Showing posts with label black macaque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black macaque. Show all posts

Wednesday, 20 September 2017

THE COPYKAT

It's been a busy few days!

Another US lawsuit has been added to the mounting litigation against Spotify and the streaming platform's alleged failure to pay mechanical royalties in the USA for the right to 'copy' a song (rather than the 'perfoming' right).  In fact there have been three developments: an objection to Spotify's proposed settlement of the original class action on this issue, a rebuttal of its most recent legal arguments, and a brand new lawsuit. Hypebot's take is this: "The recorded music industry is in the midst of a renaissance thanks to revenue from a single source - streaming. But a growing string of lawsuits filed by songwriters and publishers, and an aggressive new legal tactic by Spotify, threatens the company's pending IPO and could derail the industry's delicate recovery"

Chance The Rapper at Hovefestivalen by Rashid Akrim / NRK
Three-time Grammy-winning Chance the Rapper (Chancellor Bennett) is being sued for copyright infringement. The suit was filed by Abdul Wali Muhammad on in the Illinois District Court. Muhammad is a musician-turned lawyer, who copyrighted the composition of ‘Bridge Through Time’ in 1979.  Muhammad’s claim rests on Bennett’s sampling of his composition in the track ‘Windows’ from his debut mixtape as Chance, 10 Day.  Whilst the use of copyrighted material is fairly obvious, Bennett’s particular approach to the music industry makes the case interesting. Bennett wrote 10 Day after being suspended from school in 2011. ‘Waves’ was released in December 2011 and soon after Complex listed him as one of ‘10 New Chicago Rappers To Watch Out For’ in February 2012. The mixtape itself was only self-released on DatPiff.com in April 2012. Since then it has been downloaded for free 538,617 times. It will be interesting to see how this develops. 

"There's a tattoo as a design, and then there's that same tattoo after it's inked on the human body. Tattoo artists often copyright their tattoos. But does that copyright stick once the image is inked on the human body?" A useful update on Ars technica looks at the interesting world of copyrght and tattoos and Solid Oak Sketches action against Take-Two Interactive Software, makers of  the highly popular NBA 2K game series based on the claim that Take-Two is infringing its copyrighted works because the game shows players incuding LeBron James abd Kobe Bryant with their real-world inked tattoos that Solid Oak Sketches created - and copyrighted in the US.  Even if the tattoos are copyrightable, Take-Two argued that it has a fair-use right to show the players with their tattoos, which are not a prominent feature of the video game. "Solid Oak's profit-making litigation should be halted in its tracks by dismissing Solid Oak’s copyright claim as a matter of law under the de minimis use and fair use doctrines," Take-Two claims.More on Ars Technica here and on this Blog here and here and the IPkat here.  


China's National Copyright Administration (NCAC) has told music companies operating in China that they must stick to market rules, and that all market players must adopt international practices to widen licensing and spread online music. The NCAC told an assembly of over twenty companies that they must work together to avoid giving exclusive music copyright to online music providers. The administration also underlined the laws and international conventions on copyright, warning companies against infringement. The NCAC said that music companies must not allow online music providers to bid up licensing prices, and must support the work of copyright organizations to protect the rights of copyright holders, especially lyricists and songwriters. They should also set up a more effective framework for licensing, cooperation and operation of online music copyright to improve order and for the industry to prosper, the NCAC said.

China's top legislature has passed a  law to protect the nation's national anthem and to ensure appropriate use of the song. The law was adopted after a second reading at the bimonthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. China's national anthem is "March of the Volunteers," has lyrics by poet Tian Han and music by Nie Er. The song will only be allowed at formal political gatherings, including the opening and closing of NPC sessions, constitutional oath ceremonies, flag raising ceremonies, major celebrations, award ceremonies, commemorations, national memorial day events, important diplomatic occasions, major sport events and other suitable occasions. It will be illegal to use the national anthem during funerals, "inappropriate" private occasions, commercials or as background music in public places. The law says that violators, including those who maliciously modify the lyrics or play/sing the national anthem in a distorted or disrespectful way, can be detained for up to 15 days or held criminally liable.

US TV star Dr. Phil is involved in a novel copyright decision Involving a woman who has alleged he falsely imprisonmed her: Leah Rothman, a former director on his show, used her iPhone to record nine seconds of outtakes to possibly aid herself in a legal battle. Rothman alleges suffering emotional distress and false imprisonment when, during a meeting, Dr. Phil locked the door, yelled profanities and threatened employees for supposedly leaking internal information to the press. Before she brought her action, Rothman says she attempted to get evidence by accessing a database of videos from the Dr. Phil Show archives and using her iPhone to record a nine-second clip of magterial she thought would be valuable to her litgation. But now a court has concluded that his wasn't 'fair use' with U.S. District Court Judge Rodney Gilstrap saying “Rothman did not copy to then educate the masses or to further the greater good. She copied to aid her pending lawsuit seeking money damages where she is the only plaintiff and sole potential beneficiary.” Therefore, Rothman could not hide behind fair use. This isn't the typical copyright story! 

