Free for a Fee

Mike Masnick
Tech Dirt
August 22, 2019

Nearly a decade ago, we wrote a bunch about an excellent book called Copyfraud, by law professor Jason Mazzone, which went into great detail about how the legacy entertainment industry companies have used copyright in ways that are clearly against copyright’s intent — to the point that they border on fraud. The concept of copyfraud should be referred to more frequently, and here’s a perfect example. Just a couple months ago, we wrote about the amazing social media account of Jimmy O’Brien, who goes by @Jomboy_ on Twitter. He’s combined his love of baseball, his video editing skills, his ability to read lips incredibly well, and with a sarcastic, dry sense of humor to make a ton of amazing videos about various things happening in baseball. We highlighted a bunch last time around and his profile has only grown a lot since then, including among Major League Baseball players.

About a month after that post, Jomboy may have had his biggest moment so far, in putting together a truly amazing video of NY Yankees manager Aaron Boone getting ejected — following a bunch of players and Boone arguing with a young umpire over some bad calls. What took the video from normal great to amazing was that it revealed exactly what Boone was saying to the ump during their argument thanks to a bunch of “hot mics” from the broadcast. That allowed us to learn a lot more about this argument than anyone normally does in watching a manager scream at an ump:

That video alone went crazy viral and launched an even more viral meme in the phrase “fucking savages,” that is now on tons of t-shirts. Yankee fans have embraced it. The players have embraced it. By any stretch of the imagination, this was actually great for the game of baseball.

So, of course, Major League Baseball wants to kill it. Because that’s what MLB does. MLB’s head of discipline (and a former Yankee manager himself), Joe Torre is apparently really really upset about these hot mic videos that have gotten fans so excited about the game. Because how dare fans learn about the personalities of the people in the game.=

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190815/22332942792/why-is-mlb-claiming-revenue-obviously-fair-use-videos-youtube.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Mike Masnick
Tech Dirt
July 17, 2019

Every few years this kind of thing pops up. Some ignorant organization or policymaker thinks “oh, hey, the easy way to ‘solve’ piracy is just to create a giant blacklist.” This sounds like a simple solution… if you have no idea how any of this works. Remember, advertising giant GroupM tried just such an approach a decade ago, working with Universal Music to put together a list of “pirate sites” for which it would block all advertising. Of course, who ended up on that list? A bunch of hip hop news sites and blogs. And even the personal site of one of Universal Music’s own stars was suddenly deemed an “infringing site.”

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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190712/00090542575/wipo-now-gets-into-extrajudicial-zero-due-process-censorship-act-over-sites-it-declares-infringing.shtml

John Cannan
IP Watchdog
June 8, 2019

The Eighties are in! A contagious wave of nostalgia has infected popular culture with period TV series, from shows like Stranger Things to rebirths and reboots of the era’s shows and movies. This retro cultural appropriation was bound to involve a copyright issue. Indeed, a dispute arose over a documentary on the 1985 Chicago Bears, which made an unauthorized use of the team’s landmark music video, The Superbowl Shuffle. The Shuffle’s owners claimed an infringement on the licensing market for the work. The documentarians claimed fair use. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, ruled for the documentarians, granting them summary judgment, in Red Label Music Publishing v. Chila Productions.

The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/06/08/not-start-trouble-court-rules-documentarys-use-super-bowl-shuffle-fair-use/id=110213/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Valerie Brennan & Gabriel Guerra Medellin
LexBlog
June 10, 2019
The many historic landmarks and neighborhoods in Washington DC are one of the draws for locating events there. In a cautionary tale for event organizers, however, the Court of Appeals of the Fourth District recently ruled that unauthorized use of a third party photograph of the Adams Morgan neighborhood did not qualify as fair use, reversing and remanding the District Court’s summary judgment order.

Mike Masnick
Tech Dirt
June 12, 2019

Almost exactly three years ago we wrote about how well known computer security professor Matthew Green and famed hardware hacker Bunnie Huang had teamed up with EFF and the law firm Wilson Sonsini to file a fascinating 1st Amendment challenge to the DMCA’s Section 1201. 1201 is the so-called “anti-circumvention” or digital locks provision of the DMCA, that says that it’s infringing to “manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof” that is designed to “circumvent” DRM or other “technological protection measures.” Basically, if there’s a digital lock on something — doing anything to get around it (or to help others get around it) is potentially a copyright violation even if (and this is important) the purpose and result of circumventing the DRM has nothing to do with infringing on copyright.

