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Leaked: US proposal on copyright's limits
A TPP draft looks more restrictive than some had hoped.
by Megan Geuss - Aug 5, 2012 7:30 pm UTC
Late Friday, a few short paragraphs of text were leaked that revealed something of the terms on fair use being negotiated in secret by the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is a treaty currently being negotiated by nine Pacific Rim countries seeking to establish a new free-trade agreement on many issues, including intellectual property. The next negotiating round is set for early September in Leesburg, Virginia.
Much has been made of the secrecy in which the TPP has enshrouded its negotiations for an international trade agreement. In May, 30 scholars wrote to the US Trade Representative (USTR) asking for more transparency in the decision-making process, and critics have routinely claimed that such processes cater largely to narrow rightsholder interests.
The TPP met last in early July in San Diego, CA for a round of negotiations, but none of the draft texts were made public. After that round of negotiations concluded, the USTR sent an e-mail to the press announcing that it was proposing language on fair use and limitations to copyright in the international treaty, a first for the generally conservative agency. But the leaked text, revealed by Knowledge Ecology International, suggests that these exceptions to IP rules won't be quite as open as some fair use advocates had hoped.
Back in July, a USTR spokesperson said the trade agency would push for rules "that will obligate Parties to seek to achieve an appropriate balance in their copyright systems in providing copyright exceptions and limitations for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research." But in the new leaked draft text, while very similar phrasing appears, there seems to be room to crack down on any anticipated broad terms of fair use.
The US and Australia, for instance, proposed what entities like the EFF and KEI fear could be a rightsholder-friendly three-step test to determine what exceptions to copyright are allowable. The leaked texts specifically say that the participating countries should confine these limitations "to certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work, performance, or phonogram, and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder."
It's important to note that the draft is just that—a draft. But the leak suggests that the US and Australia are pushing for more restrictive language, while countries like New Zealand, Chile, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam are in favor of more open rules to allow "a party to carry forward and appropriately extend into the digital environment limitations and exceptions in its domestic laws." The US and Australia opposed that wording, and sought to change the language to suggest, “that each party may, consistent with the foregoing, adopt or maintain... exceptions and limitations for the digital environment."
In other words, the US and Australia are saying a country can't just decide on "limitations and fair use" based on existing domestic IP laws, some of which may be quite broad. Instead, limitations must conform to international agreements, including the TPP, which can be more restrictive.
It's Judge Posner again (Hooray!)I didn't know about that. Good on Judge Posner!
Someone should do an indie animated anime about him, he's on a RAMPAGE trying to stop the IP madness all by himself!-TaoPhoenix (August 05, 2012, 03:53 AM)
MPAA leak: O'Dwyer, TVShack.net case "isn't about Internet freedom."
Memo suggests film org wants to remind its colleagues—paint this kid as a crook.
by Nathan Mattise - Aug 6, 2012 1:15 am UTC
Don't let the Mickey Mouse shirt fool you. As far as the MPAA is concerned, the public needs a reminder of who Richard O'Dwyer really is.
“Being 24, posing for newspaper photo shoots in a cartoon sweatshirt, and having your mother and Jimmy Wales speak for you, does not mean you are incapable for breaking the law.”
The reminder above comes from a supposedly leaked MPAA memo obtained by TorrentFreak. It outlines talking points when discussing the much publicized O'Dwyer case, involving the 24-year-old and the "link site" he used to run. TVShack.net didn't directly host possibly infringed materials, but the site did link to such videos. While this would likely be legal under UK law, O'Dwyer landed squarely in the crosshairs of US copyright enforcers. This spring, news broke that O'Dwyer would be extradited to the US for this alleged copyright infringement despite no locally illegal activities being performed in his UK home. O'Dwyer is currently appealing this decision, but the July timeline for an appeal decision was delayed without concrete rescheduling.
O'Dwyer's fight sparked Internet activism of the strongest kind, with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales pushing an online petition. Wales referenced the SOPA-PIPA derailment as the public's "first big victory" in the realm of Internet freedom, and sees preventing O'Dwyer's extradition as a potential second. To date, more than a quarter of a million people have signed the petition. But the MPAA takes a clearly different view (while reassuring all that they are pro-Internet freedom).
“This case isn’t about Internet freedom. It’s about a man profiting from theft. However, we do welcome a larger discussion about how best to protect intellectual property online while ensuring an Internet that works for everyone.”
In addition to some initial talking points, the memo contains a faux-Q&A to keep commentary along the party lines. These responses run the gamut, from thoughts on the Wales petition (“We think it’s presumptuous of Mr. Wales to claim to speak for the ‘general public") to the extradition itself ("Governments and law enforcement agencies make these decisions and we are not in a position to comment on the specifics of the extradition proceedings").
Ars will update this post if any additional information from the MPAA becomes available, and we'll continue to follow the O'Dwyer situation.
