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MPAA says embedding illegal video is copyright infringement


Phait

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http://gizmodo.com/5900992/mpaa-says-embedding-illegal-video-is-copyright-infringement

 

 

Responding to a recent copyright case making its way through the Seventh Circuit court, the MPAA has issued a brief supporting a judges ruling that merely embedding a video that infringes on copyright is as bad as hosting it, even if a person didn't upload the video.

 

 

...more at link

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Jeez. We put a copyright notice on our HC trade show videos to indicate ownership, and people embed them all over the place. I'd hate to think we've turned them all into felons.

 

But I can see where the ruling is coming from. If a web site embeds copyrighted material in order to draw people to the videos as if they were the "real thing," that's shady. At least it would give the "option to hassle." For example, when someone embeds our videos in a forum...great. But there was a site that took our NAMM videos, added an intro that implied it was their video, and sold ads based on running the videos.

 

What REALLY got me was when someone posted in this forum about a site whose NAMM coverage was sooooo superior to ours. The site was the one that was using all our videos, and passing them off as their own!

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What REALLY got me was when someone posted in this forum about a site whose NAMM coverage was sooooo superior to ours. The site was the one that was using all our videos, and passing them off as their own!

:D

 

Ya gotta laugh to keep from cryin'.

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[EDIT: sorry for veering off target when I wrote this... it was a very sideways kind of morning]

 

If they can sue some teenager for 200,000 dollars they will, just be hard to get more than 20 dollars from a guitar picker.

 

 

Or sue a single mom with a part-time job for over 2 million dollars. (That's the RIAA, not the MPAA, but they're still cut from the same greed weave.)

 

It seems clear that the RIAA picked the weakest, most defenseless individual they could, suing them for far more than they will ever earn in a lifetime in order to make an example of her.

 

If they weren't the disgusting, vile hypocrites most of us probably believe them to be, they would have gone after all the middle class kids and collected a string of suburban homes across the US... but, of course, those folks would have had the assets not only to defend -- but to hire good lawyers to do so.

 

Clearly, the RIAA wanted to find the weakest of the weak and try to grind them further into the ground.

 

Really charming.

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It's a shame.

 

I'm a big supporter of intellectual property rights, including copyrights. I think songwriters deserve to be paid for thei work.

 

But I find it amusing (gritting teeth) that the biggest "supporters" of new IP laws happen to be the worst offenders of those laws. Just ask anyone who's audited (or tried to audit) their royalty streams.

 

Yup, I'm a big supporter of copyright protection. But if the big record companies all collapse, I won't shed a tear. I sometimes wonder: what would music be like if there was no "music industry"? If it was all amateur? I think there are aspects of that world that I would really like. But I wouldn't choose it, because I believe that people are entitled to the products of their creativity. Plus a lot of really cool pro musicians would be out of their jobs!

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I think everyone who worksshould be paid for their work, but there are grey areas that are unaccounted for. I think linked or embedded video DRIVES revenue sometimes, because it turns people onto thing they might not have otherwise played or heard. I had this discussion with a couple of my band mates who were emailng mp3 's for practice. They got real quite when I asked them if they would be cool if I was giving away what WE had for sale via email attachment..

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Or sue a single mom with a part-time job for over 2 million dollars. (That's the RIAA, not the MPAA, but they're still cut from the same greed weave.)


It seems clear that the RIAA picked the weakest, most defenseless individual they could, suing them for far more than they will ever earn in a lifetime in order to make an example of her.


If they weren't the disgusting, vile hypocrites most of us probably believe them to be, they would have gone after all the middle class kids and collected a string of suburban homes across the US... but, of course,
those
folks would have had the assets not only to defend -- but to hire good lawyers to do so.


Clearly, the RIAA wanted to find the weakest of the weak and try to grind them further into the ground.


Really charming.

 

 

Hillary Rosen is back in the news--but somehow nobody remembers her greedy capitalist days!

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Hillary Rosen is back in the news--but somehow nobody remembers her greedy capitalist days!

I'd forgotten why that name was so familiar, but I now remember being mildly concerned when she joined the current administration.

 

But I guess not remembering undercuts my I told you so privileges... ;)

 

 

 

 

(Of course, I don't mean I told you so, Zooey... )

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Or sue a single mom with a part-time job for over 2 million dollars. (That's the RIAA, not the MPAA, but they're still cut from the same greed weave.)


It seems clear that the RIAA picked the weakest, most defenseless individual they could, suing them for far more than they will ever earn in a lifetime in order to make an example of her.


If they weren't the disgusting, vile hypocrites most of us probably believe them to be, they would have gone after all the middle class kids and collected a string of suburban homes across the US... but, of course,
those
folks would have had the assets not only to defend -- but to hire good lawyers to do so.


Clearly, the RIAA wanted to find the weakest of the weak and try to grind them further into the ground.


Really charming.