The creator of Pepe the Frog has stepped up his fight against far-right activists who appropriated the cartoon character as a meme. Matt Furie has vowed to "aggressively enforce his intellectual property" after the character he created for a comic strip was plastered across social media and even merchandise, particularly by fans of US President Donald Trump as he fought his election campaign. Eleonora has posted an update on the IPKat here.

Taylor Swift may is facing a new copyright challenge over her 2014 hit “Shake It Off". Songwriters Sean “Sep” Hall and Nate Butler are suing Swift, arguing that the lyrics for “Shake It Off” borrow too heavily from “Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2001 song they wrote for the R&B trio 3LW.  Musician Jessie Braham having previously accused Swift and her co-writers of lifting lyrics from his song 'Haters Gonna Hate'. The claim failed. And two Canadian songwriters have filed a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement against country superstar Carrie Underwood and others. The lawsuit alleges Ronald McNeill and Georgia Lyons-Savage composed the chorus, melody and lyrics to a song called, “Something in the Water” in August 2012. The pair say they completed a vocal mix of the demo in September 2012 and pitched it to Underwood’s team, who declined to use it on her album. But according to the lawsuit, a song by the same name ended up on Underwood’s 2014 “Greatest Hits” album.

And finally and just in case you missed these two big stories ......

"We Shall Overcome" was labelled by the US Library of Congress as “the most powerful song of the 20th century”. It was a unifying anthem for the 1940s labour protests and the 1960s Civil Rights Movement led by Dr Martin Luther King, and came to symbolise the spirit of protest.  Now a federal judge has struck down the copyright for part of the civil rights anthem saying that the song’s adaptation from an older work, including changing “will” to “shall”,  was not original enough to qualify for protection.  Judge Cote said “This single word substitution is quintessentially trivial and does not raise a question of fact requiring a trial to assess whether it is more than trivial … The words ‘will’ and ‘shall’ are both common words. Neither is unusual” adding "The fact that a trivial change to the lyrics became a part of a popular version of a song does not render that change nontrivial and automatically qualify the popular version for copyright protection". More from George Chin here.

Is it the end of the 'monkey selfie' case? It seems so!  The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has settled its federal lawsuit that sought to establish the right for animals to own property - in this case the black macaque Naruto's right to own the copyright in a selfie taken with photographer David Slater's equipment in Indonesia. In a joint statement PETA and Slater say: "PETA and David Slater agree that this case raises important, cutting-edge issues about expanding legal rights for non-human animals, a goal that they both support, and they will continue their respective work to achieve this goal. As we learn more about Naruto, his community of macaques, and all other animals, we must recognize appropriate fundamental legal rights for them as our fellow global occupants and members of their own nations who want only to live their lives and be with their families. To further these goals, David Slater will donate 25% of future gross revenue from the Monkey Selfie photographs to charitable organizations dedicated to protecting and improving the welfare and habitat of Naruto and crested black macaques in Indonesia." This may be the end of this case, but is ot the end of the story? If the monkey cannot be the author, but does that mean that Mr Slater owns the copyright in the picture taken by the monkey? And if he doesn't - who does?
More on the settlement here.


Wednesday, 16 August 2017

The CopyKat - mid August musings for copyright monkeys



For years in the USA, there's been ample debate and scholarly literature over whether there really exists a crime for secondary copyright infringement. On Friday, a federal judge in Illinois probably made the day for big copyright holders by ruling that the U.S. Government has properly indicted Artem Vaulin, the alleged founder of KickassTorrents. A copy of the judgment can be viewed in full here.
Vaulin is currently in a jail cell in Poland after the 31-year-old was charged last year by U.S. authorities with running one of the world's most popular places to illegally obtain movies, television shows, songs and video games.
Judge John Lee takes up the issue of whether secondary liability for copyright infringement can be extended from the civil realm to the criminal one. In his decision the judge says that Vaulin is basically missing the big picture.
"[A]s should be clear by now, the indictment does not charge Vaulin with common law secondary liability... Rather, the indictment relies on the text of the congressionally enacted conspiracy and aiding and abetting statutes... Thus, the indictment charges Vaulin not with crimes based upon common law theories, but for conduct made unlawful under unambiguous statutes."
Dawn of Planet of the Apes Halted as Peta call time on Monkey Selfie Case


Naruto, via his self-appointed lawyers from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is in the process of dropping his lawsuit over the now infamous monkey selfies. That's according to a Friday legal filing with the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is being asked to hold off on issuing a ruling that everybody believes is going to go against Naruto.
Nobody would say publicly what the deal is, or why this is happening. However, during oral arguments in the case last month, a three-judge panel of the court of appeals eviscerated Naruto's arguments.

On the positive side though, PETA's lawsuit has prompted public discourse about the idea of animals owning property. And that's why this lawsuit may have been about nothing more than monkey business all along.

