Category: Copyright

UPDATE: Artists: Be The Change, Submit Comments! Deadline EXTENDED to August 10th

As The Trichordist noted in the July 16th post, the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel has issued a call to the public to file comments with her office about the US intellectual property laws.  If you care about artist rights, this is a good time to tell Victoria Espinel what you think.  You can comment on anything, but she is probably looking for specific comments about how good a job you think the US government is doing in enforcing our IP laws and protecting artist rights and any ideas you have about how the government could be doing more.

You should be aware that opponents of artist rights will seize upon this kind of public comment period to flood Ms. Espinel’s office with copyleft and radical anti-artist commentary.  You can bet that they will do it and they will do it from all over the world.  This is so that they can point to the quantity of their comments and try to wrap themselves in some kind of mandate in dealing with the IPEC.  Or more likely, trying to remove that job from the Federal government altogether–I’m sure that is their true goal as Ms. Espinel has done more to protect artist rights by enforcing the laws than anyone in the last 20 years.  And we can’t have that.

Ms. Espinel’s job is to coordinate the resources of the federal law enforcement establishment on enforcing the laws of the United States against those who would steal our intellectual property at all levels–from your song to the avionics for spacecraft.  This is a very hard job that has been allocated very few direct resources and we are lucky to have her.

When Ms. Espinel first announced the comment period it was to end on July 25 (today).  The deadline has now been extended to August 10.

You don’t need to write a letter unless you really want to.  There is a webform for your comments available at this direct link for your comments:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=OMB-2012-0004-0002

Don’t be shy.  Ms. Espinel wants to know what you think.

Here are quotes from the Federal Register notice:

The Federal Government is starting the process of developing a new Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement. By committing to common goals, the U.S. Government will more effectively and efficiently combat intellectual property infringement. In this request for comments, the U.S. Government, through the Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (“IPEC”), invites public input and participation in shaping the Administration’s intellectual property enforcement strategy.

The Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator was established within the Executive Office of the President pursuant to the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, Public Law 110-403 (Oct. 13, 2008) (the “PRO IP Act”). Pursuant to the PRO IP Act, IPEC is charged with developing the Administration’s Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement for submission to Congress every three years. In carrying out this mandate, IPEC chairs an interagency intellectual property enforcement advisory committee comprised of Federal departmental and agency heads whose respective departments and agencies are involved in intellectual property enforcement.

by Chris Castle

PayPal to Pirates “No Cash For You” Score Another One for an Ethical Internet!

PayPal should be celebrated as a company who supports artists rights and an ethical internet. We were pleased to find this report on TorrentFreak this week stating that the online payment processing company has banned “Major File Hosting Services Over Piracy Concerns.”

In reviewing the User Agreement for PayPal™ Service we see what appears to be the operative language:

4. Prohibited Transactions. You agree that you will not use PayPal to accept payment for illegal products or services, including but not limited to materials that infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. You will not use the Service, the PayPal website or any of the services offered therein for any unlawful or fraudulent activity. If PayPal (or Wells Fargo, in connection with processing credit card transactions) has reason to believe that you may be engaging in or have engaged in fraudulent, unlawful, or improper activity, including without limitation any violation of any terms and conditions of this Agreement, your access to the Service may be suspended or terminated. Further, if such behavior involved a MasterCard or VISA credit card transaction, it may result in you/your business being prevented from registering for payment acceptance through any payment provider or directly with any bank acquirer operating under license to either the MasterCard or VISA card associations. You will cooperate fully with PayPal Wells Fargo, MasterCard or VISA to investigate any suspected unlawful, fraudulent or improper activity, including but not limited to granting authorized PayPal representatives “guest” or “member” access to any password-protected portions of your website.

It seems to us that such a provision should be standard policy and best practices for many more companies operating online to ensure legal operations. We hope many more will adopt PayPal’s ethical standards.

It appears the message being sent by PayPal is resonating in the file hosting and cyber locker communities as Torrent Freak reports:

“This has a paralyzing effect on the file-hosting industry where 90% of the users of some sites pay using PayPal,” he added.

Previously most file-hosting sites relied heavily on PayPal, but they will now have to switch to alternatives. The next question is whether PayPal’s example will be followed by others such as Visa and Mastercard.

Well done PayPal. For those about to rock, we salute you!

by trichordist

Eyesight to the Willfully Blind: Five Things That ISPs Can Do Today to Stop Ripping Off Artists

We are still waiting for the launch of the vaunted “Copyright Alert System” which was supposed to be up and running this month (July 2012).  Now we are hearing October.  You know what we think?  We think the ISPs have bullshitted their way through another year of profiting from human misery.