Seems your right my friend this case is under Appeal and enjoined with amicus curiae(friend of the court) by MPAA read here:

 

Link to wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammie_Thomas

 

Quote:

 

In December 2011, in its opening brief for the appeal, the plaintiffs asked the court to hear oral arguments pertaining to the exclusivity of the distribution right and the constitutionality of statutory damages which bear no relation to actual damages.[33] The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), concerned about the ramifications of the case for its industry, filed an amicus curiae brief providing further arguments in favor of the plaintiffs' point of view.[34] Both briefs contend that making-available is a form of distribution, and that actual damages are irrelevant to statutory damages.

 

In March 2012, the plaintiffs, citing the St. Louis, I. M. & S. Railway Co. v. Williams case as precedent, argued that Due Process was satisfied by a jury's statutory damage award, regardless of whether it bears "a reasonable relation to the plaintiff

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Yeah... a bit of an oops on my part upping the amount to 2.1 million, but, yeah. That's the litigation. Every time the award gets reduced by a court, the RIAA goes back to attempt to reassert the 1.5M.

 

It certainly doesn't look in any way like the RIAA is interested in "justice" or actual compensation. They just want to make an example of someone. Perhaps by attacking the weakest of the weak, they figure they'll look so 'bad' that no one will mess with them.

 

As it is, they're simply convincing ever greater numbers of people that they are soul-dead greedheads who don't give a damn about music, the people who make it, or the people who listen to it -- including a lot of musicians who really believe they SHOULD be paid for their work and want to support that right -- but who, when confronted by the singularly brutish, transparently greed-driven tactics of the would-be allies who claim to speak on their behalf, end up along with everyone else: convinced that the RIAA and the companies it represents are beyond redemption.

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This is getting crazy. Pretty soon it will be illegal for a TV store to have a TV running in the storefront window.


Dan

 

 

I'd be surprised if BMI and ASCAP don't try to extract protection,* excuse me, licensing fees from any business with a TV. They certainly try to do it to shops and other businesses that have a radio playing where the public can hear it. Local police typically stand aside while these virtual 'bounty hunters' prowl local busineses trying to get them to sign up for licensing if they have a radio or play background music in their shop, restaurant, etc.

 

 

 

[Full disclosure: I am an ASCAP member.]

 

 

* Is it any coincidence that the Capone organization went from selling "protection" to various businesses to selling juke box licensing? And I have read that none other than the Harry Fox Agency can be said to have its roots in a Capone operation.

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Around the time that the case first came to trial, I bought a Sony music CD with the infamous root kit on it (Sony Root Kit). Played it on my work computer, on which I have confidential business information, including information from business partners for which I'm legally libel if I break confidentiality.

 

When I found out, I had to rebuild my entire machine.

 

Sony's compensation to me? An offer of a free CD!

 

The surprising thing to me were the recording industry voices that came to the defence of Sony, stating that they needed to take measures to protect themselves, and that surreptitiously gaining access to private computers to do so was reasonable. That, combined with the RIAA lawsuits, has made me totally unsympathetic to that crew. NOT unsympathetic to IP rights, but rather to the industry voices that claim to represent them.

 

My belief is that it will be impossible to properly and fairly defend IP rights until the concepts of fair use are defined in modern terms. Fair use of IP can be boiled down to "yeah, that seems reasonable". Being sued by because you embedded video that you didn't know was illegal doesn't seem reasonable to me.

 

js

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As it is, they're simply convincing ever greater numbers of people that they are soul-dead greedheads who don't give a damn about music, the people who make it, or the people who listen to it -- including a lot of musicians who really believe they SHOULD be paid for their work and want to support that right -- but who, when confronted by the singularly brutish, transparently greed-driven tactics of the would-be allies who
claim
to speak on their behalf, end up along with everyone else: convinced that the RIAA and the companies it represents are beyond redemption.

Very well-put. No doubt Frank Zappa is spinning in his grave over RIAA's claims to represent copyright owners.

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Around the time that the case first came to trial, I bought a Sony music CD with the infamous root kit on it (
). Played it on my work computer, on which I have confidential business information, including information from business partners for which I'm legally libel if I break confidentiality.


When I found out, I had to rebuild my entire machine.


Sony's compensation to me? An offer of a free CD!


The surprising thing to me were the recording industry voices that came to the defence of Sony, stating that they needed to take measures to protect themselves, and that surreptitiously gaining access to private computers to do so was reasonable. That, combined with the RIAA lawsuits, has made me totally unsympathetic to that crew. NOT unsympathetic to IP rights, but rather to the industry voices that claim to represent them.


My belief is that it will be impossible to properly and fairly defend IP rights until the concepts of fair use are defined in modern terms. Fair use of IP can be boiled down to "yeah, that seems reasonable". Being sued by because you embedded video that you didn't know was illegal doesn't seem reasonable to me.


js

Seems reasonable to guys like us. But a) they are not guys like us, b) they don't care about guys like us or what we think, and c) they are not reasonable nor do they want, apparently, to be perceived that way.

 

They want people to be afraid of them.

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