Run with the Law - Latest Comments

Re: About

Davidson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:27:50 -0000

In the era of computer-controlled surveillance, when your every move is informally captured by cameras, High Tech Law Certificate is a prosperous qualification. I hope you will find your place in the world.

Re: Entertainment Industry Value Added Services

intellectual property lawyers — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:49:34 -0000

The entertainment thing is quite different to what you have described to hotels. As far as I know in the entertainment field, people always wants something that comes out quick and this is why the copyright songs and movies and many such other things are getting more priority because they are the first to come out. Eventhough the legal law changes the public behavior doesn't changes.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

intellectual property lawyers — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:40:58 -0000

You are quite true at this point that the legal changes will be surely made but this won't have any effect on the public behavior. Until and unless there are no changes to public behavior there is no use of making legal changes.

Re: Quick Thoughts on IP Protection

intellectual property lawyers — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:34:51 -0000

According to patent rule it's quite true that the protection will be given first to those who has made the first discoveries, the second party cannot discovered the same thing. If such things happen, one can sue the second company. So before discovering it's better to know whether that application is being discovered or not.

Re: EMI sues Grooveshark, but what about the songwriters?

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Re: EMI sues Grooveshark, but what about the songwriters?

How to Get Pregnant — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:25:46 -0000

In keeping with its partnership, Grooveshark will assist the Pledge 5 Foundation in their upcoming poker charity drive to benefit St. Francis House. ...

Re: EMI sues Grooveshark, but what about the songwriters?

brisbane seo — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 05:48:51 -0000

The company sues Microsoft over its GUI. 1989: The Mac Portable is released. The company is sued by both the Beatles' Apple Corps and by Xerox. ...

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Saccha — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 23:48:57 -0000

Very informative article. I love learning about your insights on these issues.

You might also be interested to read about an article I have recently read concerning the music industry. Larrikin Music sued EMI Songs Australia due to copyright infringement.

Check out the original article here

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Speeding Fines — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:48:05 -0000

Thanks for the really interesting article. There is a lot of really useful and relevant information and you raise some interesting disussion points.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Bill — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:03:12 -0000

My trust for ASCAP is not running especially high at the moment, with their remarks that the use of unlicensed ringtones on cellphones is "worse than Napster", that customers and AT&T are "jointly and severally liable", and that "it need only be "capable" of being performed to the public; whether the ringtone is set to play, and indeed whether anyone hears it, is of no moment".

It does, however, give an excellent opportunity to viciously needle every iphone user in my acquaintance.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Bill — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:57:33 -0000

Do you mean this? I agree in principle with the "is fair use a right" section as regards fair use itself, but see his approach as attempting to delegitimize the rights of blind users, unsupported users, security researchers and modders to use the content they have paid for. If you modify your bike lock so it will work with a car, that's ok; if you modify your DVD so it will work with another computer, it's a DMCA violation which gives you no protection under fair use. The status quo in this regard has been the use of several separate laws and principles to reach a balance completely unacceptable to the public as a whole.

While I understand that respecting consumers' rights may seem to make fighting piracy more difficult, this is an illusion. Restrictions on the use of DVD and Blu-Ray have merely made legal content less appealing as opposed to the more useful "unlocked" pirated content. I have no easy answers for you regarding the prosperity of those who choose to dedicate their lives to selling art of various kinds; I wish them the best, but the industry is in great turmoil and will continue to be. There is no way to turn the clock back now, but I believe that in the long run these disrupting technologies will be beneficial for most artists. Revenue may be lower when working on your own, but not having your work used to sue single mothers for millions of dollars by the corporation that really owns it is invaluable.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

GregSJ — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:00:15 -0000

Leigh,

Thanks for joining the discussion!

I agree that education is important, but I don't think it will be as successful as your website seems to indicate you believe it will be. The RIAA has been trying to educate the public about copyright laws since at least 2006. Based on the RIAA's numbers piracy has increased rather than decreased during that time. Personally I believe that education is not a perfect answer for two reasons: First education is not 100 percent affective. To get a driver's license in the U.S. high school students must take driver's education classes. Despite the fact that these classes emphasize the importance of not speeding, thousands (if not millions) of speeding tickets are issued in the U.S. every year. Second, Copyright law is extremely complicated. For example Microsoft, Yahoo, and Real were just sued two days ago for failing to acquire all of the proper licenses to stream music.

Thus I believe that music piracy will forever be a part of the music industry. However this does not mean that the music industry cannot be successful. With both education and a rhetoric change I believe that piracy will be mostly committed by people unwilling/unable to pay for music. Thus this piracy will result in minimal lost sales (if they weren't pirating they still wouldn't be paying). Given this scenario music need not necessarily add value to sell. However music has been free to consumers for a long time. While advertisers paid radio stations licenses, consumers were under no obligation to purchases advertisers products. A number of companies are trying to transition this model to the internet (e.g. a company I work for http://www.trueanthem.com).

