Jack of All Blogs » Copyright

Credits Roll Faster Than Ever

Andrew G.R. — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:07:37 +0000

The other day I was thumbing though OK! Magazine taking care of some porcelain throne business. Aside from the fact that Lynne Spears is clearly not going to win any mother-of-the-year awards, I had an observation: photographers get no love.

As if bloggers using credit-less pictures wasn’t bad enough, even “legitimate” magazines are robbing photogs.

There ARE credits, the problem is you need 20/20 vision and a microscope to read them. In some cases, it was a tiny white font on a light background. Plus, the magazine has to be flipped to the side to see who took the shot.

Things aren’t much better on television. Shows take dozens if not hundreds of people to come together. Yet the stars, the people who make the most money and probably do the least, get their names flashed on screen for several seconds. The behind-the-scenes folks? Their names fly by in a blaze of glory.

Have you noticed that more and more channels are choosing to roll credits – in some cases – at 128 times the normal speed. Try reading the names of the best boy grip or craft services specialist. Impossible.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s credits!

So I ask you this: Is it more offensive not to be mentioned or to be given a worthless credit.

Bloggers and the “lawless” Web are often the first things mentioned when it comes to photo and article hijacking. What about the mainstream media? They are in essence eliminating credits. Yet, people are quick to go after bloggers (most of whom are not even profitable), rather then address this greater problem.

Jack of All Blogs purposes a bill, that with your help, we can get before Congress. It’s the Credits Must Be Readable bill. Who’s with me?

Can You Really Prevent Copyrighted Media From Being Uploaded?

The Sheriff — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 05:43:15 +0000

Managing an online service can be quite complicated. Not only do you have to think of the costs of bandwidth, servers, utilities, and even administrative overhead, you also have to worry about the legal implications. For instance, if you were to run your own blog or website, it would be your responsibility to make sure you do not post illegal or potentially damaging stuff on your site. But if you host millions of people, and let them have the power to put up just about anything they can then you can expect complaints to come left and right.

Take for instance MySpace and YouTube. These pillars of the user-driven content world have been snapped up by the big fish–in this case News Corp. and Google, Inc.–for billions of dollars. These allow multimedia uploads from just about any person who signs up for an account. MySpace was founded on the creators’ love for the indie music scene. YouTube, meanwhile, was designed from ground up for sharing of user-contributed videos (but the tendency is for users to upload television shows and movie clips).

However, with this is the very high likelihood that users will upload their favorite songs and videos that are copyrighted, and this is tantamount to illegal music and video sharing. It’s very easy to just rip all the songs of your entire CD collection into MP3 and upload them to your MySpace account. Before, there was no one stopping you from doing that, and MySpace would only remove your illegally-shared files upon request from the artists (or any authority). But now, we have news that they’re changing that.

MySpace’s policy, like that of YouTube, has been to remove copyrighted material when requested to, but the move to harness Gracenote’s technology marks a more active role in preventing copyright violations. It is tied to the news that MySpace.com will soon start selling songs from unsigned bands, with an eye toward eventually marketing songs from major record companies as well.

MySpace is thinking of banning the upload of copyrighted material outright, even as you upload them. While I think this is a noble effort to curb online piracy, I don’t think it will work in the long run. It seems like MySpace is kissing up to the music industry bigwigs and sacrificing their users in the process. And with user-driven sites like MySpace, it’s all about the users. If you start pissing off your clientèle by starting to become too strict, then you risk losing the best thing about your business, and that is its popularity and the freedom enjoyed by the users.

So can you really prevent copyrighted media from being uploaded and shared online? I’d say yes. But it would be a bit nasty.

[tags]copyright, news, myspace, youtube, video, music, file sharing, mp3, intellectual property[/tags]

Trademarks vs. Domain Names

Mosey — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:59:59 +0000

We’ve been getting a series of complaint emails from Gawker over our Gaming Blog, in terms of the domain name “Kotaku” and, thus far, no agreement or settlement has been reached. When you look into it, there is some interesting case history in terms of trademarks vs. domain names. To see an excellent legal summary, visit the Harvard Law website.