Sony is being sued for using a song by glam rock band T. Rex in summer blockbuster Baby Driver "without permission".
The son of late frontman Marc Bolan has filed a lawsuit accusing the studio of copyright infringement over the use of the band's hit Debora. A full copy of the suit can be viewed here.
Feld Bolan won the rights to the works of his father's band three years ago and is seeking punitive damages.
"Inexplicably, defendants failed to obtain - or even seek - the permission of the composition's US copyright holder Rolan Feld," said the complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court.
Feld was made aware of the use of 'Debora' when a Sony Music representative contacted his lawyer to request a licence to use the track on the movie's soundtrack release. The complaint claims that Feld then let Sony know that use of the song in the movie was "unauthorised", but Sony is said to have responded with "conflicting explanations", and Feld says they have now ceased communications.


Cards Against Humanity owns copyright number TX0007492177 at the US Copyright Office for its “base” set and numerous other copyright for its expansion packs.

The company has used the trademark ‘Cards Against Humanity’ since 2009, along with the tagline “A party game for horrible people”, its trade dress, which consists of white lettering on a black background with vertically aligned text, and a three-card design.

Cards Against Humanity is sold to US consumers through Amazon, its own website, eBay and, since 2014, various selected retail stores. A US judge has granted the owners of card game Cards Against Humanity an injunction against Skkye Enterprises, a company accused of selling counterfeit versions of the game. 

Cards Against Humanity filed a copyright and trademark infringement claim(pdf) against Skyye in September 2016 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
District Judge Audrey Fleissig granted (pdf) a permanent injunction and default judgment on Wednesday, August 9.On copyright infringement, Fleissig said that an award of $12,000 per infringement, totalling $60,000—or three times the highest estimated sales of defendants’ infringing game—in combination with the other damages, is a “just and suitably deterrent outcome”.The court awarded $20,000 per trademark infringement, for a total award of $60,000, which Fleissig said “compensates plaintiff in a fashion consistent with the purposes of the Lanham Act and case law”.

Cards Against Humanity was also granted an injunction against Skkye, along with an order for destruction of infringing goods.It was also awarded attorneys’ fees, subject to a further submission to the court on their reasonableness.

This CopyKat from Matthew Lingard

Wednesday, 19 July 2017

THE COPYKAT

Two influential committees in the European Parliament have now voted on their respective responses to the draft European Copyright Directive, and in particular the position the EU will take on 'safe harbour' in the future, and the music industry has generally welcomed those responses. The Consumer Rights Committee had already responded, and now both the Culture (Committee on Culture and Education - CULT) and Industry (Industry, Research and Energy - ITRE) Committees have now had their say, and with regard to safe harbour, both committees resisted calls to abandon or weaken article thirteen, instead seeking to reinforce and further clarify the draft article and the new obligations of safe harbour dwelling services of the YouTube variety. They also responded to a proposal, put forward by the Consumer Rights Committee, which would provide an exception for user-generated content - and which many in the music industry have now said could have a profound impact on the creative community with rights holders having to initiate expensive legal proceedings to establish the actual boundaries of such an exception". In relation to that proposal, yesterday's committees voted (a) against the idea entirely, or (b) to leave such matters to national law within the EU, rejecting the idea that European law-makers should make such an exception compulsory for member states. Helen Smith from the independent label's IMPALA organisation said: "It makes complete sense to narrow the value gap and the parliament has sent a strong message this morning. That's very good news - recalibrating the digital market in this way is necessary to stop creators, start-ups and citizens being dominated by abusive practices of big platforms who don't pay fair or play fair". The important Legal Committee will lead the final round of responding after the summer break. The EFF have a very different take on this. 

Freelance photographer David Slater, who facilitated the now famous 'monkey selfie' taken by black macaque Naruto is now in a dire financial situation as the appellate proceedings regarding the now famous “monkey selfie” photos continue in the United States courts. Slater had to settle for watching a live stream of the proceedings from his United Kingdom home because he can’t afford the flight to the USA, and is also not able to pay for the lawyer representing him, according to The Guardian. In a slightly more surreal intervention, the Chepstow based photographer now says that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - the animal rights organisation) is representing the wrong monkey in court with Slater saying “They definitely have the wrong monkey, and I can guarantee that. My lawyers can confirm it too" adding “The American court system doesn’t seem to care about that, which is baffling.”

A new study carried out by PRS for Music and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), has found that stream-ripping is now the most prevalent and fastest growing form of music piracy in the UK, with nearly 70% of music-specific infringement dominated by the illegal online activity. Research revealed that the use of stream-ripping websites, which allow users to illegally create permanent offline copies of audio or video streams from sites such as YouTube, increased by 141.3% between 2014 and 2016, overwhelmingly overshadowing all other illegal music services.