There are a number of exciting and interesting models to sell music being tested right now. One of the things they tend to have in common is an appeal to consumers to legally buy music (or legally purchase for free) instead of downloading illegally. I suggest you look into some of them for releasing your upcoming album. I hope you find one that fits you. Music is meant to be shared, and I doubt the government will or could affect the sort of changes in copyright law that your website suggests you are waiting for.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Leigh Harrison — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:42:21 -0000

I'd also like to respond to Bill, whose comments about "fair use" troubled me. I would like to suggest that, to get a fuller understanding of the issue, he read the 10 Questions about Fair Use which are listed (and answered) on the highly informative website, wwwcopyrightalliance.org, on the page that has Fair Use FAQ's. In fact, the answers there are useful for all of us, especially if we're responding to all the other people who also use "fair use" as a way to prevent artists from receiving payment for their work. After all, more than 11 million of us work in some way with our intellectual property, or in fields where someone's intellectual property (a film script, a song, a play) is giving them employment. Merely because some people in these fields are well off, making millions of dollars, doesn't mean that the remaining 10.9 million of us should be penniless solely because some people are outraged that there are a few wealthy artists.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Leigh Harrison — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:39:16 -0000

I agree that changes in rhetoric may help. It may also interest you to know, though, that recently, an effort has begun by teachers and musicians working together to create a curriculum (complete, one hopes, with articles, textbooks, video) specially prepared to teach a new generation why they need to respect intellectual property and not to infringe on copyright.
Certainly, the present generation is confused and misled in thinking that everything is -- or should be -- free just because it suits them, regardless of an artist's right to earn a reasonable living.

Furthermore, people accustomed to getting everything for free do not necessarily need to have "added value" -- they need to understand that IT NEVER WAS FREE. They paid for the "free' music on the radio by buying the sponsors' sproducts (not free!) and that nothing the public beieves to be "free" really is, in the long run.

Fortunately, a number of people are working to change things. At the close of my Open Letter on my website www.leighharrison.com (on the page "Upcoming CD") I add information at the bottom of my Letter about some of the ways things are changing. I will be adding a link to this site as soon as possible, and I also suggest that those who are concerned about this contact The Bats (releasethebats) in the UK, which is a group very concerned with this issue as well, in addition to ASCAP and The Copyright Alliance, who are all working strenuously to change things for the better for all of us who live by our music or art.

Leigh Harrison

Re: My Problem with EULAs

Bill — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:07:05 -0000

I thought you'd have experience with it =)

Friedman is quite logical, elegant, and artful in his description of contracts (and the pitfalls of restricting them in order to protect the "weak". However, I have issues with his views on "contracts of adhesion". It's simply not worth it to customers to search out whether the business is trying to screw them, leading back around to the acceptance of ridiculously unbalanced contracts. Yes, there will be a reputation hit to the business if it enforces said provisions - but this doesn't seem to be enough to help. We end up with RIAA style situations where consumers get reamed for years and then the backlash hits the corporation head-on. It benefits nobody. With the penalties for copyright law being so outrageous, classifying a violation of EULA or TOS down as copyright infringement throws any informed potential defendants into a lottery situation -

They sign on knowing that many terms will almost certainly never be enforced as a copyright violation. However, if they're lucky enough to get hit, the payment could be astronomical. I can't see this working out well. At any rate, I certainly plan to read the rest of "Law's Order" and would look forward to more comment from you on the issue.

Re: My Problem with EULAs

GregSJ — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:28:50 -0000

Bill,

I'm trying hard not to laugh because I wrote a 40 page paper for my advanced copyright class centered around the WoW Glider case. While my paper is focused on the implications of the case on Copyright in Virtual Worlds, the case does bring together a large set of issues surrounding modern implications of copyright law.

It is my belief that there is a much bigger chance of RAM copying being overruled then the set of issues around EULAs. As far as EULAs, read the great economic analysis of freedom of contract in David Friedman's book Law 's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (particularly chapter 12 pages 148-151)

Later this summer, after I am done revising the paper (I am hoping to get it published), I will post a much longer discussion of both the WoW Glider case and the enforceability of EULAs.

Re: My Problem with EULAs

Bill — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:38:19 -0000

Sorry for the necropost.

Have you heard of the WoW Glider case?

http://williampatry.blogspot.c...