One good case example, some time ago, was between eToy.com vs. eToys.com as it is, like many of these cases, a David and Goliath story. And, perhaps surprisingly, in most instances- the courts have favored David. If one searches through the Domain Name Handbook Dispute Diaries – most courts have found that the registering of a domain is simply the taking of an opportunity, unless the registrant is falsely posing as the company with a specifically registered trademark. In other words, based on case history, it’s an extremely cumbersome case to prove and the bar is set high.

And this is in the United States, where anti-cybersquatting laws have been passed by Congress and work in conjunction with ICANN’s UDRP. But when one starts getting into the foreign laws and less established TLDs- it becomes a maze almost impossible to unravel.

Let us deal with ICANN’s Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies-:

The policy provides that all domain name registrants must submit to mandatory administrative proceedings if:

1. the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which the complainant has rights; and
2. the domain name holder has no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name; and
3. the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

There are four factors in the policy listed as evidence of bad faith registration and use:

1. circumstances indicating that the primary purpose is to sell or transfer the name to the trademark owner or competitor for consideration in excess of direct costs related to the domain name; or
2. history of registration in order to prevent the IP owner from reflecting their mark in a domain name; or
3. registration primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or
4. intentional attempts to attract users to your site for commercial gain, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to source or endorsement.

If any of these apply, then the registration is in bad faith. However, if the domain name holder has a legitimate interest, then a trademark holder will not win under the UDRP. The policy lists 3 factors as evidence of legitimate interests:

1. use or demonstrable preparations to use the name in a bona fide offering of goods or services before notification of dispute; or
2. if the entity or person was commonly known by the name even if it has no trademark rights; or
3. legitimate, noncommercial or fair use of domain name without intent to misleadingly divert consumers or tarnish the mark at issue.

But here is the problem as pointed out by Harvard Law….

There is some question regarding the enforceability of the registrar agreements both inside and outside the United States. These agreements could be considered contracts of adhesion since registrants have no other options for registering a name in a gTLD.

In our case, the name “Kotaku” is actually in honor of a 17th/18th Century Japanese artist and we do have declared interests outside of the US. For example, see our Japan Blog and major Japanese website. Does a US trademark supercede a Japanese trademark or patent?

Furthermore, the UDRP requires not only that the domain name was registered in bad faith, but that it is being used in bad faith as well. Nowhere in our Gaming Blog do we claim to be Kotaku.com or anything to do with the “brand” developed under that trademark, by Gawker.

The fact is that, as “Goliath“, Gawker had ample opportunity to register the .net version of Kotaku.com. That they chose not to is their own oversight. It should not be incumbent on us, “David”, to lie down and be trampled on- just to protect the interests of those who have been remiss in their online business strategies. Are they seriously saying that by registering a trademark in the US, this gives them an immediate right to all ICANN domain names for that name? What a bargain that would make all trademark registrations!

By caving into demands that are beyond reasonable, one would open the door for corporations to be able to impose trademarks on a huge amount of words/phrases that might be otherwise considered as “generic” or part of the “public domain”. Should Johnsons have a trademark right over all ICANN domains for “Baby Shampoo“? The mind boggles…

This is not in any of our interests. Don’t the Goliaths have enough advantages already in the online marketplace?

And so, while we may lose this particular battle..it will not be without a fight.

[tags]gawker,kotaku,domain name disputes,icann,udrp,cybersquatting,etoys,harvard,gaming,japan[/tags]

Copyright Police Backing Down?

The Sheriff — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:35:17 +0000

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the epitome of the copyright police in the western world. Imagine having the tenacity to uphold copyright strictly even if it meant suing 90-year old grandmas and 13-year old schoolgirls for downloading music free online (even if it’s sometimes not their fault). Imagine employing bully tactics even to the extent of suing a family that doesn’t even own a computer!

