http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051503000.html?sid=ST2009060402767
This article by Bruce Brown and Bruce Stanford of the Washington Post from earlier this year talks about how journalism is a dying industry, but can be saved by a few simple changes to the law. Some of the changes they propose pertain to copyright laws and fair use. Their main target in this article is google, claiming that the age of the search engine is what is killing the journalism industry, because they "crawl the Web and ingest everything in their path." The article proposes that google should follow the fair use doctrine, which allows for the use of a quote or two from any given article, without stealing the whole thing for their news database. The current system is making it very difficult for journalistic media, a traditional print media, to transfer into the digital age, especially because search engines like google are able to take their copyrighted material if they submit their websites into the search database, so they are forced to choose whether they want to be excluded from a network that most people use to look up news, or risk having their content ripped apart and plagiarized by google. The simple solution, according to this article, is to instill fair use rules, where google can only use so much of the article in their news section.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A&E sued for using University of Tennessee fight song
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090826/NEWS03/908260398/1017/NEWS/%20Rocky%20Top%20%20clip%20puts%20network%20A&E%20in%20court
Television network A&E got in legal trouble after using the song "Rocky Top", which is the fight song for University of Tennessee, after they were repeatedly denied permission to use it. There was an episode of the show "City Confidential", which was detailing a murder that happened in Knoxville, Tennessee. Due to the nature of the show, the owners of the "Rocky Top" fight song denied it's use in the series, but A&E used a 12 second clip of it during the final cut of the show. It is a common misconception that the "Rocky Top" UT fight song is in the public domain, but it is actually owned by the children of the couple who originally penned it in 1967. A&E representatives argued that it was fair use, but the owners stated that it is copyrighted intellectual property, and by letting this relatively small incidence go, they risk being taken advantage of by other people looking to use the theme song without paying.
In the end, fair use would probably not fly for this case, because of the nature of the use. Since it was used on a commercial television program, that is making profit for the television network, it will probably be ruled in favor of the copyright holders.
Television network A&E got in legal trouble after using the song "Rocky Top", which is the fight song for University of Tennessee, after they were repeatedly denied permission to use it. There was an episode of the show "City Confidential", which was detailing a murder that happened in Knoxville, Tennessee. Due to the nature of the show, the owners of the "Rocky Top" fight song denied it's use in the series, but A&E used a 12 second clip of it during the final cut of the show. It is a common misconception that the "Rocky Top" UT fight song is in the public domain, but it is actually owned by the children of the couple who originally penned it in 1967. A&E representatives argued that it was fair use, but the owners stated that it is copyrighted intellectual property, and by letting this relatively small incidence go, they risk being taken advantage of by other people looking to use the theme song without paying.
In the end, fair use would probably not fly for this case, because of the nature of the use. Since it was used on a commercial television program, that is making profit for the television network, it will probably be ruled in favor of the copyright holders.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Pandora Radio
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=30975
This article from late 2008 describes Pandora Radio's predicament with copyright law, and how the Webcaster Settlement Act saved it from needing to pay most of it's ad revenue in royalty fees. Pandora Radio is an internet radio station that allows for free listening to music online. Much like regular radio, the listener is able to choose a station but not a specific song. It relies entirely on advertisements for money. Before this settlement, Pandora was on the verge of shutting down, with over 70% of it's ad revenue going to paying for the copyrighted material that it plays. Copyright Royalty Board's 2007 Internet radio royalty decision that it must pay the outstandingly large fee of $500 per channel was financially wrecking the company and it was looking for a way to pay similar fees to satellite radio, which pays for performance fees that equal about 7.5% of their revenue.
I think this is a wonderful act, which allows for the legal listening to music through the internet, while artists are still getting the respect, recognition, and financial compensation that they deserve. It is a step in the right direction towards stopping the digital anarchy and rebellion against the music industry's astronomical rates by the people, which resulted in the copyright infringement heavy pirating.
This article from late 2008 describes Pandora Radio's predicament with copyright law, and how the Webcaster Settlement Act saved it from needing to pay most of it's ad revenue in royalty fees. Pandora Radio is an internet radio station that allows for free listening to music online. Much like regular radio, the listener is able to choose a station but not a specific song. It relies entirely on advertisements for money. Before this settlement, Pandora was on the verge of shutting down, with over 70% of it's ad revenue going to paying for the copyrighted material that it plays. Copyright Royalty Board's 2007 Internet radio royalty decision that it must pay the outstandingly large fee of $500 per channel was financially wrecking the company and it was looking for a way to pay similar fees to satellite radio, which pays for performance fees that equal about 7.5% of their revenue.
I think this is a wonderful act, which allows for the legal listening to music through the internet, while artists are still getting the respect, recognition, and financial compensation that they deserve. It is a step in the right direction towards stopping the digital anarchy and rebellion against the music industry's astronomical rates by the people, which resulted in the copyright infringement heavy pirating.
Four men charged with copyright infringement conspiracy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS241157+09-Sep-2009+PRN20090909
This article talks about how four digital pirates are being charged with copyright infringement for taking material, such as movies and music, and posting it to host servers where it can be downloaded by millions of others. They have just been charged so far, and there has been no court case held yet, so there is no news yet of the ruling, but based on the definition of copyright infringement and the federal attitude towards piracy in the past, it would be surprising to see a not guilty verdict. While it is old news that digital piracy is a crime and considered to be copyright infringement, there are a few things about this article that I found interesting.
