Video

Over at Wired's Threat Level blog, Kevin Poulsen reports on a new DMCA overreach: the U.S. Air Force complained (via outside counsel) about his posting of their recruiting video. The post, Poulsen says, was initially made at the Air Force's invitation.

If the government created this work, then the DMCA claim is improper. Works of the U.S. government are not copyrightable. But the statute allows the government to receive copyright assignments, so if an independent contractor created the video, still available at the Air Force's (non .mil) site, the government could meet that technical requisite of the DMCA.

The DMCA also requires that the notifier assert the posting was unauthorized. Poulsen's article, however, says the Air Force sent Wired the ad and "thanked THREAT LEVEL for agreeing to run it." That doesn't quite square with the DMCA-required statement that the notice-sender "ha[s] a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above has been authorized by the U.S. Air Force, its agents, or the law."

Even if the Air Force's DMCA claim is truthful, however, it's still a policy overreach. Wired posted the video in order to report on government recruiting efforts; the video's dissemination is part of that First-Amendment protected discussion, whether it happens on or off government websites. The DMCA makes it too easy to takedown first, think later.

As an avid baseball fan, I should have been paying closer attention to the recent dispute over Major League Baseball's new restrictions on credentialing journalists who cover MLB games. A nice summary of the dispute on the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press' Sidebar Blog awoke me from my slumber.

In a repeat of past efforts by MLB to limit the use of photographs and play-by-play coverage of games, the new 2008 press credentials:

• Limit to seven the number of photographs from each game that may be displayed online;


• Prohibit the use of game photographs as part of a photo gallery;


• Require prior written notice of the intention to display non-text accounts of games;


• Restrict the recording of audio and video from 45 minutes prior to a scheduled game until that game has concluded; and


• Restrict the length of time certain content may be made available or archived online.

Thankfully, the Online News Association, National Press Photographers Association, and others are fighting back. David Ledford, President of the Associated Press Managing Editors Association, took MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to task over the new restrictions:   read more »

Earlier this month, some of the most creative and entertaining parody videos on the Web were pulled from YouTube over dubious copyright claims. The disputed works, known as the “shred” videos, are a series of parodies in which Finnish media artist Santeri Ojala overdubs performances of legendary guitarists such as Steve Vai, Carlos Santana, and Eric Clapton. Ojala replaces the audio tracks of the guitarists' performances with his own (intentionally) bad guitar playing.

Because Ojala is a skilled guitar player himself, the horrific sounds match closely with the guitar hero's hand and finger movements, which makes the videos that much more surreal. Other rock stars unwary enough to enter the screen during the guitarists' performances get similar treatment – in one notable clip, Ozzy Osbourne's clapping to the beat is reduced to a rhythmless patter that wouldn't have cut it in a backyard birthday celebration, much less a rock show.   read more »