Copyright Term Extensions, Historically

Here’s how I came to be so interested in intellectual property, in policy, and the technical aspects of both of these things. I’ve traced some of my more structured fascination back to this Keynote (as opposed to PowerPoint) presentation by Lawrence Lessig. This presentation built on the anger I felt when I saw that Tom Dooley was a copyrighted work. My grandmother taught me Tom Dooley, and Cotton Pickin’ and Mountain Dew, and in my copy of Rise Up Singing they were all copyrighted. I was filled with righteous anger. How could people make money off of works which I learned from my grandmother? What did it mean that I could not publically perform songs which she told me she had learned back home in Tennessee when she was a girl?

I am sure, being the vocal person I am, I brought up my anger in one of my classes with Ms Nace. Later, she sent me this keynote:

In the version I had, the last slide was a list of websites I could go to if I wanted to learn more. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was one of them. I applied for an internship, got it, and here I am today, four years later, in love with the Berkman Center and planning on Law School after undergrad.

In support of the presentation above, I found this amazing graph:

Historical Increases in Copyright Terms

I found it when I was researching the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. The graph is, fittingly, licensed under Creative Commons Share-Alike License. It is also fairly damning evidence of the stead historical increase in copyright terms. This is a trend which I have never heard fully explained–do we in 2008 need so much more protection than Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway or The Brothers Grimm?

Inspirational Quote:

Dick Armey – “You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.”

Pride and Prejudice on Facebook (or, of Fanfiction and Copyright)

I found this delightful piece a few weeks ago and wanted to share it. It is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice retold through Facebook statuses, events, and tags.

Here is a sample:

Excerpt from Pride and Prejudice on Facebook

The whole thing is like that, a mix of Facebook events, statuses, and tagged letters.

–

It’s cute; but is it legal?

The above is a great example of original fanfiction. It is innovative, interesting to read, and well written. Because Jane Austen’s works are all out of copyright, and thus in the public domain, this work should be legal. But something similiar, say, about the characters of “Rent”, might not be legal. Perhaps it would be covered under fair use (fair use is simply, legal unauthorized use of a copyrighted work); but perhaps not. Fair use has been steadily neutered in the past century and is currently a hard defense to make. But more on that later.

It’s rough for a me, as a fan and intellectual property geek, to discuss fanfiction. Much of it clearly violates the intent of copyright (that is, it wrests control a world away from its original creator). Some of it is probably original enough to warrant fair use protection (the above is a great example of original fan work). Much of it is not.

Under the popular modern economic defense of copyright (ie, that the purpose of copyright is to allow authors to profit from their work as long as possible) fanfiction should not be a violation*. I would argue that, as upset as Disney’s writers might get to read fics where Jack Sparrow and Will Turner are paired romantically, it does them no harm economically. No one will read Jack/Will fics rather than buy the DVD of PotC (Pirates of the Caribbean), and a fan unfamiliar with that PotC may become hooked on the series after reading a fic based on it.

Anime creators have long seen the economic benefits of fan-art, fanfiction, and, especially, AMVs. I was shocked to learn that the AMV (Anime Music Video) competitions held at fanime were sanctioned by the copyright holders of the animes shown. They treat AMVs, fanfiction and fan-art as free advertising, and encourage fans to spread their love of that Anime (be it Trigun, Full Metal Alchemist, or Sailor Moon).

I can’t imagine Disney (or Metallica for that matter) permitting a fan to remix Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Metallica’s “Die, Die, My Darling”. But that is what some fan has done here:

It should be noted that both Disney and Metallica are (in?)famous for aggressively defending their copyrighted works. Metallica was instrumental in the demonization of Napster, while Disney’s advocation of progressively longer copyright terms has lead to many intellectual property geeks nick-naming the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 the Mickey Mouse Protection Act.

I still enjoy reading fanfiction, and have several friends who write it. It is time that their legal status got cleared up, and the fair use defenses of their writings get better defended.

*Note that this definition of copyright is different from the one given above, which is about the intellectual control of an author over her property, not her economic benefit.

Inspirational Quote:

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
— Philip Pullman

PS: I just found this amazing video on Fair Use. It uses snippets from Disney to explain copyright, fair use and the public domain. So. Good.

