial part of Kookaburra in Down Under. This is not to say that Kookaburra amounted to a substantial part of the pop song.
Musicologists of the utmost fame were called to give evidence. In one corner, for Larrikin, was Dr Andrew Ford, a leading musical voice on the ABC. In the other corner was Martin Armiger, the head of screen composition at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. It was all highly technical stuff, but in the end largely a matter of interpretation.
Both pieces of music evoke quintessential Australianness. On the one hand gum trees, kookaburras and gayness. On the other Vegemite, ''fried out'' Kombis, koalas and beer. All that seems to be missing are corks on Akubras.
The truth is that all creative endeavour involves a degree of borrowing, lifting, and plundering. The artistic process is a constant process of altering, refining and reinterpreting something that someone else did first.
Where did Miss Sinclair's idea come from? Were bits subconsciously snaffled from other poets? It seems odd to suggest that something can be utterly original. Certainly Men At Work acknowledged that they drew inspiration from Barry Humphries's character Barry McKenzie and his stereotypical Aussieness.
Fortunately, there is growing awareness of the downside of an overly protective view of intellectual property and its ''locking up'' of ''original'' ideas and research. It has the potential to stifle much scientific and creative endeavour.
While one judge was squeezing tight the copyright regime, another judge of the same court on the same day was letting it all hang out.
Justice Dennis Cowdroy rejected claims by a huge global clutch of film and television studios that Australia's third-biggest internet service provider, iiNet, was infringing their copyright by allowing its customers to download movies from the internet.
As the judgment stands, this is a significant decision. The movie industry was anxiously hanging on the outcome; now it's back to the drawing boards and no doubt an appeal.
So ISPs are not obliged to police their customers' copyright infringements. This is the case even where the ISP has been notified of customers' alleged infringement and doesn't disconnect them.
Maybe the applicants were suing the wrong entity. The open source file-sharing software that allows this downloading, which is called BitTorrent, came in for a lot of discussion in the proceedings and it's clear that without BitTorrent none of this private extraction of movie titles would be possible.
What the applicants, led by an outfit known as the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, contended was that this was a big setback for the 50,000 or so people employed in the Australian film industry.
That sounds like an understandable bit of special pleading, but what it does suggest is that the movie industry has its finger in a very leaky dyke as it clings to the traditional distribution model.
In its heyday the movie studios, the distributors and exhibitors formed one of the most ruthless enforcers of a cartel structure that the world of anti-competitive conduct has seen.
Things have moved on a little bit since then and they have a long way to move still.
The movie industry is in the same position that the music people were in before they got into bed with iTunes and Apple.
All the great media industries will have to find ways to work with the new modes of distribution. To work against them ultimately will spell ruin. This applies not only to movies, but to books, newspapers and magazines. It doesn't necessarily mean an end to 50,000 jobs at all. It could mean selling titles more cheaply to more people in different ways that expand employment.
Of course, the lawyers won't be out of a job. There is the smell of appeal in the air, with ultimately the High Court having to grapple with the new, new world."
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/pesky-kookaburra-drops-one-on-the-debate-over-copyright-law-20100204-ng23.html
"In case you'd forgotten the words, I'll reproduce in its entirety this charming ditty so that we sing along together, preferably in rounds:
Kookaburra sits on an old gum tree
Merry merry king of the bush is he
Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra
Gay your life must be.
Quite so. This iconic four-bar slice of Australiana was composed in 1934 by Miss Marion Sinclair, who entered Kookaburra in a competition conducted by the Girl Guides Association of Victoria. Much later, Larrikin Music Publishing came to acquire the copyright in Miss Sinclair's musical work.
Countless people throughout the world studiously missed elements of Miss Sinclair's tiny masterpiece that turned up in Men At Work's much more ''layered'' pop song Down Under. In fact, nobody seemed to recognise that there was a flute riff, or hook, in Down Under that bore some similarity to two bars of Miss Sinclair's music. This might suggest that the objective similarity between the two pieces of music was remote. The first public outing of the connection came on the ABC's musical quiz show Spicks And Specks in 2007.
Even then, the panel of experts had some trouble making up their mind as to whether the similarities were sufficiently strong.
Not so, said Justice Peter Jacobson in the Federal Court yesterday. The Larrikin Music people brought proceedings against EMI Songs Australia, which holds the copyright in Down Under, and the two composers of the music and words, the former members of Men At Work Colin Hay and Ron Strykert.
Even though there was evidence that the pitch, key, rhythm, melodic shape, harmony, musical sentences and context are different, Justice Jacobson found that there was nonetheless a reproduction of a substantial part of Kookaburra in Down Under. This is not to say that Kookaburra amounted to a substantial part of the pop song.
Musicologists of the utmost fame were called to give evidence. In one corner, for Larrikin, was Dr Andrew Ford, a leading musical voice on the ABC. In the other corner was Martin Armiger, the head of screen composition at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. It was all highly technical stuff, but in the end largely a matter of interpretation.
Both pieces of music evoke quintessential Australianness. On the one hand gum trees, kookaburras and gayness. On the other Vegemite, ''fried out'' Kombis, koalas and beer. All that seems to be missing are corks on Akubras.
The truth is that all creative endeavour involves a degree of borrowing, lifting, and plundering. The artistic process is a constant process of altering, refining and reinterpreting something that someone else did first.
