Tag: Copyright

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“We are concerned that several provisions in this bill could have harmful, if unintended, consequences that would harm consumers. The bill rightly targets enforcement of copyright law against commercial infringers, but some of these same enforcement provisions are likely to hurt ordinary consumers.

It sounds paradoxical, but that’s the argument made by Universal in its defense of an overzealous DMCA takedown notice sent to Stephanie Lenz. That notice was sent to Lenz after she posted a YouTube video of her then-13 month-old son dancing in her kitchen to the barely-intelligible strains of Prince. Give me a minute to walk through the background of what caused Universal to make this twisted argument.

Lenz, represented by EFF, has sued Universal for violating 17 USC 512(f), which penalizes abuses of the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown procedures.

On Monday, Judge Richard Sullivan of the Southern District of New York ruled resoundingly for eBay in its defense against Tiffany’s various claims of trademark infringement. Coming as it does in the wake of eBay’s $63 million loss to Louis Vuitton in France, this decision stands as an unambiguous breath of sanity. It’s great to see that France’s nakedly protectionist, moral rights-influenced, lack-of-first-sale-doctrine decision has been quarantined to France for the time being. As Judge Sullivan affirmed, “The law clearly protects secondary markets in authentic goods.”

The Court detailed the myriad ways in which eBay extended itself in trying to accommodate Tiffany by removing listings featuring counterfeit Tiffany merchandise.

Yesterday, a federal court in Arizona decided MDY v. Blizzard, finding that violators of any licensing terms of an End User License Agreement (EULA) are liable for copyright infringement.

MDY sold Glider, a software program that let players of Blizzard’s World of Warcraft game automate their play in violation of the game’s EULA. Blizzard contended that, since every user of the game must copy the game (or at least portions thereof) into RAM in order to play it, these copies would be copyright infringements but for the existence of the EULA. If the EULA then says you don’t get this license unless you don’t use a bot, then using a bot is copyright infringement.

The first Senate hearing I attended struck me as a “dog and pony show” since the witnesses were presented for display purposes, merely echoing the pre-determined opinions of the presiding Senators. I’m beginning to see the animals in a less benign light.

Today, Senator Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, held a hearing on “International Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights and American Competitiveness,” with Ranking Member, Senator Grassley (R-IA), in the wings and with Senators Kyl (R-AZ) and Roberts (R-KS) making cameo appearances towards the end. As for the witnesses, the deck was stacked, as appears to be more the norm than the exception.

Whats New:

• Public Knowledge and Free Press Shine A Light on Behavioral Advertising
• PK Conditions Included in FCC’s XM-Sirius Merger Draft Order
• OECD Ministerial: Protecting the Internet is a Public Policy Priority
• G8 Endorses Secretive Trade Agreement
• Notable Press Mentions: June-July 2008

Even though I was in Seoul a little less than a month ago, I would be remiss if I didn’t take note of the nightly protests that were occurring there. For one thing, they were impossible to miss—the convention center where the OECD Ministerial was held had a small phalanx of orderly protesters and riot police outside it during the days—a scene mirrored in vastly greater numbers each evening downtown. But another reason for me to pay attention to the protests was an issue that touched on media and even copyright issues.

On June 18, the front page of the Korea Times covered a speech given by President Lee Myung-Bak at the OECD Ministerial. The headline?

In its “Declaration on the World Economy”, the G-8 included an endorsement of ACTA and ongoing efforts to “standardize” IP enforcement through customs organizations. “We encourage the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year,” the statement says.

So we have a major endorsement of ACTA from the leadership of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And pressure to have this international legal agreement ready to roll at the end of the year. So what’s going to be in this critically important, possibly binding international agreement, to be completed in less than six months?

We have no idea.

We recently scanned all of the documents filed in response to the USTR’s request for public comments regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). They are presented below, if sometimes angularly, as well as on our issue summary page here.

Last week, a French court found eBay liable for allowing “counterfeit” Louis Vuitton and Dior Couture merchandise to be auctioned on its site. The price tag: almost $65 million. This comes on top of the $30k fine eBay was handed a few weeks ago for allowing fake Hermes bags to be sold on its site. Other than confirming that France seems compelled to be idiosyncratic—even if it involves idiocy—and that it is hyper-protectionist with its home-grown brands, these cases serve as a bracing warning to be careful who you proverbially sleep with in international agreements.