Grassroots Approach to Copyright Simplification

Maybe it’s because Lawrence Lessig is on my mind–he’ll be speaking at Pitt this Thursday–but I have been thinking about the history of copyright changes. From the casual approach to authorship in Shakespeare’s time to our current complex and litigious attitudes, the relationship between authorship and copyright has been becoming more complex over time.

However now there are major authors rebelling–and doing great work while doing so. Joss Whedon, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly fame, had an idea during last year’s writers’ strike. How about a internet musical? Since much of the contract conflict was over how writers should be paid for online distribution, he  wanted to experiment with the medium. He came up with Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The metrics for its success are well publicized but what I found fascinating quote from the above-linked article was the new profit model Dr Horrible respresented. (Joss Whedon was the producer for Buffy, Fillion played Captain Malcolm Reyolds on Firefly:

Joss Whedon It did start out as kind of a political statement. As we got into preproduction, and the strike was over, it was more about ”Okay, we didn’t have our chance to make a bold statement, but we still have our chance to make this.” And now it’s sort of come full circle because people are talking about it as an Internet event, as a business model, as all the things that we had hoped for back when we were still carrying our picket signs. We believe, yes, it will be profitable. It’s not I am Legend, not bang out of the gate, ”Woohoo! Studios take note, we’ve all become billionaires in 30 minutes.” More just like it’s just going to keep going until, yes, we can pay everybody off and then there might be a little more there.

Fillion It’s a brand new deal. The people who created it are the people who are in control of it. It’s such a weird thing, an incredibly cool thing. I think a very interesting peek at how I think things are going to start to be: the future of entertainment, I believe.

This is obviously not the first time artists have turned to the internet to distribute content their usual distributors were being difficult. However what is super-neat about Dr Horrible is how clear the profit model appears. The actors did not get paid during production. It was obviously a labor of love for all of the cast members.

But Joss Whedon promised the cast he would try to pay them from online sales–through iTunes mostly. I watched it over Lilly’s shoulder this weekend and I watched a few clips on YouTube to confirm I wanted to purchase it. Then, driven by the knowledge that there were cast members waiting for me to buy it to get paid, I went and spent 6 dollars on iTunes to buy the whole 45 minutes musical. And it made me feel better about spending money on music than I have in a long time.

Go Joss Whedon!

Inspirational Quote:

John Lennon – “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

Facebook takedown notice, swearing, and copyright

I get back from my 10 day family trip to find I have had upwards of 700 hits *a day* because of a post I wrote last December in response to a facebook takedown notice scam. I have been cited on Answers.com, numerous wall posts, and most disturbingly, I have had a group created for which my blog is the website.

Disturbing, because the title of that group is “ATTENTION ALL FACEBOOK MEMBERS: YOU ARE FUCKING RETARDED.” Now, I think dropping the f-bomb is appropriate in some circumstances. As a friend once told me, you have to have words saved up for when you drop an anvil on your foot. Some of my other friends tease me when I swear, saying I am using up my limited monthly quota of cuss-words. What bothers me here is the use of “retarded”, a slang usage I object to vociferously in private conversation. Here is my response to the wall of that group:

Hey all, this is Jessica, writer of the feelingelephants blog. I’m glad so many people are finding my post on this, but I have to agree with the first poster–the name is pretty stupid. As someone who works with autistic kids and has family members on the Autism Spectrum, I think using “retarded” when you mean “so far beyond stupid we’re not sure you’re human” is simply inaccurate. I haven’t decided if I am comfortable having my website attached to this title or what I can ask to be done about it if I decide I am not comfortable. Thanks for the link, I’ll write back after I think some more…

Other than cussing and the insulting use of “retarded”, I do believe this group’s creator is violating my copyright. Not the fiddly, costly, overused form of innovation-crushing copyright; that I still dislike. But I believe this group violates the essence of the Copy Right–my right to chose where my words appear and in what form. The creator of this group has copied my post verbatim to this group site–in a degraded form I might add, as he did not include my links–without my permission or notification. While he does cite my website, by copying my words in totality and pasting them under a group title, he is linking my very character to a group whose title I object to. As I said in my post, I am still not sure what to do about this, but I will put some thought into it.