There has been a big 'fair use' ('fair dealing)' case in Canada which pitted content owners against Canadian Universities, with the latter's copying Guidelines under the microscope. And in Access Copyright v. York University, the Honourable Michael L. Phelan of the Federal Court of Canada came down on the side of Access Copyright, which exists to collect royalties on behalf of creators and publishers. Access had suffered a catastrophic decline in revenues after the Guidelines were adopted by York and other educational institutions, and sued York. York’s copying was for a permitted purpose, namely education, but Justice Phelan found that York’s dealing was unfair, or grossly unfair, on several of the six factors used to assess fair dealing (purpose of the dealing; the character of the dealing; the amount of the dealing (amount of copying); the available alternatives to the dealing; the nature of the work; and the effect of the dealing on the work. The court also found York’s guidelines to be unfair, poorly conceived and arbitrary, and that York made no effort to see that they were followed. There is more on the Financial Post here.

AND FINALLY, BUT IMPORTANTLY!

The MPA (Motion Picture Association) EMEA policy team is offering a full-time internship at its offices in Brussels for 6 months. The intern will receive financial compensation. The selected candidate will work closely with the MPA EMEA Policy Department and will primarily focus on supporting the team in implementing the EMEA Policy Strategy. More here

Friday, 15 January 2016

The CopyKat

Marie-Andree tells us that photographer Donald Graham has filed a copyright infringement suit against notorious 'appropriation artist' Richard Prince, the Gagosian Gallery, and its owner Larry Gagosian. Graham claims that Prince used the “Rastafarian Smoking a Joint” photograph without permission in the New Portraits exhibition. Prince presented inkjet prints on canvases of images he had found on Instagram, complete with his own comments as @richardprince4nd. This did not fare well with several authors of the photographs, but so far Donald Graham is the only one who has taken legal action - despite the earlier mostly unsuccessful attempts by Patrick Cariou to claim infringement on a similar basis. TechDirt have a robust examination of the issues here including the view "The next we heard of Richard Prince -- who, it should be admitted, sounds like a real jerk -- he had set up an exhibit where he had printed out people's Instagram photos along with some fake "comment" text added by Prince himself, and was charging obscene amounts of money for them" ........


PETA, the not for profit organisation that campaigns to for animals' rights, has failed in its attempt to get copyright in the infamous monkey selfie transferred to the black macaque monkey Naruto, who too the snap.  US District Judge William Orrick ruled that the monkey, who borrowed British photographer David Slater's camera and took the selfies, cannot own the copyright in the pictures. During a brief hearing the judge, dismissing the suit, stated: "I'm not the person to weigh into this. This is an issue for Congress and the president. If they think animals should have the right of copyright they're free, I think, under the Constitution, to do that."  Works "produced by nature, animals, or plants" cannot be granted copyright protection, the US Copyright Office said in 2014. Slater's Motion to Dismiss said "A monkey, an animal rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey's claimed copyright." .... "What seems like the setup for a punch line is really happening" adding "monkey see monkey sue is not good law".

BoingBoing tells us that Tommy Funderburk, who was previously was known as a "copyright troll" and whose company, Payartists, sent legal threats to people accused of copyright infringement, has ditched that business model and his new startup, Muzit, uses the same Bittorrent surveillance software and DMCA process to send letters on behalf of musicians, but these letters don't demand money - instead, they invite fans to collaborate with musicians, offering them membership in fan clubs and asking them to sign up for mailing lists. "Fans not Foes." is the new company's mantra it seems.

A group of German publishers has filed a civil complaint against Google. The group, constituted as VG Media, claims to be enforcing Germany’s “Ancillary Copyright” Law, passed in 2013. This is the latest episode in an ongoing dispute between German news publishers and Google.

And finally, a private company in China has been found to be unlawfully acting as a collecting society. The Jiangsu High People’s Court has ruled that Shenzhen Shengying Internet Technology Ltd had, since 2013, wrongfully collected license fees from karaoke bars and had filed lawsuits across the country to enforce its 'rights'. The company acted on behalf of record companies but was also alleged to have fraudulently obtained copyright certificates for other works. The Court reiterated that only the five collective management societies designated by the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) have legitimate authority to carry out collective rights management. More here (in Chinese).

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

New animal selfie ALERT!

a camera hogging koala
Last weekend staff at Edinburgh Zoo have managed to get a series of selfies from Koala bears which have surfaced online and in the press - and some other species also managed to get  in on the act with selfie's from f penguins, rhinos, wallabys, hippos and a binturong. The Scottish zookeepers decided to re-enact the celebrity selfie phenomenon by placing small RE cameras made by HTC smartphones in the animal's pens. The cameras were activated by a grip sensor and started shooting as soon as they were ‘picked up’ - or touched - by the animals  - "making it easy for the furry friends to get the hang of".


So can we expect another epic battle along the lines of the legal claim photographer David Slater instigated? It was Slater whose camera was seemingly stolen by a black macaque monkey. You will remember the monkey then took some selfies - but further use of the snaps prompted Slater to take on Wikipedia who published one photo without Slater's permission. 