"Creative Interpretation" of two different sections of a license agreement resulted in a rather ridiculous judgment of copyright infringement. Who would have thought that the EULAs nobody actually reads could have such power behind them? Do you think there's a decent chance that the Supreme Court will end up fixing this?

Re: Clearly Record Labels Don’t Get It

Bill — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:27:53 -0000

Yep. People who download music are generally people who want music (as opposed to the unbelievably large segment of the population who just don't care). You've got the guys who are happy streaming radio throughout the day; they've never spent all that much and probably never will. With the expanding capability of the internet (songs transferred through IM!), the ordinary person doesn't even really need the big, obvious methods of piracy.

You've also got the big spenders, the ones with thousands of CDs. They're often the heaviest participants in torrent networks - they're the reason the music is available online in the first place. By shutting them down the industry is committing suicide.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Bill — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:15:34 -0000

Firstly, I would like to thank you for your polite and reasoned response to an overly aggressive comment.

I found the article you linked to quite interesting. It outlines the necessary paths by which the RIAA could regain control over lawbreaking, but I see it as implicitly acknowledging that the RIAA will not and cannot succeed. The very strategies it details are good for copyright law, good for the public, and good for artists - but they would destroy the firms manipulating copyright law to their own advantage.

I think that many recording industry folks think they can sneak out of this by upping the ante just a little bit with sweet talk and a slightly nicer deal for consumers. However, the proverbial blood has been spilled and the sharks can smell it. Sure, a good story and added value would be enough IF the guys who made music got all (or most) of the money. We know they won't, because it would falls into conflict with a business model which relies on Warner/Universal/BMG/EMI taking ninety percent of the revenue for themselves.

I don't think that the current industry has the will or the capability to succeed in today's economy. Today's labels are burdened by heavy expenses which require massive revenue just to stay in the black, let alone turn a profit. I do not see how they can survive without drastically cutting general business costs and slashing any expenditures on distribution, marketing, etc. until they can get music out to the public with the same overhead as the Pirate Bay has. In other words, any labels which thrive in this environment will look absolutely nothing like what we expect from a recording company.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

GregSJ — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:43:06 -0000

Bill,

Thanks for your comment. I am no more of a supporter of the RIAA then I am of music piracy. In fact, I wrote a lengthy post about how I believe the RIAA should not have filed individualized lawsuits (http://www.runwiththelaw.com/2....

I believe piracy well never be completely eliminated. Instead I think the music industry must focus on adding value to music to entice purchase. As the original article points out people are accustomed to getting music for free. To compete against free the music industry must add value besides the music itself to entice people to purchase. I believe an example of this is cable television. Before cable television people were used to receiving all tv for free. Cable television added value by providing a strong signal to areas which only got poor coverage. As cable expanded it continued to add value by providing content that was not available on network television. Now most of the United States subscribes to cable or satellite television.

I believe that for the music industry to succeed it must find ways to add value. A number of artist and labels are trying different approaches which will be featured in my next blog post.

Re: The Rhetoric of Copyright Piracy

Bill — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:46:30 -0000

A story; like "You're bankrupting us when you trade our songs!", or "We deserve moral and economic rights over whatever we say into perpetuity"?

If you've decided that it doesn't matter "whether the narrative is true or not" (is that copyright infringement? with the strangling of fair use, it's becoming hard to tell) I am guessing your stories will become even more imaginative. What will you come up with next?

I am also interested in seeing how you would respond if piracy were completely eliminated, and you had to compete vs social networks, video games, and free media for time and money. What excuse would you use then? Maybe you would lobby for yet more changes in the law, like the newspapers?

Screw that. I'd rather donate money to Google than buy your products and support your industry of extortion.

Re: Amazon, California, and Law Firm Jobs

Amy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:14:43 -0000

I'm hoping so too on both fronts!

Re: Amazon, California, and Law Firm Jobs

GregSJ — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:13:11 -0000

Apparently individual California residents are supposed to keep track of all of their purchases from out of state online advertisers that don't collect sales tax and pay it with their yearly income tax. Thus the projected income from this change would just collect that revenue from retailers rather than individuals. I for one did not know that I was supposed to be paying sales tax on online purchases from out of state retailers. It appears that nobody must know which is why instead of going after individuals the state is choosing to go after retailers. For more info check out the podcast at http://geekcast.fm/archives/th...

Re: Entertainment Industry Value Added Services

GregSJ — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:09:52 -0000

Unsurprisingly Mike Masnick over at TechDirt has a interesting take on this in connection with the music industry. For those interested a video of a presentation he gave is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re: The Case for Digital Casebooks

Amy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:04:42 -0000

I am in support. If for no other reason than that it would get them off of our shelves if you could just switch over completely! Therefore I could then have more cookbooks!