Everyday Copyright Violations 431
Schneier has pointed out a great law review article about the problems with copyright. The author takes a look at normal daily practices and how many commonplace actions actually result in what can be considered copyright violations. "By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John's activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing."
Re:Imminent destruction! (Score:2, Interesting)
And Fonts... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is by design, not by accident. (Score:5, Interesting)
He has no time to survive! Make his time! (Move Zune! For great injustice!)
Sorry. I had to.
Since we've all seen and we all know Cardinal Richelieu's "Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." quote, and Rand's "There's no way to rule innocent man..." quote, let's go for something a little closer to home in US jurisprudence.
Unfortunately, it wasn't an April Fool's joke.
Re:And Fonts... (Score:4, Interesting)
My 2 second google search brings up this [totse.com]. Disclamer: I haven't read that page though other than the title.
Re:And Fonts... (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe I have a semi-reasonable grasp of it, but welcome anyone to correct any errors I might make. The outlines of the characters in a font are not themselves copyrighted (nor can they be). However, the digital representation of these characters is copyrighted (i.e., the font files you buy or that come with software). This also includes derivatives based upon modifying the original digital files. However, if you were to print out the characters in a font, then redraw them in FontLab or Fontographer, you could claim the copyright to your new creation. However, you will then be scorned by the typographic community for doing so unless you at least make a few modifications to some of the characters. It's somewhat similar to software in that a disassembly and reimplementation of it must take place.
Re:Imminent destruction! (Score:2, Interesting)
The spectre of selective enforcement (Score:4, Interesting)
It even failed to mention some potential liabilities. When he "emails his family five photographs of the Utes football game he attended the previous Saturday," the point is the infringement of the copyright of his friend who took the pictures. He doesn't pile on the possibility that the images themselves contain copyrighted team logos, or that... this is so weird that I'm not sure I'm remembering it correctly, but I believe the owners of some buildings are now claiming that the appearance of the building itself is copyrighted and that photographing the buildings infringes... so the photographs might be infringing by showing the stadium itself.
What he does not mention is the spectre of selective enforcement. It is very convenient for authorities if everyone is a law-breaker, because then you always have a valid pretext for prosecuting/persecuting them.
Law on Everybody (Score:5, Interesting)
Robert
* pl. na kazdego jest paragraf
PS The nineties called and they want their "iso-8859-1 hardcoded webpages" back. Need I wait for "Web 5.0" to be able to use non-latin1 characters in
Re:link to the actual article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Imminent destruction! (Score:3, Interesting)
So most likely it wouldn't mean that you haven't violated copyright law, but instead that one isn't liable for doing so. But IANAL so I may have gotten that somewhat incorrect.
Affirmative defenses tend to be risky, in that if the jury decides that the defense isn't strong, then you've effectively pleaded guilty without the benefits of a plea bargain in place.
Re:Imminent destruction!TELL THAT TO PRINCE (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell that to Prince, who has issued a takedown for a photo of a fan's Prince tattoo.
Re:link to the actual article (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Imminent destruction! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah...but since the person in the example was a law professor couldn't he claim that the Captain Caveman tattoo was legal research because he wanted to see if he could get sued for having it and so therefore he couldn't be sued? Or would that much circular logic make a judge's head implode?
All this proves is copyright is broken (Score:3, Interesting)
The entire idea that "I got here first, so I own it" is antiquated in the digital age. If someone can reproduce the steps you took to get there, someone will. The whole idea that the creator should continue to control their creation after it is released is just plain counter-productive. The separate issue of whether they should be compensated for their work is another matter entirely.
Then there's the fact that companies spend billions on marketing then try to sue if someone uses the image they intentionally made popular. How asinine is that!
What we need is a change to the law such that anyone may produce their own copies or derivatives once a work is made public BUT if they profit from a copy of someone else's creation, they must pay part (or all) of their revenue back to the copyright holder.
As it stands copyright law is based on an 18th Century world (or rather part of the world) and the unique conditions of that time and place. They don't belong here and now.
Re:Imminent destruction! (Score:1, Interesting)