Top snapper Mr Binturong
Interestingly the Edinburgh Zoo photos, posted on the Express website, seem to have a credit (possibly a copyright credit) on them, and are marked 'SWNS' - which I am guessing stands for South West News Service - the UK news agency that supplies editorial copy and pictures to national and international clients. The Express also has a link to a series of other animals selfies which contain the credit 'Marcus Bird/ Barcroft media'.  The SWNS website itself restricts re-use of material posted on that website but I couldn't find any koalas generated images there (although I did find plenty of other animals) nor were the zoo selfies apparent on the SWNS twitter feed -  so I suspect the pictures were sent out as a news feed. The zoo pictures can be found on the Scotsman - credited to 'Hemedia', Reveal had the copyright notices of '(c) HTC' on all the shots and the Irish Examiner marks them all 'Edinburgh Zoo'. 

Another copyright conundrum?  It seems the cameras were provided by HTC, and Ben Walsh from HTC told the Scotsman: “We know the most popular thing on the internet is funny pictures that owners take of their pets so at HTC were glad we’ve made a camera so brilliant and simple that animals can finally join us humans and start taking selfies too. With koalas taking the most pictures of themselves, expect to see their Instagram feeds full of koala selfies”. This statement, and the actions taken by the Zoo in releasing the photos, seem to indicate that the photos were freely distributed - and that they are currently free to use.  Jon-Paul Orsi, digital manager for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, is quoted in one article saying “We do a lot of our own photography on-site and these shots offer something completely different.

So, the zoo selfies (or 'zoofies') are currently being treated differently to the copyright in the case of the black macaque where Slater threatened legal  action. The koala snaps seems to be being treated more like the Ellen DeDegeris / Bradley Cooper 'Oscars' selfie which prompted much academic debate - much sharing, tweeting and publication - but as far as I know, resulted in no legal actions against those who subsequently used the shot. In fact I found the webpages of London PR Firm Hope & Glory who had this to say: "It’s been a day of formidable coverage for the HTC team here at Hope&Glory.Having come up with the idea a month or so ago of handing some HTC RE Cameras to the animals (and their handlers) at Edinburgh Zoo, we got our shots back last week and it’s been all systems go making sure that the shots were to be seen just about everywhere during today" adding "The fact that we decided to hold the story until Australia Day, knowing that we had a couple of Koala shots in our armoury, was also no coincidence." So whoever owns the shots - they WANT everyone to use them! But with all those conflicting copyright notices, I still wondered what (if any) 'copyright' restrictions had been put on the koala and penguin selfies.

Does Mrs Penguin get the credit?
But does it matter what 'permissions' have been given or withheld anyway?  Our own poll on the monkey snaps showed that 52%  of 1709 readers polled thought that "there is no copyright in works authored by animals: they are a gift to humanity which we can all use" a view seemingly shared by the US Copyright Office, although 30% thought that only humans are authors so the photographer owns the copyright as the nearest relevant human". Just 6% wanted to give copyright to the monkey. Opinions on ownership of the 'Oscars' selfie ranged from the copyright being owned by Bradley Cooper who pressed the button, to being owned by DeGeneris who assembled the photo (so perhaps DeGeneris was the person who made the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work), perhaps joint ownership by all of the featured stars, owned by Sponsor Samsung who provided the phone, or owned by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences who staged the event and could possibly claim ownership under contractual agreements and under the 'work for hire' doctrine.

But MIGHT there be more of a copyright claim on the facts here - well more than Mr Slater has or had? My own personal feeling is that the author has to be a person and that person still has to be a human (although there have been conflicting opinions on this blog). Maybe just maybe there might be a human involved in the issue of ownership of copyright here - but which human? The HTC cameras in the zoo were set up to be triggered by animal movement or touching - rather than the Macaque case where it seems the monkey actually took the photo by pressing a button and it appeared holding the camera (just like Bradley). Does HTC have a claim to ownership of copyright in the selfies? It also seems that some of the cameras were positioned to take certain shots at certain angles or with certain backgrounds in frame, and this might tend towards suggesting the person or persons who did the setting up might own a copyright. So perhaps the handlers have a claim? Or perhaps the Zoo can claim ownership as this was 'work for hire'? We also don't know about editing of any of the koala selfies (eg by cropping, colouring, re-positioning): if there has been editorial input, this might again pass a copyright to a human. Mr Slater belatedly let it be known that he had set up the camera the monkey used  - and had also amended the shots as he sought to establish ownership of the macaque snapped selfie. But so far, to no avail;  but maybe things are different here? So maybe here IF copyright became as issue it IS possible one or more persons might be the author. 