I should get back to posting more regularly now I will be going off to school. Living with my core readership takes some of the impetus out of daily postings .

Inspirational Quote:

“Caution: The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish.” — On a bottle of shampoo for dogs.

“When I am Laid in Earth” on YouTube (Or, 3 ways for Dido to die)

I was looking around for recordings of the Purcell songs I am now working on (“What can we poor females do” and “Music for a while”) and I found these three interesting takes on Dido’s final scene in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”.

The first is the most innovative. It is performed by the Swingle Singers. I really like the jazz take on the music–isn’t it neat how human sorrow translates across styles and centuries?

This second one may be the most famous version, performed by Janet Baker. I had never performed this piece as a request and an apology to Belinda (Dido’s sister) but I always sang it to all of Dido’s subjects. Here Janet Baker performs a much more personal version which branches off into a more general appeal.

I couldn’t figure out what language the aria is being translated into–maybe an eastern European or Asian language? I like how much she plays with the notes here.

The one thing I did not like in all of the version I found was that Dido is always in fancy delicate clothes. Now, having read The Aeneid in English and Latin, there is no doubt in my mind that Dido was a fighter if not a Warrior Queen. She single-handedly forged a colony out of the wilderness for her and her people to live in peace away from her brother. She is not the kind of woman to be wearing little wispies of nothing or a huge frilly hoop skirt–not with a country to run and battles to fight. The whole point was how devastating different her lovesickness for Aeneas was from her usual habits.

Anyhoo, other than a disturbing trend to make Dido excessively fem, I liked all of these videos and hope you do as well!

Inspirational Quote:

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There’s a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. – Bill Gates

Music for Choir (and Classical Music Archives)

Hey all,

Right now I am learning two new pieces for the Carnegie Mellon Repertory Chorus: “How lovely is thy dwelling place” (English translation of “Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen”) from Brahms’s Requiem and “O Magnum Mysterium” by Nancy Galbraith. Because we learn all of our music outside of class, I have been tying to find a way to do this effectively. Other than moving my 45 minute solo practices to about an hour with half an hour dedicated to those two (or more) I also wanted to listen to what “How lovely” should sound like.

When I became a member of NPR they gave me 6 months access to Classical Music Archives which is a members-only music site with tons of downloadable music (with some restrictions, some DRM stuff). I found a midi of “How lovely” which has helped me a lot, but in the past I have found major classical artists recordings of just about anything I wanted to listen to. They also have instrumental, though that not really my thing.

They only include music which is in the Public Domain so with some files you have a lot more creative freedom than anything you get from iTunes.

Anyhoo, I love them and they make my life easier. I hope you have a great day!

Inspirational quote:

How lovely is Thy dwelling-place

O Lord of Hosts,

O Lord of Hosts,

Thy dwelling-place,

O Lord of Hosts,

For my soul,

it longeth, yea, fainteth

it longeth, yea, fainteth

for the courts  of the Lord;

my soul and body crieth out

my soul and body crieth out

yea, for the living,

yea, for the living God

How lovely is Thy dwelling-place

O Lord of Hosts,

Blest are they,

O blest are they that dwell,

that dwell within Thy house;

they praise Thy name evermore,

they praise Thy name evermore,

they praise Thee,

they praise Thee,

praise Thy name evermore!

How lovely, how lovely, is Thy dwelling-place

–From “Requiem” by Johannes Brahms

Happy Day!

To a certain brother I have, here is the first of 2 gifts. The first are a bunch of quotes I collected while at the EFF (Can you guess why I’m putting them here?). The second is more physcial and will be seen soon.