Even Congress knew that this part of the law was crazy when they passed it. It knew that this would lead to all sorts of perfectly reasonable activities suddenly being declared infringing — so it came up with a really annoying hack to deal with that. A triennial review, where every three years everyone could go beg the Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress to grant categories of exemptions from Section 1201. Those exemptions only last for three years, so even if you get one, you need to keep applying.

The lawsuit took an interesting approach to challenging 1201. Noting that the Supreme Court has long held that fair use is a necessary safety valve to make copyright compatible with the 1st Amendment, they noted that 1201 does not allow fair use as a defense. And if it’s true that fair use is necessary to make copyright compliant with the 1st Amendment, then that should mean that 1201 is not constitutional.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190710/23312242561/three-years-later-1st-amendment-challenge-over-dmcas-anti-circumvention-provisions-can-move-forward.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Rashanda Bruce
LexBlog
December 21, 2018

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals returned a favorable ruling for major record companies in a copyright infringement case on December 12, 2018.  The ruling came down in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., a lawsuit involving an online platform (“ReDigi”) designed to enable the lawful resale of purchased digital music files.  The Second Circuit concluded that ReDigi infringed the record companies’ exclusive rights under Section 106 of the Copyright Act.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2018/12/21/buyer-keeper-forever-second-circuit-affirms-decision-music-files-purchased-online-cannot-resold-online/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Timothy Geigner
Tech Dirt
Dec. 6, 2018

Well, as you may have heard, Nintendo suffered its own high-profile leak recently, with the forthcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate finding its way onto the internet before the game has even been released. As you would expect, Nintendo got its lawyers busy firing off DMCA notices for all kinds of sites that were hosting the actual game that leaked. It also, however, decided to issue copyright strikes on YouTubers who showed any of the games content.

The YouTuber named Crunchii has been uploading new remixes from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate to his channel over the past few days, which has drawn the ire of Nintendo. Crunchii’s channel has been hit with copyright strikes from Nintendo of America, which has caused him to be locked out of his account and will result in its termination over the next few weeks.

There is also a YouTuber named Dystifyzer, who also posted songs from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s soundtrack. He too has been hit with numerous copyright strikes from Nintendo and is expecting his YouTube channel to be gone by next week.

This is stupid on so, so many levels. First, combating leaks with copyright notices rarely works at all, never mind well. Once the bell has been rung on the internet, it’s nearly impossible to fully unring it. On top of that, going after YouTubers that are simply showing off the leaked product really only makes a ton of sense if you don’t have a ton of confidence in the quality of that product. If you believe the product is awesome, you should want it shown off, even prior to release. Hell, maybe especially just prior to release, as a way to hype the game even further and push more sales.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20181128/10221041122/nintendo-attempts-to-bottle-leak-genie-with-copyright-strikes.shtml Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Neal Klausner of Davis & Gilbert LLP, Howard Weingrad of Davis & Gilbert LLP & Claudia G. Cohen of Davis & Gilbert LLP
LexBlog
December 5, 2018

A recent decision from a Pennsylvania federal court underscores that there is generally no copyright protection in an actual building or a skyline of buildings; instead, the protection is in the particular photograph or rendering of the building.

Creating an original depiction of a building or skyline that is not substantially similar to the photograph or rendering may provide protection from liability for copyright infringement. Other federal courts, however, have held that actual use of a pre-existing photograph of a skyline of buildings, or a portion of such a photograph, without the copyright owner’s authorization, may constitute copyright infringement.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2018/12/05/when-does-copying-a-photograph-of-a-building-constitute-copyright-infringement Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

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Ryan Compton and Thomas Holguin
LexBlog
November 29, 2018

After many years of litigation and lobbying expenses, the battle over pre-1972 music rights has finally been ended.  On October 11, 2018, President Trump signed the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), legislation that purports to provide additional protection for song writers and publishers, as well as to provide a clearer licensing landscape for those who use such music. The bill revamps Section 115 of the U.S. Copyright Act in three major aspects:

1. Pre-1972 Sound Recordings

2. Licensing

3. Royalties for Music Producers

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The content in this post was found at https://www.lexblog.com/2018/11/29/music-modernization-act-2/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com

Eric Goldman
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
November 29, 2018

For the past couple of years, I have invested significantly in all things emojis. This post rounds up everything I’ve done during that period.

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The content in this post was found at https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/11/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-emojis-and-the-law.htm Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com