These conclusions may (or may not) not be agreeable to the 5% of our readers who felt that with the black macaque snap, "Whichever human gets to it first can keep it, just like any other bona vacantia" or those who commented on earlier blogs  - or the 4% who felt that "The United Nations should set up a special agency to own and control uses of all non-human works like this" or the aforementioned. And I have to disagree with the 6% of readers who felt "The monkey owns the copyright: she's the author, after all". It seems unlikely is that Mr Penguin or Mrs Koala will be an author in the United Kingdom anytime in the near future - and I am still of  the opinion that there is no copyright in works authored by animals and that "they are a gift to humanity which we can all use" although the efforts of the campaign group Nonhuman Rights Group, whilst unsuccessful in New York and Austria, were more successful in persuading  a court in Argentina to allow a claim for habeas corpus for Sumatran orang-utan Sandra - who had been born in captivity and was being held at Buenos Aires Zoo - finding she deserved the basic rights of a non human person. So maybe a monkey (and koala) copyright soon!

Binturongs are a species of, errrm, bearcat from South East Asia by the way -  but what you may ask is a 'Lert' ? Well, there I cannot help - I can't even discover what species it is. I need a nicely illustrated Wikipedia page to tell me. I live in hope.

Image: http://thoseposters.com/index.php

Friday, 12 September 2014

The CopyKat - reform is in the air ......

But will there be reform in Australia?
The Australian Finacial Review reports that Google and Facebook are fighting back against what they see as tough anti-piracy measures being ­considered by the Australian government which have resulted form the proposed reform review driven by Attorney-General George Brandis. These include a graduated response scheme, potentially making internet service providers liable for the piracy of their customers, and blocking overseas websites that host illegal content, such as The Pirate Bay. The submission by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents Google, Facebook, eBay and others says that rather than push for “graduated response schemes”, which would give illegal downloaders a series of warnings before punishing them, the government should consider the lack of legal content in Australia saying “There is little or no evidence that such schemes are successful, but there is no shortage of examples where such schemes have been distinctly unsuccessful” adding “Online copyright infringement is a global issue and any regulatory or legislative moves in one country tend to generate interest among stakeholders far beyond national shore.  And interestingly, even the government seems to sense no one is happy. Pay television provider Foxtel said in its submission that the proposal is "broader than it needs to be" although Foxtel CEO Richard Freudenstein said it would become uneconomic to make expensive, high-quality programs unless illicit downloading is tackled ("There will be a lot more cats on skateboards; we'll have a lot less Game of Thrones," he said);  Music Rights Australia warns it "will not be effective" and risks creating greater legal uncertainty for all parties. "Unanimous" opposition to the Australian government's proposed copyright law changes will force it "back to the drawing board" to tackle online piracy, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has now said at a public forum in Sydney where Telstra executive director Jane van Beelen told the forum that there do not need to be any changes to copyright law. Rather, ISPs and rights holders should work together on a voluntary scheme to discourage internet users from infringing copyright. Turnbull concluded
"What is being canvassed in the discussion paper around authorisation liability - that is essentially the law that makes a person liable for the copyright infringement of another - those changes, I'd say there's been unanimity in that everyone has criticised them and found them inadequate from one level or another," 

The CCIA also said any move to hinder Australian ISPs and tech companies would put them “at a significant comparative disadvantage versus the European Union and the United States” as well as criticising  "cumbersome and restrictive territorial copyright restrictions" and bad "licensing conduct" in the music business. The CCIA also questions the content industries' stats about piracy, and the effectiveness particularly of three-strikes, where internet service providers are forced to send stern letters to file-sharing customers, including the threat of some sanction if infringement continues.


And on the same topic, Australian service provider iiNet has responded on a number of issues including privacy concerns, data retention plans and the effectiveness of the graduated response, as well as the contentious idea of blocking repeat offenders. iiNet’s chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby condensed the key points into a post on the ISP’s official blog, stating that the issue of copyright infringement can’t be dealt with by “applying a band aid” — it will require a “long term solution” that reduces piracy not by punishing infringers, but given people less reasons to download content illegally. He also saysthat most Australian consumers would be happy to pay for content, if someone actually offered it locally. He cites Foxtel’s own report of the success it’s had with season four of Game of Thrones, with the pay TV provider recording some 500,000 purchases and the “lengths” people go to in order to subvert geo-blocking for services such as Netflix. Dalby also hits out at rights holders’ use of “‘lobbynomics’ rhetoric” such as misleading information on the ecomonic imapct of piracy and the impact on employment - and the effect these claims have on policy and the media. The ISP also slammed the federal government for referring to online infringements as "theft", saying that it is a "moral rhetoric".

Michael Geist
TechDirt reveals that the leak of the complete CETA text  (the trade agreement between Canada and the EU) shows that Canada "fought off EU demands for more extreme copyright rules" and the leak has allowed Michael Geist to perform an analysis of how the copyright provisions in CETA have evolved since the first leak of the chapter covering intellectual monopolies, posted by Wikileaks back in 2009. At that time, the European Union was pushing for some "serious beefing-up of Canadian law" in this area: The leak seemingly reveals: "The starting point for copyright in CETA as reflected in 2009 leaked document was typical of European demands in its trade agreements. It wanted Canada to extend the term of copyright to life of the author plus 70 years (Canada is currently at the international standard of life plus 50 years), adopt tough new rules for Internet provider liability, create criminal sanctions for some copyright infringement, implement new rights for broadcasters and visual artists, introduce strict digital lock rules with minimal exceptions, and beef up enforcement powers. In other words, it was looking for Canada to mirror its approach on copyright" but with Geist concluding "The major European copyright demands were ultimately dropped and remaining issues were crafted in a manner consistent with Canadian law."