We have heard just about enough from ISPs who perpetuate blatant theft online hiding behind a variety of hollow excuses—when ISPs clearly know that they profit more from theft and are in a better position to stop it than anyone else with their snout in the digital trough.  This started with ISPs benefiting from broadband penetration largely stoked by massive digital theft, willfully ignoring repeat infringers and now using the public mobile spectrum to snort down unlicensed works.

Here’s a few ideas for ISPs—but it starts with a basic suggestion.  Go to the mirror.  However you want to try to slither out of responsibility this time, take a good look at your lying face and ask yourself if you are proud of what you are doing.

1.  Stop marketing your services to encourage theft from artists.  Fast download speeds don’t have to be measured in how many movies or recordings your users can download—they can figure that out, too.

2.  Respond to repeat infringer requests quickly—you know that the DMCA you love so much does not require a full blown federal jury trial on a link by link basis before a track is infringing.

3.  Stop bullying artists who send you notices.  Your lawyers try to scare artists by threatening to bring your big boy litigation budget down on the head of an artist who’s doing good to make the poverty line when they complain about being ripped off.  And you’re surprised that we have a problem with you?

4.  Get serious about piracy.   Stop advertising on pirate sites and commit to reducing piracy by 10% a year on your networks.  We don’t need to follow the money through some black box designed to make it hard.  We know why your ads never seem to appear on porn sites—someone will get fired if they do.  But obviously, no one gets fired when your ads appear on pirate sites because more traffic helps you sell broadband.

5.  We’re going to give you the same advice we give others who profit themselves by screwing artists—give some back.  You could put 1% of your profits into arts education and health services for artists, you’ve definitely made way more than that in the biggest income transfer of all time.  You want our music, movies, books, newspapers, photographs and illustrations for your “legitimate” services?  Do the right thing.

by trichordist

The DMCA is Broken…

This post was sent to us by a friend who runs an indie label:

Just about a year after hiring two part time people, to do nothing else but issue DMCA takedown notices we’ve crossed the 50,000 notice milestone. The division of labor requires one person just to monitor YouTube, and another handles all DMCA compliant sites such as CyberLockers, Torrent Search Engines, etc.

The DMCA is BROKEN.

Most of the take downs are for the same title, at the same site, the same day. Day after day during the initial release period of the album (generally the first 60-90 days) it is a constant game of whack-a-mole.

We shouldn’t have to have the same title removed from a site more than once – and each time we issue a notice it takes 24 to 48 hours to remove. But, once it’s removed it is generally back on the site within a few hours.

We should not have to send a notice for the same title more than once, ever – Not to Rapidshare, not Grooveshark, not any one of the probably top 20 offending sites we track, and those are just the ones that even have a DMCA provision (The Pirate Bay for example does not, nor did Limewire to the best of my memory).

If site operators want to hide behind “how do we know what’s infringing”… Well, here’s how, we’ll let you know! If we issue you a notice, you now know… do you think the title will suddenly not be infringing the next day, when re-uploaded by the same offending person? Seriously? Does Billy in Pittsburgh suddenly own the rights to a Radiohead album (for example)?

Internet piracy apologists are quick to accuse labels and artists of wanting the government or others to become piracy police. This is simply not true. Most labels I know of have assumed the responsibility to track and issue takedown notices for themselves and on behalf of their artists (who should be focused on creating, not policing). Ironically, these same people are offended and attempt to diminish the issue when confronted with the overwhelming amount of takedowns being issued.

Keep in mind, we’re issuing DMCA takedown notices for ALBUMS not songs, entire albums are zipped as an archive and now distributed with as much ease as songs once were… let me say that again, our notices are for ALBUMS not songs…

There can be no question why album sales continue to plummet, and why digital album sales have leveled off… meanwhile, I suppose individual songs will continue to grow given the ease, convenience and low cost of a 99 cent purchases from iTunes.

The simple math says that if each of those uploaded ALBUMS was only downloaded ONCE by one other person, that is a loss of revenue of $350,000 dollars wholesale ($7 x 50,000).  If each one we’re downloaded only TWICE that is a loss of $700,000 dollars in revenue a year ($350,000 x 2). This is just for ONE indie label tracking only it’s top five titles at any given time.

Yes, many will exclaim that not every illegal download is a lost sale (to the artist/label/rights holder). But, these numbers illustrate the financial impact of just ONE or TWO illegal downloads per DMCA takedown notice. I think any reasonable person would agree the number of downloads per upload is significantly more than ONE or TWO.

We only have the resources to track 5-10 titles at a time with any effectiveness. Catalog is a free for all.  When adding in current titles that fall below the current top ten best sellers and a catalog that reaches back almost two decades the numbers become truly staggering.

This is why the number one agenda of the recorded music industry must be to address the illegal exploitation of artists work and closing this loophole in the DMCA, which is clearly not the intent of the law.

by trichordist

Artists : Be The Change, Send A Letter! July 25th Deadline

Here is something every artist, musician and creator can easily contribute to.