The most important word used here is "conspiracy" which is defined in law as "An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action." I am writing this with only a basic knowledge of law, but to me this means an act that hasn't been committed yet, but was only in the planning stages. So if these four men are being charged with copyright infringement conspiracy, doesn't that mean that they had not yet been actually performed the infringement, which would make them equal with the millions of people who own music and movies digitally and have an internet connection, so they logically had all of the tools necessary to carry out an illegal act.
This article talks about how four digital pirates are being charged with copyright infringement for taking material, such as movies and music, and posting it to host servers where it can be downloaded by millions of others. They have just been charged so far, and there has been no court case held yet, so there is no news yet of the ruling, but based on the definition of copyright infringement and the federal attitude towards piracy in the past, it would be surprising to see a not guilty verdict. While it is old news that digital piracy is a crime and considered to be copyright infringement, there are a few things about this article that I found interesting.
The most important word used here is "conspiracy" which is defined in law as "An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action." I am writing this with only a basic knowledge of law, but to me this means an act that hasn't been committed yet, but was only in the planning stages. So if these four men are being charged with copyright infringement conspiracy, doesn't that mean that they had not yet been actually performed the infringement, which would make them equal with the millions of people who own music and movies digitally and have an internet connection, so they logically had all of the tools necessary to carry out an illegal act.
Friday, September 4, 2009
AP wins lawsuit against AHN
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10285827-93.html
In July 2009, All Headline News agreed to pay the Associated Press in a settlement out of court. AP accused AHN of stealing from their breaking news sources in their online posts. The case drew from a 1918 case, in which the supreme court ruled that "hot news", or breaking news, can be considered an intellectual property law if a second news source takes it from the first news source.
This is a great example of how intellectual property laws are being applied to new media, because it is mostly concerned with how news is relayed via the internet. Since the Associated Press has recognized that print is a dying art form, they have been making a steady effort to secure their intellectual property rights as a news source on the internet, where it is very easy to copy and paste breaking news information and claim it as your own. This effort includes sending take-down notices to multiple blogs that have copied their news stories.
In July 2009, All Headline News agreed to pay the Associated Press in a settlement out of court. AP accused AHN of stealing from their breaking news sources in their online posts. The case drew from a 1918 case, in which the supreme court ruled that "hot news", or breaking news, can be considered an intellectual property law if a second news source takes it from the first news source.
This is a great example of how intellectual property laws are being applied to new media, because it is mostly concerned with how news is relayed via the internet. Since the Associated Press has recognized that print is a dying art form, they have been making a steady effort to secure their intellectual property rights as a news source on the internet, where it is very easy to copy and paste breaking news information and claim it as your own. This effort includes sending take-down notices to multiple blogs that have copied their news stories.
Tom Waits sues advertising agency
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6305403.stm
http://www.gigwise.com/news/27194/Tom-Waits-Settles-%5CSound-Alike%5C-Lawsuit
This story is from 2007, which makes it severely outdated in this field, but it is the most recent Tom Waits lawsuit to surface. Throughout his 30+ year career, Waits has retained a very unique style; a low, gravely voice chanting over eccentric music mixes, and in these years many advertising agencies have tried to use his signature music in commercials. Waits has never accepted a commercial deal, and has stated that he will never let his music be used for commercial purposes. So many advertising companies have tried to imitate his style by creating off-brand versions of his songs and using those instead. Time and again, Waits has brought these advertising agencies to court for using his likeness in their commercials without his permission.
Time and again, the courts have been ruling in his favor. This particular case was against the German car company Adam Opel AG and advertising agency McCann Erickson, and the original lawsuit was for $300,000. The defendents' claim was that the song used was not meant to imitate Waits, claiming that it is based on a Brahms composition. Tom Waits claimed that this advertising company had contacted him multiple times about using his music in their commercial, and that he had turned them down all times. The case was settled out of court in the end, and history has proven that the court tends to side with Waits in cases where an advertising agency hires an imitator to copy his style.
In the end, this proves that the law considers not only an artists work to be his intellectual property, but also all obvious likenesses of his work, especially when there is evidence that the imitation is used in place of his work, when permission is denied.
http://www.gigwise.com/news/27194/Tom-Waits-Settles-%5CSound-Alike%5C-Lawsuit
This story is from 2007, which makes it severely outdated in this field, but it is the most recent Tom Waits lawsuit to surface. Throughout his 30+ year career, Waits has retained a very unique style; a low, gravely voice chanting over eccentric music mixes, and in these years many advertising agencies have tried to use his signature music in commercials. Waits has never accepted a commercial deal, and has stated that he will never let his music be used for commercial purposes. So many advertising companies have tried to imitate his style by creating off-brand versions of his songs and using those instead. Time and again, Waits has brought these advertising agencies to court for using his likeness in their commercials without his permission.
Time and again, the courts have been ruling in his favor. This particular case was against the German car company Adam Opel AG and advertising agency McCann Erickson, and the original lawsuit was for $300,000. The defendents' claim was that the song used was not meant to imitate Waits, claiming that it is based on a Brahms composition. Tom Waits claimed that this advertising company had contacted him multiple times about using his music in their commercial, and that he had turned them down all times. The case was settled out of court in the end, and history has proven that the court tends to side with Waits in cases where an advertising agency hires an imitator to copy his style.
In the end, this proves that the law considers not only an artists work to be his intellectual property, but also all obvious likenesses of his work, especially when there is evidence that the imitation is used in place of his work, when permission is denied.
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