Posts Tagged: "copyright law"

After nearly twenty years with the DMCA, the Copyright Office has launched a new study to examine the impact and effectiveness of this system, and voices on both sides of the debate have filed comments expressing their views. For the most part, frustrated copyright owners report that the DMCA has not successfully stemmed the tide of online infringement, which is completely unsurprising to anyone who spends a few minutes online searching for copyrighted works. Unfortunately, some commentators are also pushing for changes that that would make things even more difficult for copyright owners.

A patent is a proprietary right granted by the Federal government pursuant to laws passed by Congress. The Congressional power to authorize patents is found in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution. exclusive rights are provided for a limited time as an incentive to inventors, entrepreneurs and corporations to engage in research and development, to spend the time, energy and capital resources necessary to create useful inventions; which will hopefully have a positive effect on society through the introduction of new products and processes of manufacture into the economy, including life saving treatments and cures. See Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U.S. 470, 480 (1974).

Earlier today the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a report titled White Paper on Remixes, First Sale, and Statutory Damages, which recommends amendments to U.S. copyright law that would provide more guidance and greater flexibility to courts in awarding statutory damages. However, the Task Force has found insufficient evidence to show that there is a change in circumstance in the markets or technology that requires action on amending the first sale doctrine.

New Zealand Judge Nevin Dawson handed down a ruling that would allow the United States to move forward with the extradition of Kim Dotcom, the founder of the former Megaupload.com, one of the world’s most popular file sharing websites at the height of its power. Kim and others involved with Megaupload have been sought under counts of criminal copyright infringement, racketeering, conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringement. The original indictment, filed by the Department of Justice in the Eastern District Court of Virginia back in January 2012, alleged that Kim and other defendants were responsible for $500 million in harm to copyright holders.

Automotive software exemptions were only one class of circumvention made allowable by the recent copyright rules which may be exciting for some DIY tech enthusiasts. Jailbreaking, or the process of accessing a device’s operating software to execute software which otherwise could not be run, is now legal in some limited forms for an array of electronic devices. For smartphones and tablets, the Copyright Office favored an exemption for circumvention of operating system software to execute lawfully obtained software applications, or to remove unwanted software from the device. This exemption only applies to “portable all-purpose mobile computing devices” and so only doesn’t extend to specialized devices like e-book readers, vehicle-embedded systems or handheld gaming devices. This rule closely reflects requests made in a petition by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) despite opposition from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) as well as the National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s (NTIA) opinion that the exemption should also extend to e-book readers and other specialized devices.

At the end of her speech Pallante mentioned that she had just received a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee, specifically sent by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who Chairs the Committee, and Ranking Member Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The letter from Grassley and Leahy asked the Copyright Office to undertake a study and to report back on a number of software copyright issues. Pallante read a portion of the letter received from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which said: “As software plays an ever increasing role in defining consumer interactions with devices and products, many questions are being asked about how consumers can lawfully use products that rely on software to function.” She then remarked that this inquiry goes away from copyrights merely protecting expressive content, and further pointed out that the Senate is asking about works that are protected by copyright but still functional.

Critics argue that intellectual property is bad for innovation in part because it allows for “monopolies” that prevent the public from using certain creations without permission for a period of time. As a preliminary matter, the use of the misleading scare-term “monopolies” to describe property rights in inventive and creative labor is clearly an attempt to skew the debate from the outset. After all, you wouldn’t call property rights in hard-copy creations, like the crops a farmer harvested, “monopolies” in those creations. Furthermore, if public access is the concern, a system that fails to provide inventors and creators the economic freedom to create things to market to the public in the first place will be far more harmful than a system that secures justly-earned property rights in inventors’ and artists’ productive labors.

Mark Towle owns Gotham Garage, which manufactures and sells replicas of automobiles featured in famous motion pictures and television programs. Gotham Garage specifically sold fully constructed cars as well as kits which allow customers to modify their car to look like the Batmobile, and advertised its replicas as “Batmobiles” while marketing its business via the domain name batmobilereplicas.com. In May 2011, DC Comics filed suit against Towle for copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition arising out of Towle’s marketing and sale of Batmobile replicas. Towle countered that the Batmobile – at least as it appeared in the famous 1966 television series and the 1989 motion picture, the main inspirations for Gotham Garage’s designs – was not subject to copyright protection.

In February 2007, Stephanie Lenz uploaded a 29-second video of her son dancing in her kitchen to the Prince song “Let’s Go Crazy” to YouTube. Universal Music Group, Prince’s publishing administrator responsible for enforcing his copyrights, objected to the otherwise-innocuous video, and sent YouTube a warning to remove the video, claiming that it constituted copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Stephanie Lenz sued, arguing that Universal’s takedown request targeted permissible fair use, which generally permits the use of copyrighted material in limited conditions, such as when used in connection with criticism, parody, commentary or news reporting.

Three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont (The Green Mile; The Shawshank Redemption) brought the The Walking Dead TV show to life. He wrote, directed, and produced the pilot episode, and served as the showrunner and executive producer (often-synonymous positions) for its smash-hit first season. It was surprising then, when AMC suddenly fired Darabont while Season 2 was in production, and after sending him to promote the series at Comic-Con. Darabont sued in New York State Court in December of 2013, and recently amended his complaint to include the lack of accreditation and profits allegedly owed him from AMC’s “companion series,” Fear the Walking Dead.

Judge McKeown rejects Garcia’s copyright claim, explaining, “Innocence of Muslims is an audiovisual work that is categorized as a motion picture and is derivative of the script. Garcia is the author of none of this and makes no copyright claim to the film of the script. Instead, Garcia claims that her five-second performance itself merits copyright protection.” During litigation, the Copyright Office found Garcia’s performance was not eligible for copyright.

Thicke maintains that the Gaye family doesn’t own a genre, a style, or a groove and he’s right. The Gayes point out no other musicians or songs of the era were compared with “Blurred Lines,” and they’re right, too. A viable criticism of the verdict is that it could have a chilling effect on new music for fear of overzealous copyright owners attempting to expand this concept to their cases. Is it possible that a ruling of this nature would stifle creativity? Perhaps, but people were saying the same thing when the music sampling cases happened, and the industry adapted just fine.

Marvin Gaye enjoyed tremendous success during this decade and his song Got to Give it Up topped the charts in 1977. Fast forward nearly forty years to 2013, when the tremendously popular singer / songwriter, Robin Thicke recorded his number one hit, Blurred Lines. Got to Give it Up was recorded in 1976 and released in 1977, which means its copyright is governed by the 1909 Act. Now, under the 1909 Act, a work had to be published with notice or a deposit had to be made in the Copyright Office. Mere distribution of a song did not meet the publication requirement. Blurred Lines, however, is protected under the 1976 Act. A notable difference between the two statutes is that the 1976 Act gives automatic protection to any original work fixed in a tangible medium.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler has been selected by Democrats to be the Ranking Member of the House IP Subcommittee. It appears that Issa may be getting squeezed out, which could mean that the House IP Subcommittee will have a lot less work to do than one might expect in a Congress that will be seeking to push major reforms to both the Copyright Act, the Patent Act and to implement federal trade secret legislation. Nevertheless, it is still worth knowing who the key players could be. With that in mind, and without further ado, here are the Democrats on the House IP Subcommittee.