The RIAA has been hailed as the music mafia. But they’re here to stay, and it’s quite hard to fight the 900 pound gorilla with brawn. It seems, though, that the RIAA is flinching from its original stance that all free music downloads are bad. They’re finally willing to admit that people who share music online must be great music fans and probably a great market, too!

[I]t’s almost funny to see the Wall Street Journal with an article about how record labels are finally admitting that file sharing is a way to market to the biggest music fans (found via Broadband Reports). While it’s laughable that it would take the industry this long to even venture to admit what was obvious to most everyone else, it is a tiny step in the right direction. Combined with the recent admissions that DRM can be annoying, that you can make money without DRM and that you have to compete with free content, it seems like the entertainment industry is finally starting to put together all the little pieces that lots of other folks tried to tell them seven years ago.

And this is rightly so. I would tend to think the RIAA is still living in the stone age with how it views business. What can we expect from the same kind of people who opposed VCRs due to fears of movie piracy (that was the RIAA’s cousin, the MPAA)?

In fact, many in the music and recording industry–particularly the independent artists–are now turning to alternative business models, which take into consideration the popularty of online music sharing. Remember MySpace? This social networking site, which was bought by News Corp for a whopping $580 million (not as whopping as Google’s $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube, but still a big amount!) last year, started out as a place for new, unsigned bands to share their music. And it has proven to be popular. MySpace is said to be the site with the most traffic lately. And it would make sense for people in the music business to market their stuff on such a site. After all, if you’re a relatively unknown band, what chances do you have in competing with the big names that have contracts with the big record labels using the traditional methods?

As for the business model? I think free is the operative word here. While a lot of people would be willing to pay 99 cents per tune, a helluva lot more would be going for something free. And just how can one earn from free? Easy. There are ads and sponsorhips. And for artists, I think making one’s work available online would be a great marketing tool for getting signed on to gigs, concerts and other potentially revenue-generating activities.

Sure, a lot of sites that offer legal music downloads are popular–like iTunes and Yahoo! Music. But I think pretty soon, the world will be seeing free legal music downloads as the norm.

[tags]copyright, DRM, RIAA, music, downloading[/tags]

Protecting Your Blog Content

The Sheriff — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 01:40:53 +0000

I’m a big fan of good writers. I especially admire bloggers who write exceptionally well. I mean, with all the crap out there that people try to pass of as writing, you could easily distinguish the good from the bad. Writing on a free, open platform such as a blog does not give one the license to throw grammar school lessons out the window.

Yes, some people are lazy, and write gibberish for all the world to read. Okay, they’re forgiveable. But when there are some people who are lazy and steal their way to riches, then that’s probably the time to ring the church bells and round up the people with their knives and pitchforks.

I didn’t realize blog content theft was so rampant until I visited the Stop Bitacle.Org blog.

The people behind bitacle.org steal content from other’s weblogs and place it on their own website. Their practices are criminal and/or abusive, because these people violate the copyrights on the original content, of their holders. Not only copyrights are violated, licenses such as those of the Creative Commons are not respected as well.

Stolen content from weblogs is placed on bitacle.org’s website, between commercial messages for which the people behind binacle.org are being paid for by advertisers. At this moment Google places commercial messages on bitacle.org, but this company is requested to reject bitacle.org as their client, because of bitacle.org’s criminal/abusive behaviour.

DMCA? They’re in Spain, for crying out loud. So a DMCA won’t be their silver bullet. There are other–legal–ways to fight back, like writing Google to cancel their AdSense accounts, or inserting notices on your blog posts (so people reading their site would know it’s your content. But it seems Bitacle is just the tip of the splog iceberg. Just checking my referrer stats, I come to stumble upon backlinks from doubtful sources. Guess what I see when I visit their site? My content, with AdSense splattered all over.

Lazy people. Tsk!