15 quotes on Free Speech
1. “The public interest is best served by the free exchange of ideas.” (Judge John Kane)
2. “To some of us, preserving the Net for free speech is more important than anything in the free world.” (Ron Newman, netizen)
3. “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” (Salman Rushdie)
4. “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” (William Orville Douglas)
5. “Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.” (Eugene Gladstone O’Neill)
6. “Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.” (George Bernard Shaw)
7. “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is afraid of its people.” (John Fitzgerald Kennedy)
8. “Free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even outrageous word; and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.” (Colin Powell)
9. “All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let’s get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States — and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!” (Kurt Vonnegut, author)
10. “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” (Noam Chomsky)
11. “If the human body’s obscene, complain to the manufacturer, not me.” (Larry Flynt)
12. “Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.” (Nadine Gordimer)
13. “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” (Mark Twain)
14. “[O]ne man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric” (John Marshall Harlan, Supreme Court justice, 1971)
15. “All of us can think of a book… that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf – that work I abhor – then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.” (Katherine Paterson, American author of childrens books)
16. “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it.” (Evelyn Beatrice Hall, of Voltair’s attitude) ——- this was my senior quote!!!—–

15 quotes on Fair Use

1. “People confuse ‘fair use’ with ‘personal use.’ They are not the same. Fair use is a set of guidelines used by judges in a courtroom. Personal use is your activity on your computers at home,” (Ted Cohen)
2. “Fight piracy; don’t squash innovation,” (Joe Krauss)
3. “By definition, all fair use is unauthorized. The whole point of fair use is that it is unauthorized, but noninfringing use.” (http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20000907_eff_comments_hdtv.html)
4. “Fair use is important to innovators as well as consumers. It’s fair use that allowed the VCR to innovate on top of the television,” (Joe Krauss, head of DigitalConsumer.org)
5. “Media companies, under the guise of piracy, are asking congress to give them more control over fair use. Hollywood wants to control innovation.” (Joe Krauss)
6. “The copyright bargain: a balance between protection for the artist and rights for the consumer,” (Robin Gross)
7. “We’re on the path of creating monopoly business practices out of copyright law,” (Robin Gross)
8. “The marketers can compete with free; it just has to be better. Look at bottled water if you don’t believe me,” (Jonathan Potter, Digital Media Association)
9. “The record industry is still pissed off that other people are making money off their business, even if it promotes their products and increases their sales. I think they’re still mad about radio,” (Jonathan Potter)
10. “Fair use is always going to be a gray area, and it should be. We need to allow for things we can’t see yet,” (Robin Gross)
11. “Just let me use the technology I want at a fair price,” (Jonathan Potter)
12. “‘Fair use . . . what use is it?’ Or so ask the corporations, adding “After all, we can’t make money from people doing things under fair-use law . . . so whose bright idea was it anyway? And why can’t we get rid of it?” (http://www.deadjournal.com/users/clasher/23812.html)
13. “Preserving fair use necessarily means preserving an ability to make copies that the authors do not expressly permit.” (http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/20000907_eff_comments_hdtv.html)
14. “For what it’s worth, here’s my rule-of-thumb for determining fair use quote of another weblogger’s post. Consistent with not misrepresenting what the original weblogger wrote in toto, I quote only enough to provide my following comments, critical or otherwise, their raison d’être or jumping-off place, and just enough to whet my readers’ appetite for the reading of the original weblogger’s entire post, which, except in those cases of my withholding for charitable or protective reasons the identity of the original weblogger, is always linked.” (http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/09/fair_use.html)
15. “The Fair Use Doctrine is one of the most important limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. It allows that copyright can be infringed because strict application of the law impedes the production and dissemination of works to the public.” (http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/copyrightarticle/whatfairuse.htm)

15 quotes on Innovation

1. “The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.” (Arthur Koestler) “What actually urges [the scientific investigator] on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes.” (H L Mencken)
2. “All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” (Galileo Galilei)
3. “For artists diving into a new technology, it is a triple short-cut to mastery: you get a free ride on the novelty of the medium; there are no previous masters to surpass; and after a few weeks, you are the master. Try that with the violin.” (Stewart Brand)
4. “What actually urges [the scientific investigator] on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes.” (H L Mencken)
5. “You can be discouraged by failure, or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes, make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success – on the far side of failure.” (Thomas J. Watson Sr)
6. “When you’re the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you’re basically saying, “I’m right, and everyone else is wrong.” That’s a very unpleasant position to be in. It’s at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.” (Larry Ellison)
7. “You ought to be able to show that you can do it a great deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.” (Ernest Hemingway)
8. “A game in which you fly around in space and shoot up other space ships? That is the stupidest idea that I have ever heard.” (Atari manager)
9. “It’s fascinating as we continue to innovate and lead the way in both the application space and the database space. In the very beginning, people said you couldn’t make relational databases fast enough to be commercially viable. I thought we could, and we were the first to do it. But we took tremendous abuse until IBM said, “Oh yeah, this stuff is good.” (Larry Ellison)
10. “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to management than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.” (Nicolo Machiavelli)
11. “Innovation has never come through bureaucracy and hierarchy. It’s always come from individuals.” (John Scully, Chairman, Apple Computers)
12. “Economists and historians alike realize that there is a deep difference between homo economicus and homo creativus. One makes the most of what nature permits him to have. The other rebels against nature’s dictates. Technological creativity, like all creativity, is an act of rebellion.” (Joel Mokyr)
13. “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” (Andre Gide)
14. “You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.” (Denis Waitley)
15. “The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their character. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it.” (David Ogilvy)

