LawGeek

Ode to the R.I.A.A.

David Pogue has a hilarious little ditty on his N.Y. Times Blog today about the RIAA:

(Sung to the tune of the Village People's Y.M.C.A.)

Young man,
You were surfing along,
And then, young man,
You downloaded a song,
And then, dumb man,
Copied it to your ‘Pod,
Then a phone call came to tell you:

You’ve just been sued by the R.I.A.A.!
You’ve just been sued by the R.I.A.A.!
Their attorneys say, you committed a crime,
And there’d better not be a next time!

They’ve lost their minds at the R.I.A.A.!
Justice is blind at the R.I.A.A….
“You’re depriving the bands! You are learning to steal,
You can’t do whatever you feel!”

Know what?
They’re a lawsuit machine.
They say so what
If you’re only thirteen?
And you know what?
They were equally mean
To an 80-year-old grandma!

(and so on...)

Mr. Lawgeek goes to Washington

This just in: I'll be testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce on Tuesday about Consumer Protection and Fair Use:

Editing Hollywood’s Editors: Cleaning Flicks for Families

Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
      September 26, 2006
      2322 Rayburn House Office Building
      2:00 PM

JPBarlow rips MPAA prez a new one on BBC

"The good news is that you guys have managed to buy every major legislative body in the planet, but you know the problem is, the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter than you are and will be alive when you are dead, and has historical forces on its side, and is using its technological acumen very adeptly to ward off all of your efforts of control and you're gonna lose that one.

I mean you're fifty-five years old and these kids are seventeen and they're just smarter than you are. So you're gonna lose that one. But the good news is you guys are mean sons of bitches and you've been figuring out ways to rip off audiences and artists for centuries really, and all you gotta do is get outta bed a little earlier in the morning for a spell and you'll find new ways of doing this. I have every faith in you and you should give yourselves a little credit, instead of howling that you're going to be victimized. It's not like you to be victimized."

- EFF Founder and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow delivers a
razor-wire bouquet to Motion Picture Association of America President Dan
Glickman.

(Thanks Corey!)

New RIAA "Scare" Video for college students

Update: Ha! Weird Al to the rescue! (Thanks James!)

The RIAA has produced a new scare video for incoming college students called Campus Downloading.  In it, they muddle and twist all kinds of facts, making it out as if you'll be criminally prosecuted for downloading music and/or kicked out of school.

A few things I noticed:

1) There's no distinction in the video between the risk of downloading vs. uploading.  To date, no one has been sued or prosecuted for solely downloading music; only uploaders have been targetted.

2) There's no distinction between criminal prosecution and civil law suits.  In order to be criminally liable for copyright infringement, you have to willfully infringe, usually with some kind of financial incentive.  To date, no criminal prosecutions have been brought against students who simply download for fun.

3) They claim that any kind of copying without permission is illegal.  This is clearly not the case, as fair use allows copying without permission and is explicitly written into the Copyright Act.  Plus, if you copy music onto Audio CD-Rs, you've already paid the royalties that allow you to make the copies without needing permission.

4) They claim that making any copies of any music for friends is "just as illegal as downloading." Presumably, this includes making a mixed CD for a girlfriend or buddy -- something most people consider to be fair use.  It's exactly these kinds of extreme positions that make the RIAA look ridiculous and out of touch with today's music fans.

EFF Launches new "Corruptibles" animation re: the future of fair use

w00t! Check out our new animation breaking down the new onslaught against fair use by the entertainment industries: The Corruptibles!

In 2006 the entertainment industry asked the government to
give it incredible new powers -- the broadcast flag, digital
radio restrictions, and control over all analog-to-digital
devices.

But in the future, those super powers will become the
Corruptibles, three villains that invade your home, break
your devices, and stop legitimate uses.  EFF has launched a
new Flash animation today that features exclusive, breaking
news footage from the future:
<http://www.eff.org/corrupt>

Captain Copyright Parody Comic feautring Larry Lessig

So Perfect!

(Via BoingBoing)

Hollywood sues Cablevision over remote DVR service

Welcome to the next episode in the ongoing Copyright Wars and Hollywood's attack on fair use:

Hollywood studios and TV networks are asking a federal court to stop a video recording service that Cablevision Systems Corp. planned to start offering next month.

