DMCA

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.

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 »

As a lead up to the launch of the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide later this month, we are putting up longer, substantive blog posts on various subjects covered in the guide. This post is the second in our series of legal primers. The first addressed the subject of immunity and liability for third-party content under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In this post we discuss copyright and fair use in the context of citizen media.

I. COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND FAIR USE

A broad array of creative, expressive media are subject to copyright protection, including literature, photographs, music compositions and recordings, films, paintings and sculptures, and news articles – any “original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” 17 U.S.C. § 102. Citizen media creators who use the works of others need to be careful that they do not open themselves to copyright liability when doing so.

Fortunately, there are several circumstances in which the work of others may be used without liability. Bare facts and ideas, government documents, and items in the public domain are not subject to copyright, and some materials may be published under a Creative Commons license or other license that permits reuse. In addition, the doctrine of fair use provides that copyrighted materials may be used without the consent of the original owner in certain situations, such as when using excerpts for criticism or news reporting.
  read more »

Chris Soghoian at CNET Blogs published an interesting post yesterday -- Did Slate violate copyright law? It talks about a hilarious mashup video that Slate posted a few days ago called Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick, which juxtaposes images from the 1999 film Election and current footage of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The mashup plays on the earnestness and ambition shared by Hillary and Reese Witherspoon's character in the movie -- Tracy Flick, a hyper-driven high school student seeking election as class president.

The clip is made up completely of preexisting footage, but it manages to pull off something novel, funny, and politically poignant. As Cynthia Brumfeld writes on IP Democracy:

Nothing in this video is 'original' although the video itself is without a doubt a work of originality and creativity. It also brilliantly makes a political point.

Brumfeld's post is worth reading in its entirety; it uses the Slate mashup to contrast the differing views on fair use held by ubiquitous Columbia law professor Tim Wu and NBC counsel Rick Cotton, as found in the excellent online debate on remixing and fair use published in the New York Bits Blog last week (another must read). I believe, and Wu and Brumfeld would agree, that the Slate mashup is a fair use because it is clearly transformative and it adds value to the original rather than substituting for it.   read more »

Earlier this month, comedy group The Richter Scales released a funny music video, "Here Comes Another Bubble." The video showed a montage of Silicon Valley images over a sound-track adapted from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," lampooning the Web 2.0 bubble that seems near bursting again. The video must have touched a nerve, as well as a funny bone, because it got wide linkage and discussion and became the week's top-rated video.

Then, it was removed from YouTube, "due to a copyright claim by a third party."

Photographer Lane Hartwell says she objected to use of her photograph of Valleywag's Owen Thomas, so she sent a DMCA takedown notice to YouTube. Hartwell says she owns copyright in the image and did not license its use. In response, YouTube appears to have disabled the video pursuant to its copyright policy (perplexingly, it did not identify the "third party" sender of the complaint.)

Now, the video is back, in a revised version that omits Hartwell's photograph.   read more »

This weekend I came accross a recent case, In re Subpoena Issued Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to: 43SB.COM, LLC, 2007 WL 4335441 (D. Idaho Dec. 7, 2007). The decision came down earlier this month, but I hadn't read anything about it until now, which is surpising because it is a veritable smörgåsbord of some of our favorite topics -- anonymity, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and lawyers threatening to sue for copyright infringement of their cease-and-desist letters. The case provides a clear example of a party attempting to use the controversial "administrative subpoena" provision of the DMCA (found at 17 U.S.C § 512(h)) to circumvent the safeguards imposed by courts before ordering disclosure of the identity of an anonymous poster in defamation cases. Fortunately, the federal district court in Idaho rejected this gambit, although overall its decision leaves something to be desired. Here's the background:   read more »

Waning pop genius Prince has initiated a campaign to force fan websites dedicated to his work to stop "all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to [his] likeness." (The quote is from the Prince Fans United press release, discussed below.) According to reports (here, here, and here), Prince's lawyers have sent cease-and-desist letters and at least one DMCA takedown notice to the three largest Prince fansites, Prince.org, Princefams.com, and Housequake.com, demanding that they remove the above materials and requesting that the sites provide them with "substantive details of the means by which you propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Enterprises, NPG Records and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG)] for damages."