15 quotes on Privacy
1. “The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.” (Mark Twain)
2. “Privacy is the right to be alone—the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man.” (Louis D. Brandeis)
3. “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.” (Gibran Kahlil)
4. “Why doesn’t everybody leave everybody else the hell alone? (Jimmy Durante)
5. “Modern Americans are so exposed, peered at, inquired about, and spied upon as to be increasingly without privacy–members of a naked society and denizens of a goldfish bowl.” (Edward V. Long)
6. “Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.” (Marlon Brando)
7. “Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.” (Lewis Mumford)
8. “Isn’t privacy about keeping taboos in their place? (Kate Millet)
9. “The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen — a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life.” (Justice William O. Douglas)
10. “I’ve always been very zealous about not invading other people’s private spaces.” (Peter Jennings)
11. “Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal teepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need’s sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place.” (Phyllis Mcginley)
12. “Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.” (John Perry Barlow)
13. “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize the oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all… It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes.” (Justice Hugo L. Black)
14. “You use your money to buy privacy because during most of your life you aren’t allowed to be normal.” (Johnny Depp)
15. “Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home.” (Justice Louis D. Brandeis)

Enjoy!

EFF’s Effector (3 1/2 lessons)

I spent the entire day cleaning. Meaning I started cleaning at 10:30 this morning, and stopped (I will not say “finished”) about 10 minutes ago. *sigh* So instead of talking about the majority of my dusty day, I am going to write something cool about one of my favorite so-chock-full-of-legal-language-and-ultra-geeky-fabulousness-I-can’t-get-through-an-entire-issue newsletter.

3 things I learned in this week’s Effector:

1)  “Copyright law’s “first sale” doctrine makes it clear that the owner of a CD is entitled to resell it without the permission of the copyright holder. ” I always wondered about that. I know garage sales are technically illegal (have *you* ever paid sales tax on those beautiful new boots or rocking chair you bought at that garage sale? The US Government wants *you* to give them your monies) but I always felt sqwitchy about buying CDs at garage sales. Now I can focus my garage sale questions on whether the previous owner has maintained digital copies of the CDs when I am thinking of spending my hard earned monies.

2) WARNING. ANY UNAUTHORIZED US OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WEB BLOG ARE PUNISHABLE BY RASPBERRIES AND POKING. NOT TO MENTION SHORT SHEETING AND INCLUSION OF AMPHIBIOUS BEINGS IN BEDS. YOU CAN FIND THIS WARNING UNDER STATUTE 20303583-8B32370849B340 3RD PARAGRAPH.

“Last Wednesday, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA)) filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), asking the Commission to take a number of major corporations to task for their misleading and intimidating copyright warnings. Targets include: the NFL, Major League Baseball, DreamWorks, Morgan Creek (producers of “The Good Shepherd”), and the book publishers, Harcourt and Penguin. “

Yay! Maybe someday I won’t have to yell and/or avert my eyes from the screen during movie parties. See, Fair Use is *by definition* an unauthorized use of copyrighted material. If you’re wondering when a Use is Fair, see these guidelines:

The four factors judges consider [when determining if something is fair use] are:

1. the purpose and character of your use
2. the nature of the copyrighted work
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market.

 http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/copyright/fairuse.html

3) “puckish” is a word. It makes sense; I’d just never heard it before. Oh, and the real Fake Steve Jobs  (FSJ to his fans) is Daniel Lyons. An article where he is quoted gave me this cool new info about the word “puckish”. I love writers, they talk funny.