Our U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel has asked for your assistance to, “Help Us Shape Our Strategy for Intellectual Property Enforcement.”

DEADLINE For Comments : Wed July 25, 2012 @ 5Pm EDT 

Here is the Direct Link to Post Your Comment:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!submitComment;D=OMB-2012-0004-0002

Read more here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/jsp_2013_frn_final.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/06/25/help-us-shape-our-strategy-intellectual-property-enforcement

Example Comment as Submitted by East Bay Ray:

Stop Easy Money to Unethical Businesses

I am an independent musician, my band Dead Kennedys earned a Gold Record while being independent our whole career. But those days are gone, the reality is that internet businessmen now make more money off of our music than we do. And they do it because of a loophole in the current copyright law, a law that is supposed to protect artists from greedy businessmen. It’s analogous to a pawn shop allowing stolen merchandise to be sold and then using the excuse “I didn’t know it was stolen.” (They make money by selling advertising on the internet pawn shop walls.)

The current internet business model:
1. Gather music, video, art, etc files from around the internet
2. Host them on a website
3. Slather them in advertising
4. If someone claims copyright infringement, throw your hands up in
the air and exclaim “It was our users who uploaded your music! We had nothing to do with it! We’re innocent!”
5. Cash six figure advertising checks from other artist’s stolen creations

The reality is that the current DMCA take down notice system does not work.

A solution is that the same technology that websites like Google and Facebook use to track and sell people’s information to advertisers could be used to track and stop payments to sites that make money from distributing illegal files; and to stop search engines from generating advertising income from the search traffic to those illegal sites. Not anything more than what a pawnshop is required to do.

And business websites should be required to show their agreements that they have the right to post and distribute other people’s files for profit to credit systems like Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc before they are allowed an account.

The distinction needs to be clear that there is a profound moral and legal difference between sharing something with a friend and distributing, without permission, other people’s files for commercial gain.

Please make liberal use of the buttons below to share.

by trichordist

The orphan works issue is back and being
jammed through the UK Parliament right now

Music Technology Policy

[Editor Charlie sez:  Given that the Google Party in Europe is jamming a new orphan works on steriods bill through the UK and EU Parliaments, this is a good time to repost this history of orphan works from last year.  See “UK’s Brazen Copyright Landgrab Sneaked Into Enterprise Bill” and Photography Organisations Raise Objections to EU Orphan Works Law]

In the aftermath of the Google Books debacle, we are starting to hear noises that Google will back a new orphan works bill in this Congress.  There are some commentators—truly misguided in my view—who are calling for Congress to bring back the failed legislation from 2008 known as the “Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act”.  (The late Shawn Bentley was a tech industry lobbyist and former Senate Judiciary staff counsel.)  Let’s review that legislation in light of what we now know.  (For a more detailed account, see Unhand That…

View original post 1,631 more words

by thetrichordist

Second Nyan Cat Award Goes To The Fake Thomas Jefferson And His Copyleft Creators

This Nyan Cat awards are given for outstanding achievement in disinformation, web myths and general web based idiocy.  

One of the biggest and most important urban myths that the Copyleft loves to propagate is the one about Thomas Jefferson and copyright. Several times now I’ve had the following Jefferson quote thrown at me when I refer to the founding fathers and the constitutional foundation of copyright.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. – Thomas Jefferson. Letter to Isaac McPherson 1813. 

Wow! It really sounds like Jefferson was the founding member of the Copyleft! This is very similar to the arguments made against copyright by people like Electronic Frontier Foundation’s John Perry Barlow.

The first problem with this? JEFFERSON WAS NOT TALKING ABOUT COPYRIGHT. He was talking about patents and inventions. A very specific one at that. All one has to do to verify this is to  read the two paragraph immediately preceding this quote.  Patents and Copyright are two very different things. Patents protect inventions. Copyright protects expression.  I can not express how important it is that there is a distinction between these two very different kinds of intellectual property.

The second problem with this? When you put this quote back in context you see that Jefferson is not even arguing against patents.  Among other things he seems to be quibbling about whether patents should extend beyond the lifetime of the inventor. If Jefferson was opposed to the entire idea of Intellectual Property (as many in the tech blogosphere argue) why would he serve on the US patent board? And why would he approve patents?

Third. Jefferson had little to say about copyright when compared to others. He didn’t have much to do with the copyright laws. Asking Jefferson instead of Madison about copyright is like asking Ringo instead of John Lennon about Strawberry Fields Forever. Wait, I take that back. It’s like asking Charlie Watts instead of John Lennon about Strawberry Fields Forever. Jefferson was The Patent Guy, and he was in France when much of the discussion occurred.