Where did Miss Sinclair's idea come from? Were bits subconsciously snaffled from other poets? It seems odd to suggest that something can be utterly original. Certainly Men At Work acknowledged that they drew inspiration from Barry Humphries's character Barry McKenzie and his stereotypical Aussieness.
Fortunately, there is growing awareness of the downside of an overly protective view of intellectual property and its ''locking up'' of ''original'' ideas and research. It has the potential to stifle much scientific and creative endeavour.
While one judge was squeezing tight the copyright regime, another judge of the same court on the same day was letting it all hang out.
Justice Dennis Cowdroy rejected claims by a huge global clutch of film and television studios that Australia's third-biggest internet service provider, iiNet, was infringing their copyright by allowing its customers to download movies from the internet.
As the judgment stands, this is a significant decision. The movie industry was anxiously hanging on the outcome; now it's back to the drawing boards and no doubt an appeal.
So ISPs are not obliged to police their customers' copyright infringements. This is the case even where the ISP has been notified of customers' alleged infringement and doesn't disconnect them.
Maybe the applicants were suing the wrong entity. The open source file-sharing software that allows this downloading, which is called BitTorrent, came in for a lot of discussion in the proceedings and it's clear that without BitTorrent none of this private extraction of movie titles would be possible.
What the applicants, led by an outfit known as the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, contended was that this was a big setback for the 50,000 or so people employed in the Australian film industry.
That sounds like an understandable bit of special pleading, but what it does suggest is that the movie industry has its finger in a very leaky dyke as it clings to the traditional distribution model.
In its heyday the movie studios, the distributors and exhibitors formed one of the most ruthless enforcers of a cartel structure that the world of anti-competitive conduct has seen.
Things have moved on a little bit since then and they have a long way to move still.
The movie industry is in the same position that the music people were in before they got into bed with iTunes and Apple.
All the great media industries will have to find ways to work with the new modes of distribution. To work against them ultimately will spell ruin. This applies not only to movies, but to books, newspapers and magazines. It doesn't necessarily mean an end to 50,000 jobs at all. It could mean selling titles more cheaply to more people in different ways that expand employment.
Of course, the lawyers won't be out of a job. There is the smell of appeal in the air, with ultimately the High Court having to grapple with the new, new world."
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/pesky-kookaburra-drops-one-on-the-debate-over-copyright-law-20100204-ng23.html
British Online Copyright Laws Draw Debates; New York Times, 3/4/10
Nick Bilton, New York Times; British Online Copyright Laws Draw Debates:
"An article published on Thursday in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new “digital economy bill.”
One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes:
The new proposal – which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 – gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a “substantial” amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline.
Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that a judge could shut down a Web site because of copyright infringement, even if the site’s manager didn’t put the content online.
What is left unanswered is how a company can be held accountable for every piece of content placed on its site. Many critics of this bill and others in Europe say it is most likely to result in the stifling of creativity, innovation and free speech. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers some protection against liability to Internet service providers and Web sites that host copyrighted material uploaded by third parties.
There are similar tensions over Internet content and privacy elsewhere in Europe. Last week the Italian court held three of Google’s top executives accountable for a defamatory video placed on YouTube by teenagers. And the French parliament approved a recent bill that will crack down on Internet piracy by banning people from the Web if they are caught downloading copyrighted content more than three times.
When it comes to the Italian ruling in the YouTube case, Google has argued that it can’t possibly police every piece of content entering its Web site. Every minute on YouTube there are over 20 hours of video uploaded to the site, which ads up to nearly 30,000 hours of video a day. Google, it can be argued, might have the resources to hire thousands of people needed to view every video. But every other video, image, music and storage Web site would also have to monitor its content.
Monitoring that content is financially, and probably physically, impossible.
Some also argue that strict legal cases, including the latest British laws, would deter some companies from operating within these countries for fear that the potential legal costs could outweigh the returns."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/british-online-copyright-laws-draw-debates/?scp=1&sq=copyright&st=cse
"An article published on Thursday in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new “digital economy bill.”
One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes:
The new proposal – which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 – gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a “substantial” amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline.
Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that a judge could shut down a Web site because of copyright infringement, even if the site’s manager didn’t put the content online.
What is left unanswered is how a company can be held accountable for every piece of content placed on its site. Many critics of this bill and others in Europe say it is most likely to result in the stifling of creativity, innovation and free speech. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers some protection against liability to Internet service providers and Web sites that host copyrighted material uploaded by third parties.
There are similar tensions over Internet content and privacy elsewhere in Europe. Last week the Italian court held three of Google’s top executives accountable for a defamatory video placed on YouTube by teenagers. And the French parliament approved a recent bill that will crack down on Internet piracy by banning people from the Web if they are caught downloading copyrighted content more than three times.
When it comes to the Italian ruling in the YouTube case, Google has argued that it can’t possibly police every piece of content entering its Web site. Every minute on YouTube there are over 20 hours of video uploaded to the site, which ads up to nearly 30,000 hours of video a day. Google, it can be argued, might have the resources to hire thousands of people needed to view every video. But every other video, image, music and storage Web site would also have to monitor its content.
Monitoring that content is financially, and probably physically, impossible.
Some also argue that strict legal cases, including the latest British laws, would deter some companies from operating within these countries for fear that the potential legal costs could outweigh the returns."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/british-online-copyright-laws-draw-debates/?scp=1&sq=copyright&st=cse
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