PS: as an update to my post on () I have another 3rd party security company to add: Huntleigh does security for US Air. There’s another Huntleigh here which I first mistook for the airport security group. They’re a brokerage in Saint Louis. I mention this because ICTS (the globla corporation of which Huntleigh is a  subsidiary) mentions on their webpage Huntleigh-subsidiary is located in St Louis as well. What’s with that?
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray. . . .”
“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that—”
“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”
Granny Weatherwax and the everso anxious preacher in Carpe Jugulum. See what the fair use thing said about “Amount and substantiality of the portion taken” and “effect of the use upon the potential market”? Well, if reading this quote fulfills you need for Terry Pratchett, I am very sorry.

Metadata in the news

Hey,

So, a little bit less political today. Ok, just a little calmer. Here are 3 really cool articles on where metadata shows up in the real world.

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/06/26/piracy-lessons

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/29/2837/

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9546242&CFID=13851491&CFTOKEN=81503514

The first is about how pirates use metadata to accurately show their downloaders the facts about whatever they’re downloading (and explaining why legit movie retailers could learn something about product information from said pirates). It is nice to see a comparison of the quality legally and illegally obtained movies simply because this kind of discussion does not happen in mainstream media. I would like to point out that I abstain from pirating movies and music because, though I think the current life + 70 years term of copyright is unreasonable it is the law and I need the moral high ground to argue for the reduction of copyright to some more reasonable period.

The second link is to a NYT article on the deeper aspects of the allegations that the NSA holds vast databases full of metadata about private US citizens. This is interesting in the first place because I don’t like the idea of the NSA going for datamining expeditions nor do I like them having huge databases about US citizens just in a general way. In the second place, it is suggested that this data mining program was the program which the current Attorney General and previous White House Counsel asked John Ashcroft (then Attorney General) to continue when he was in the hospital. Attorney General Gonzales has testified under oath that there was never any major controversy in the DOJ over the wiretapping and that the discussion with then Attorney General Ashcroft was about other security matters, potentially this data mining operation. As The Economist says “And perhaps Mr Gonzales is merely a weasel and not a perjurer” (this week’s ed).

This final story does not actually mention metadata it mentions how aid agencies are using online databases of people’s names and locations to allow families separated by disasters to find each other. This is an incredible article talking about the shifting relationship between donor and victim and how technology allows people in aid-needing countries to ask for the aid they need. A few cool quotes:

“Télécoms sans Frontières (TSF), a French voluntary agency (total staff: a dozen), goes in with the UN team that does the first needs-assessment in the hours after disaster strikes.”

“The Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, a group of agencies bent on learning from past mistakes, notes that “local people themselves provided almost all immediate life-saving action and the early-emergency support, as is commonly the case in disasters.””

“Family remittances are already a bigger source of transfers to poor countries than government aid.”

I wonder if TSF wants an intern? Just kidding, I need college. But seriously, I think it’s amazing that the same technology which can be used to track digitized books and DVDs can be used to track everyone from innocent civilians to innocent victims of disasters. It’s all in how that metadata is used. But wouldn’t it rock to program for the UN? On that note, here’s my goodnight quote:

“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the love of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.” Robert Southey

Raids on Mod Shops

I must admit I am breaking what should be a cardinal law of journalism: I am writing about a subject I do not fully understand. However I am including the recent raids on mod shops in my blog precisely because I do not fully understand what “modding” is in a legal sense and I want to get down what I feel while I’m still a n00b. Below is the post I am referring to throughout my writing today:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EElyEEkAllysyVJWYQ.php

Then the Google definition for “mod”,

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=bTL&q=define%3A+mod&btnG=Search

And finally the first mod website which I found. I have linked to the “about us” page because I suddenly realized when reading it that one could make money from reviewing video games–not something I have enough expertise to do myself, but something certain other people close in blood and relationship could do. eh hem.

http://www.ocmodshop.com/aboutus/

So in the first article (which I found via the “Hack a day” window from HackADay (http://www.hackaday.com) which lives on my iGoogle page. Just cuz!) a modder is raided by the FBI–ok, now this is scary. In the post above the modder refers to the people who raided his house as “the ICE”. Because I found the post on a game oriented site I thought it might be a slang term (like calling police pig, the popo or the fuz). But I wanted to be sure so I looked it up. My first his I couldn’t believe: ICE = “US Immigration and Customs Enforcement”. And guess what the headline for their mainpage website is? “Game Over: ICE, Industry Team Up in Gaming Piracy Crackdown”.