Apparently, the letters went so far as to request removal of photographs taken by fans of their Prince tattoos and their automobiles carrying Prince-inspired license plates. As of yet, we've been unable to get a copy of one of the cease-and-desist letters, but it looks like Prince's lawyers are asserting a mix of copyright and publicity rights in his name and likeness in order to justify their demands.  read more »

Today, the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse posted a cease-and-desist letter from MediaDefender to gpio.org complaining that MediaDefender's leaked emails had been posted to the site. The operator of the site, which subsequently moved to http://mediadefender-defenders.com (but not because of the letter), also posted the letter and his reply. His reply quite effectively points out that he and his server are in Norway and thus "it appears that your legal grounds for throwing letters at me claiming this-or-that is shaky enough that you might want to relocate."

This exchange reminded me of an article in Ars Technica a few weeks back discussing the reactions of peer-to-peer site operators to similar letters from MediaDefender. I meant to post on this article at the time, but forgot about it until today. The gist of the story is that some peer-to-peer site operators received cease-and-desist letters from MediaDefender and responded with blistering comments ridiculing the MediaDefender lawyers for their impoverished understanding of U.S. copyright law. For example:

[isoHunt's] formal response to SMR&H is filled with caustic wit and considerable legal expertise. "If Mr. Gerber is truly as experienced in IP law as his bio claims he is," asks the isoHunt administrator in his response, "why is it that he is incapable of composing a DMCA takedown notice as per USC Title 17 Section 512?" The isoHunt administrator explains that Gerber failed to adequately specify the allegedly infringing content as required by law. The administrator also helpfully provides a link to a valid sample complaint so that SMR&H will be less likely to send the improper information in their second attempt. The following is an excerpt of the isoHunt administrator's response:

"This e-mail serves as a counter notification under USC Title 17 Section 512(c)(3)(A)(iii) that you have failed to properly identifying links to content that allegedly infringes your copyright/trademark/rights (or, in this case, has something to do with really embarrassing trade secrets *and* employee social security numbers) AND you have failed to address your e-mail to the appropriate agent, namely copyright@isohunt.com, so I invite you and your clients to take a long walk off a short pier, since you and/or your clients might actually manage to NOT get something that simple wrong."

In closing, the isoHunt administrator says that the he will comply with the request if it is properly submitted. "Despite us being located in Canada, if you do actually figure out how to compose a valid DMCA notice, we will honor it," he concedes, "just as soon as we're done laughing at you."   read more »

CNET collaborated with Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to come up with the helpful list 9 Fun Ways Web 2.o Startups Can Commit Legal Suicide. It includes some important pointers about managing users' private data, a reminder to startups to designate a copyright agent for DMCA takedown notices, and a word of caution for websites about expanding into print:

We will be addressing many of the issues covered in the CNET piece in our forthcoming Legal Guide, and in the future we hope to take on cases involving some of these novel legal issues.

In late August, Volkswagen obtained a subpoena from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No.3:07-MC-80213) requiring YouTube to disclose the identity of an anonymous YouTube user who posted a Nazi-themed parody of a Volkswagen commercial. The video has apparently been removed from YouTube and is no longer available.

It is not clear whether YouTube has already complied with the subpoena, but YouTube's policy, as taken from parent company Google's privacy policy, is to "comply with valid legal process, such as search warrants, court orders or subpoenas seeking personal information" and it has historically turned over this type of information without much of a fight. However, as Wired News reports, YouTube generally notifies users when it receives civil subpoenas seeking their identity, so perhaps we will see the anonymous user intervene as a "John Doe" to quash the subpoena.

What is alarming about this case is that Volkswagen appears to have used the controversial "administrative subpoena" provision of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force YouTube to reveal the identity of its user. Under this provision of the DMCA, a copyright owner can request from the clerk of any U.S. district court that a subpoena be issued to a "service provider" for identification of an alleged infringer. See 17 U.S.C. 512(h)(1). If the copyright owner supplies the necessary paperwork and signed avowals, the clerk must "expeditiously issue" the subpoena.  read more »