The companies sued Cablevision, the nation's sixth-largest cable TV provider, in U.S. District Court in New York on Wednesday, saying the service, known as a "network DVR," violated the companies' copyrights.

Cablevision announced in March that it would offer subscribers a way to retrieve recorded shows from the cable company's system, rather than from a hard drive installed on a special set-top cable box.

Other cable companies, including Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., the nation's largest, were closely watching the experiment with an eye toward offering a similar service. The technology would vastly increase the use of such "time shifting" services because they would not require subscribers to buy or lease extra equipment.

But Tuesday, the companies that produce and broadcast TV shows said the service was illegal and that Bethpage, N.Y.-based Cablevision had refused to pay the studios a license fee or share in the revenue it would collect from subscribers for the service.

Typical DVRs record TV shows on a hard drive and allow viewers to replay those shows anytime they wish.

The network DVR proposed by Cablevision would allow viewers to choose which programs they want to record. But instead of recording on a hard drive in the home, the cable company would record the shows on a central computer, then allow viewers to watch them later.

Studios say the law, under "fair use," gives consumers the right to time shift. But it doesn't give that right to companies that license the content only for simultaneous broadcast, meaning that to store the shows and offer them on demand for a fee, companies must obtain a separate license.

This looks to be a showdown between the Sony Betamax and the Kinko's coursepack/MDS decisions. On the one hand, Sony says users have a right to time-shift TV programs.  On the other, Kinko's and MDS suggest that no one can run a business that helps users exercise their fair use rights more efficiently.

But this is exactly what Sony did when they sold the Betamax to consumers, only they did it as a sale of a product rather than a service.  Same with TiVo (which has some service components).  Same with the iPod.  Why should we discriminate against services over products that do the same thing? Isn't it in the public interest
to help users take advantage of fair use? Hopefully the court in this case will help answer these questions.

Capitol Broadcasting Prez takes shot at "impressive" SlingBox home media space-shifter

Just as the MPAA attacked the VCR, current content providers are once again attacking fair use home devices like the Slingbox that empower users to save and shift content from one screen to another:

Capitol Broadcasting President Jim Goodmon is as impressed as anyone with the Slingbox, the new TV-on-the-Web gadget from Sling Media. He hooked one up to his TV in Charlotte, N.C., so he can watch Capitol’s Charlotte stations when he is in Raleigh.

But he thinks that the much-hyped device (one of Time magazine’s “best inventions” of 2005) may be, well, illegal. “I can’t believe that hasn’t been stopped already,” Goodman says.

The device connects a TV or set-top box to a broadband- enabled computer, allowing one to watch—and control—a home TV remotely via the Internet.

Goodmon suspects the Slingbox violates program copyright laws—and maybe retransmission-consent agreements—by enabling out-of-market viewing of network and syndicated content.

“I have a deal with the cable system,” he says, “and they have retransmission consent for the cable system in this market. They don’t have it for everyplace else. They can’t do that; there’s no way that’s legal.”

Link: Broadcasting & Cable: The Business of Television

(Thanks Derek!)

Hong Kong recruits kids to narc out their file-sharing friends

Youth Informers Enlisted for Internet Piracy Fight:

Hong Kong Customs is asking young people to report IP violations to the authorities as part of a new initiative to fight illegal downloading.

Customs invited 11 youth groups to join an umbrella group called the Youth League for Monitoring Internet Piracy, which it describes as a "united front in fighting illegal file-sharing".

Nope.  Not going to do it.  Not going to violate Godwin's Law by pointing to other historical efforts to get young people to monitor and punish their peers.

Eat a balanced meal with Online Rights Canada

On January 19th, the Copyright Lobby is putting on a fancy banquet to generate political donations for a friendly MP. They might be doing it because they're nice, or perhaps they're feeling generous because of the influence they expect to gain once the night is over. But no matter what their motivations, the event presents a startling picture: copyright interests contributing thousands of dollars to a politician who sets policy for their industry.

This link can't be ignored, especially in a year when Canadian copyright is likely to undergo its biggest revision in decades. If politicians take tens of thousands of dollars from the industries they regulate, are independent artists, educators, librarians and the general public really going to get a fair shake? So come out on Thursday, have a bite to eat, and find out how regular Canadians can get a seat at the copyright reform table.

Link: Online Rights Canada.