See, being slightly biased against anonymous postings, I had heaped a tablespoon of salt in with my interpretation of the first article. Below is the above named article with my own commentary inserted. WARNING: I want to say now I don’t really like the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and I am excessively paranoid about government’s views on copyright and intellectual property being influenced by industries with embedded interests (rather than being influenced by the consumer’s need for a public domain or the artist’s need to build on the past. You can tell I’m biased already ).
Game Over: ICE, Industry Team Up in Gaming Piracy Crackdown
32 search warrants executed in nationwide intellectual property rights investigation

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from 22 offices assisted by representatives of the electronic industry today executed 32 federal search warrants in 16 states as part of an investigation into the alleged sale and distribution of illegal modification chips and disc copyright circumvention devices. This investigation represents the largest national enforcement action of its kind targeting this type of illegal activity.

/*

Note how “representatives of the electronic industry” helped federal agents to execute warrants? This is probably my lack of legal knowledge but I thought warrants could only be executed by representatives of the*elected government*. And I never like seeing the government be so coordinated in its enforcement. I believe in inefficient bureaucracy.

*/

The search warrants were executed at businesses, storefronts, and residences located in California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin at locations associated with subjects who are allegedly involved in the direct importation, installation, sale, and distribution of the devices that are of foreign manufacture and smuggled into the United States.

/*

Two of the first article’s claims seem to be verified circumstantially here: residences (his grandmother’s house, his girlfriend’s house) were targeted and his stated home state (Ohio) is listed as a state where such raids took place. Also, interestingly, “This enforcement action is the result of a year long investigation conducted by the ICE Office of the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Cleveland, Ohio”. So Ohio ICE had a home team advantage here. That quote will come up later.

*/

The modification chips and circumvention devices allow users to play illegally obtained, pirated and/or counterfeit software on video game consoles including Sony’s Playstation 2, Microsoft’s XBOX and XBOX 360, and Nintendo’s Wii. Modification chips and swap discs for gaming consoles violate laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA). According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the makers of the gaming consoles, game developers, and others in the industry have incurred billions of dollars in losses worldwide due to sales lost to those selling counterfeit and pirated video games.

/*

See, my suspicion is that modding can have uses other than the illegal. This is like the old refrain in the pre P2P-is-how-you-down-load-any-big-file days when P2P = Pir A Cy (If the RIAA and MPAA had cheers. Which they don’t, really.) Unfortunately this is where my lack of knowledge of the legal implications of modding kicks in. But I generally find the people who do it for a living know more about what they do than the people who were assigned to prosecute them. Here’s a rebuttal from the first site’s admins:

“HSD – Xbox-Scene and it’s affiliate sites do not condone or endorse piracy, however we do strive to discuss, educate, and explore methods of modifying and operating game consoles in ways not originally intended or envisioned by the manufacturers. We whole heartedly believe in the right to backup your investment. “

So putting those two statements together, I gather than modding can be much like the other weird but not always infringing uses of products which users sometimes get into. The moral equivalent of importing a song bought form iTunes into Garage Band and trying to edit out the irritating crowd noise but being stopped by iTune’s DRM

Maybe someday I’ll tell that story.

*/

Counterfeiting and piracy is estimated to cost the U.S. economy between $200 billion and $250 billion annually and results in the loss of up to 750,000 jobs according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

/*

Remember when the record industry was selling the line that people who download music are stealing from artists? Remember when the music industry (but sadly not the recording industry) didn’t bother to court online customers until iTunes pushed? I’m sorry, I am cynical about such large claims of American loss to pirates. I’ve heard it before.

*/

“Illicit devices like the ones targeted today are created with one purpose in mind, subverting copyright protections,” said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “These crimes cost legitimate businesses billions of dollars annually and facilitate multiple other layers of criminality, such as smuggling, software piracy and money laundering.”