And why is that important? Well when courts interpret the laws and constitution they often read historical texts that shed light on the author’s thoughts at the time. When it comes to copyright it’s unlikely Jefferson would be consulted. More likely Madison and Pinckney would be consulted. Indeed Madison and Pinckney’s views on Copyright are very similar to the laws we have today and naturally how they are interpreted.

Granted one may use Jefferson’s letters and thoughts in an honest discussion about the length of exclusive rights for patents. You could even by analogy have an honest discussion about the length of copyright terms. But to use a single letter by Jefferson to dispute the legal and ethical basis of constitutional notions of copyright is not just revisionist, it’s dishonest. Do I need to remind our readers the role revisionist histories have played in human tragedies?

That is why we at the Trichordist are proud to give our 2nd Nyan Cat award to The Fake Thomas Jefferson and his Creators! 

There are many people that deserve to be credited as contributors to this dangerous revisionist history. But there are too many to thank by name. However we would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t single out three people that deserve special recognition:

John Perry Barlow. This may be the Ur-blog post when it comes to this fantasy.

The Economy of Ideas

Lawrence Lessig.  Here he clearly uses Jefferson’s out of context quote on the length of patents to begin a discussion about all Intellectual Property rights.  Lessig being the Guru of the copyleft, this has had the effect of inserting Jefferson into the middle of the constitutional debate about copyright when he doesn’t belong there.

Jefferson’s Nature

David Post has written a sort of legal alternate reality historical fiction In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace. A sort of what WWJD (What would Jefferson do) about cyberspace.  Those on the copyleft often refer me back to his writings when the intention of our founding fathers regarding copyright and intellectual property comes into question. Just as The Singularity Myth partially emerged from science fiction, The Fake Thomas Jefferson has been  birthed by writings like this.

For a fascinating and in depth exploration of The Fake Thomas Jefferson I refer you to these two papers by constitutional scholar Terry Hart.

Who Cares What Jefferson Thought about Copyright

Myths from the Birth of US Copyright

The fact these two articles are often viewed as controversial in cyberspace shows us just how far from historical reality the discussion has drifted.

It should also be noted that David Post  responded to Terry Hart’s “Who cares what Jefferson thought about copyright”:

Why Should We Care What Jefferson Thought About Copyright

And Terry Hart then responded:

Response to David Post, re: Jefferson

Finally if you want the real deal on the founding fathers and intellectual property try The Federalist Papers.  Quote from Madison himself:

1. A power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing, for a limited time, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”

The utility of this power will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of individuals. The States cannot separately make effectual provisions for either of the cases, and most of them have anticipated the decision of this point, by laws passed at the instance of Congress.

by Dr. David C Lowery

CopyLike.Org – It’s Not Stealing, Are You Sure?

http://copylike.org/
https://www.facebook.com/copylike

Infringing our rights is OK,
because it’s not stealing?
Are you sure?

Copyright protects things that aren’t physical, so we agree that
downloading illegally is not technically “stealing”.

But does that make it OK?

We put our heart and soul into our work. It’s ours.

If you copy our work without our permission, you take away our
rights, but not physical property, and you think that’s OK?

How about we come around to your house and take away
your right to privacy when you’re in the toilet?

It wouldn’t be stealing.

Defend Copyright.
It’s All We Have Left.
COPYLIKE.ORG

by trichordist

CopyLike.Org – If You Like Open Source and Creative Commons

Check out this Organization:
http://copylike.org/
https://www.facebook.com/copylike

If you like open source software,
or Creative Commons licensing,
then you like copyright.

Open source software relies on copyright to force all future
development to remain open. Without copyright the orginal
creator wouldn’t be able to stop people closing his code.

Creative Commons licenses let us decode what rights to give
away. For example, we can allow people to use our work only if
they credit us, or only for non-commercial purposes.

Copyright gives us these choices. Without copyright, anyone
could use our work for anything, including selling weapons.

That’s a very good reason to like copyright.

Defend Copyright.
It’s All We Have Left.
COPYLIKE.ORG

by trichordist

CopyLike.Org – Music is Free!

Check out this Organization:
http://copylike.org/
https://www.facebook.com/copylike

People often tell us: 
“Find other ways of making money!
Music is free!”

Would you do your job for free? Why should musicians make
their music for free and then find “other ways” to make money?

Would you throw a plumber out of your house without paying?

Would you tell him, “Hey buddy you should sell some
t-shirts instead! I’m not paying for this plumbing, plumbing
is easy! You’ve even got a van, you’re probably rich! No go and
do all my freinds’ plumbing for free!”

No, you probably wouldn’t say that.

Defend Copyright.
It’s All We Have Left.
COPYLIKE.ORG

by trichordist