4CHan, the online image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images, has pledged to implement a Digital Millennium Copyright Act policy to allow content owners to get material that has been illegally shared removed.. The move comes after the site was the first to host recently leaked private photos from a number of celebrity's mobile phones on its discussion boards. And Reddit, which had mass postings of the celebrity nude shots, admits that copyright might well be the best defence against 'revenge porn' saying "We take down things we’re legally required to take down, and do our best to keep the site getting from spammed or manipulated, and beyond that we try to keep our hands off” with Jason Harvey, a Reddit systems administrator, explaining "But when it came to the nude photos, “it became obvious that we were either going to have to watch these subreddits constantly, or shut them down. We chose the latter.” : Despite the obvious privacy violations, the apparent harassment, and — in many cases, including this one — the overwhelming evidence of computer crimes - "the quickest, easiest way to get compromising images off the Internet is frequently copyright law". More on the Washington Post


I know little about this next matter apart from this brief post - any updates from our readers on this story would be much appreciated here on the 1709 Blog but it looks very inetresting. It appears that Netherlands has reached a settlement with the copyright organisation Norma after the suspension of the private-copy tax in 2007. Norma will receive EUR 10 million in damages for it's members. Norma won a ruling in the Dutch Courts earlier this year. The copy levy was collected on media players and storage devices to compensate copyright holders.  What more can you tell us?

Music publisher BMG has announced that it had entered into a direct deal with American streaming service Pandora covering its catalogue of songs that are otherwise repped by US collecting societies ASCAP and BMI. It means that those songs will now be licensed to Pandora directly by the music rights company, rather than via the collective licensing system. BMG told reporters that the new deal, "creates marketing and business benefits for Pandora, BMG and the songwriters it represents".

And with our poll now closed - more on that Black Macaque monkey selfie here .

Tuesday, 2 September 2014

That poor macaque: 1709 Blog readers say there is no copyright in her selfie

Alas: not much too
laugh about
copyright-wise
Following the huge debate generated by *that* macaque selfie, on 14 August last our own blogmeister Jeremy launched a poll asking 1709 Blog readers about their copyright-related thoughts [but can there be thoughts which are non-copyright-related? This will probably be one of our next polls] regarding that photograph: is there copyright in it? If so, who owns it?

The poll ended yesterday and received 354 responses [thanks so much to all those who took the time to vote!].

The results are well summarised here, but for the sake of completeness, here's what our readers think:
  • "The monkey owns the copyright: she's the author, after all". This is true for just 24 readers (6%). 
  • "Only humans are authors so the photographer owns the copyright as the nearest relevant human", say 107 readers (30%).
  • "There is no copyright in works authored by animals: they are a gift to humanity which we can all use". This is not just the opinion of the US Copyright Office [see §306], but also of 187 readers (52%).
  • "The United Nations should set up a special agency to own and control uses of all non-human works like this", is the ambitious suggestion of 16 voters (4%).
  • "Whichever human gets to it first can keep it, just like any other bona vacantia" is the opinion of 20 readers (5%).

Saturday, 23 August 2014

The CopyKat - more on that black macaque

The Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council has circulated the "Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China (Draft Revision for Review) (the Draft Revision)" for public comments. The proposed changes include (a) new provisions for private agreements for the ownership of copyrights - in particular between employer and employee (b) new provisions to govern the administration and regulation of  collection societies and (c) new provisions that would move China on from calculating damages based on the  actual loss suffered by the right holder to a more flexible system that would include 'account for profit' and/or fixed damages up to RMB 1 million. More here


Bulbasaur
Nintendo has pulled the plug (at least for now) on Claudia Ng who created a Pokémon-themed 'Bulbasaur' planter, originally for a friend. Ng also placed this design on Shapeways, a 3D printing platform - and this proved to be extremely popular: But Shapeways have now received a cease and desist from Pokémon International for infringement, and the planter has (currently) been removed. More here.