*/

Oooh, washable monies. oh, she means the other kind. Again, I would like to point out the many things which the software industry hates because they have potentially infringing uses. But I won’t, because it would make me sad. It is however interesting to note the claim of smuggling, because that is one of the implied accustations in the first article (or that’s what I got from the ICE agent’s questions about the poster’s software from Canada).

/*

As the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, ICE plays a leading role in targeting criminal organizations responsible for producing, smuggling and distributing counterfeit products. ICE investigations focus on keeping counterfeit and pirated products off U.S. streets, and on dismantling the criminal organizations behind this illegal activity. In fiscal year 2006, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and ICE marked an 83 percent increase in the number of intellectual property rights (IPR) seizures, including 14,675 seizures of counterfeit goods worth more than $155 million, a 67 percent increase from the year before. ICE investigations resulted in 219 arrests, 134 indictments and 170 convictions in intellectual property rights violations.

*/

I’m not going to comment on each of those numbers, but look at the whole picture there: I see a government agency with more power than reputation, with more money than track record and with a burning need to prosecute to prove itself. It is also part of the Department of Homeland Security which is also being given more powers than I am comfortable with such a one-presidency agency having. This stuff makes me scared.

*/

Between fiscal years 2002 and 2006, ICE agents arrested more than 700 individuals for IPR violations and dismantled several large scale criminal organizations that distributed counterfeit merchandise to nations around the globe. At the same time, ICE investigations into these networks resulted in 449 criminal indictments and 425 convictions. Together, ICE and CBP seized more than $750 million worth of counterfeit goods from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2006.

/*

And see, here I get this stuff. We’ve gone from the hacker-next-door to the Russian Mafia in one brisk sweep. Large crime organizations, I like those being taken apart. That “88 percent of software, 80 percent of DVDs and 66 percent of music recordings in Russia are counterfeit” is *not ok*. It speaks of badness in many many ways. But what is the real connection between modders and mafiosos? Really?

This enforcement action is the result of a year long investigation conducted by the ICE Office of the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Cleveland, Ohio.

// See? I told you I would come up.

The names of those targeted, addresses and case specifics are not releasable at this time.

/*

So here it is. There is no way for me to check to see if the poster from the first article’s claim was accurate. Given then what s/he said s/he was doing sounds a lot like what ICE was cracking down on, it seems a likely story.

*/

The investigation is being coordinated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland and assisted by the Department of Justice Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS). In addition, ICE has received valuable technical assistance during this investigation from ESA and other industry members.

/*

And here’s the closing theme of the story: “CE has received valuable technical assistance during this investigation from ESA and other industry members”. This article begins and ends with industry helping the government crackdown on stuff that hurts industry. Logical but wrong. Wrong because the government should not be focusing the largest arm of the largest security coordinator in the US (on the planet?) on one group’s needs. Wrong because it means those ICE agents who were ‘assisted’ by “ESA and other industry members” *could not have helped but to be biased against the modders*. In the article at the top, the poster seems to have been doing illegal things. But they took his XBox and 360. Why? In the post at the top the modder says “All the chips and relative parts were taken on the recommendation of the computer forensics guy who was to be doing the analysis on my things”. Was he part of the “technical assistance” which ESA provided? Ok, so here’s the scenario which most wiggs me out: a private citizen (ESA member) advises government agents with the ability to search and potentially seize another private citizen (modder)’s belongings. Maybe the ICE agents have special training in modding. Maybe they don’t. If they don’t, can’t you just see them following the advice of the ESA member on what to take? Sounds a bit like theft to me.
Industry Points of Contact:

General photos and video of the gaming products and circumvention devices and data detailing the impact of counterfeiting and piracy on the industry may be available by contacting industry representatives.

* Entertainment Software Association: Dan Hewitt, 202-223-2400, dhewitt@theesa.com
* U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Katie Wilson, (202) 463-5375 (general impact of counterfeiting and piracy on U.S. industry)
* Nintendo: Eileen Tanner, 509-628-1993, etanner@golinharris.com Microsoft: Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, 503-443-7070

//Again notice the deferral to industry specialists.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of five integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.

//and we finish with national security. Goodnight.