A very angry sounding BoingBoing says this : "Rightscorp, the extortion-based startup whose business-model is blackmailing Internet users over unproven accusations of infringement, made record revenues last quarter, thanks to cowardly ISPs who agreed to lock 75,000 users out of the Web until they sent Rightscorp $20-$500 in protection money. Now the company plans to expand the program to all the major ISPs in America (thanks to cable company fuckery, this is a very short list). They have deals to threaten people on behalf of BMG, "plus artists belonging to the Royalty Network such as Beyonce, Calvin Harris and Kanye West." They demand $20 per alleged (and unproven) offense, and say that they're closing cases everyday for $300, $400, $500."
The BoingBoing headline Copyright extortion startup wants to hijack your browser until you pay reminded me of an amusing app developed by "Frustrated-mother-turned-evil-genius" Sharon Standifird called Ignore No More, an Android app that gives parents the ability to lock their kid’s smartphone from afar if they refuse to take their calls or call Mum or Dad back - making it unwise to ignore calls as all the hapless teen can then do is make calls to 911, with the app's website explaining “When you lock your child’s phone with Ignore No More your child has only two options – he or she can call you back, or call for an emergency responder”

Kim Dotcom, the boss of MegaUpload, who is currently fighting extradition to the USA on criminal charges related to copyright infringement, will not now be getting his assets back. An appeals court has now overturned an earlier decision by New Zealand's High Court. Dotcom's assets were seized after MegaUpload was taken off line in January 2012. The orders granting the seizures, issued by a US court and approved vy the court in New Zealand, expired in April and an application to extend them was turned down by the High Court.

Rep. Robert Goodlatte has confimed that the current review of US copyright law by the House Judiciary Committe will continue Into 2015 and education and circumvention will be the next issues examined, More here http://www.bna.com/copyright-review-process-n17179894026/

This could be expensive: The BBC reports that one of Colombian pop star Shakira's big hits has been found to be indirectly copied from another songwriter's work. Judge Alvin Hellerstein  in New York has found that Shakira's 2010 Spanish-language version of Loca had infringed on a song by Dominican singer Ramon Arias Vazquez. The Spanish language version. Shakira's missive,  a collaboration with Dominican rapper Eduard Edwin Bello Pou, better known as El Cata - was widely released as a single around the world and borrowed from  Loca Con Su Tiguer - but that song was itself was based on the Arias Vazquez track of the same name.  Loca went on to sell more than five million copies and topped Billboard Magazine's Latin charts. Her English language version of Loca - which featured Dizzee Rascal - was "not offered into evidence" at the trial. In his ruling Judge Hellerstein said that while the hit single had been based on an earlier version of a song recorded by Bello [El Cata], this itself was a copy of Arias Vazquez's song saying "Accordingly, I find that, since Bello had copied Arias, whoever wrote Shakira's version of the song also indirectly copied Arias". Bello had denied outright the allegations made against him, claiming 'Loca Con Su Tiguera' was his song. Judge Hellerstein decided against his role as a writer, partly because of the existence of a cassette of the song in Arias's hands from 1998, and partly because of inconsistencies in Bello's story both inside and outside of court. The Shakira and Arias songs were sufficiently similar for there to be copyright infringement in a case brought by Mayimba Music who had acquired the rights in Arias' song, and it was that firm which sued various Shakira's record label,  Sony, and associated companies involved in the hit. Image (c) 2009 Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. 

Face without a face - Maya Hayuk
On a similar theme: a joke article and YouTube video by Chilean website Rata  comparing portions of Tame Impala's 2012 song 'Feels Like We Only Go Backwards' and Argentine songwriter Pablo Ruiz 1989 hit 'Océano' which wentn viral has prompted a claim by Ruiz that "Obviously there is plagiarism. Whether they have done it on purpose or not, there are seven bars that are equal to my song".

The artist Maya Hayuk is suing pop star Sara Bareilles, her record labels Epic Records and Sony Music and  the luxury brand Coach for using her 2014 Lower East Side mural Chem Trails NYC as the backdrop for advertisements and promotional materials without her permission, The lawsuit, filed in a Manhattan Federal Court, alleges that Bareille used photos and video shot in front of Hayuk’s colorful, geometric mural to promote her recent “Little Black Dress” concert tour and album The Blessed Unrest. It seems Coach used the public artwork as a backdrop for images used to sell its upmarket clothes and bags online without Hayuk’s permission. She is seeking $150,000 each from Coach and Bareilles.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc has reached a settlement with Complex Systems allowing it to continue using a key piece of software in its trade finance business. A U.S. court had perviously had prevented the bank from using the software after a claim for infringement was brought by Complex. 

And finally ...... back to that Black Macaque: The U.S. Copyright Office addresses the dispute in the latest draft of its Compendium Of U.S. Copyright Office Practices”, which was published on August 19th. The previous compendium stated that “Materials produced solely by nature, by plants, or by animals are not copyrightable.” The new 1,222-page report again makes their stance on animal artwork clear by referring specifically to photographs taken monkeys (and other species of course). “[T]he Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work.” And the Report gives more clarity: Did you know (?) that the Office will not register
-  a work purportedly created by divine or supernatural beings.
-  a musical work created by solely by an animal such as a bird song or whale song. 
-  a musical composition created solely by a computer algorithm.
-  dances performed or intended to be performed by animals, machines, or other animate or inanimate objects
-  pantomimes performed by animals, robots, machines, or any other animate or inanimate object  [for more see chapter 300]. 

Do you disagree with the U.S. Copyrght Office?  You can have your own say - dont forget to vote in our side bar poll!