Previously on Richard O'Dwyer
- June 2012: Extraditing students for copyright claims? Jimmy Wales says it's wrong
- March 2012: Copyright wars heat up: US wins extradition of college kid from England
- January 2012: Copyright Wars escalate: Britain to extradite student to US over link site
- November 2011: British student fights extradition to US over TVShack link site
- July 2011: Big Content's latest antipiracy weapon: extradition
I have two batch files to turn on and off 2 services:Thanks @AndyM. I had not known of this command previously.ServicesStart.bat:Both have worked fine (Windows XP SP3) for years.
@echo off
sc config wuauserv start= auto
...-AndyM (August 05, 2012, 01:53 PM)
net stop [service name]Thanks @Stoic Joker. I had not known of this command previously.
net start [service name]
net restart [service name]-Stoic Joker (August 04, 2012, 08:19 AM)
Being a laptop, do she by any chance let it go into Hibernation ?Not hibernation (save RAM to disc), no - but it does often get switched to "sleep".-4wd (August 04, 2012, 07:49 PM)
There's many a true word spoken in jest...Interesting legal decision reported by arstechnica: MPAA "embedding is infringement" theory rejected by court...Ooops. Looks like someone in the MAFIAA forgot to buy off that judge...
(The text of the post is in the spoiler below.)-IainB (August 04, 2012, 06:51 PM)
-Renegade (August 04, 2012, 06:56 PM)
patku, I can write you a small script that should work for you. However, you would need to have a certain option turned on in your Windows Explorer options...Do we actually need a script to do that?-skwire (August 04, 2012, 06:59 PM)
[...Having said that, I see an unpleasant aspect -- when you hit Ctrl+V it will create a new image file, but the image file will be called "Clipboard Image.bmp" and be in bmp format.If we knew what configuration in Windows was required to enable this default, then we wouldn't need a workaround script - would we?-mouser (August 01, 2012, 12:09 AM)
"Oh yes. Dad, I avoid giving my real age when I am setting up an account for a game or anything, but if I do give it I also give my Gmail account as my guardian's email address, and approve it that way."
...And isn't that the same link in the OP IanB?Oh yes, so it is. Coincidence. I had evidently been reading the same post as @nosh, but as he had put the hyperlink only (which I didn't look at anyway) and not the title, in my scan-reading haste I had not realised it was the same thing.-wraith808 (August 04, 2012, 10:49 AM)
MPAA "embedding is infringement" theory rejected by court
Judge calls on Congress to update copyright law for the online video era.
by Timothy B. Lee - Aug 3, 2012 10:15 pm UTC
A federal appeals court has decisively rejected a legal theory that would have placed anyone who embeds a third-party video on her website in legal jeopardy. In a Thursday decision, Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the "video bookmarking" site myVidster was not liable to the gay porn producer Flava Works if users embedded copies of Flava videos on myVidster.
Judge Posner's reasoning is interesting. He argues that when you view an infringing video on a site such as YouTube, no one—not you, not YouTube, and not the guy who uploaded the infringing video—is violating copyright's reproduction or distribution rights. And since simply viewing an infringing copy of a video isn't copyright infringement, he says, myVidster can't be secondarily liable for that infringement.
Viewing an infringing video online may lead to a violation of copyright's public performance right, Posner goes on, but here the law is murky. The judge called on Congress to help clarify exactly how copyright law should apply in the age of Internet video.
And if even one of copyright's most respected jurists is confused, it's a clear sign that copyright law needs work.
Embedding is not infringement
Flava Works sued myVidster because users kept adding links to Flava videos to the myVidster site. myVidster is a "video bookmarking" site that automatically embeds bookmarked videos on its site and surrounds them with ads. To the untrained eye, it looks like myVidster itself serves up the infringing copies of the videos. Based on that perception, the trial court judge ruled that myVister was directly infringing Flava's copyrights and granted a preliminary injunction.
Of course, if embedding is direct infringement, then anyone who embeds a video without first researching its copyright status is at risk of being a direct infringer. That would put a damper on the practice of embedding, which has made the Web a more convenient and interactive place.
The Motion Picture Association of America, of course, was thrilled with this initial result. But as Google and Facebook pointed out in an amicus brief late last year, the lower court's decision was inconsistent with the relevant precedents.
Judge Posner, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, overruled the lower court's judgment. While it might appear that videos embedded on myVidster are being distributed by myVidster, the underlying data is actually being streamed directly from third-party servers to user computers. Hence, Posner wrote, neither myVidster nor its users are guilty of direct copyright infringement.
"Viewing" is not copying
Still, myVidster could be liable for secondary copyright infringement for assisting, benefitting from, or "inducing" the infringing activities of others. But Judge Posner rejected that argument as well, and his reasoning was interesting:As long as the [myVidster] visitor makes no copy of the copyrighted video that he is watching, he is not violating the copyright owner’s exclusive right, conferred by the Copyright Act, “to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies” and “distribute copies ... of the copyrighted work to the public.” His bypassing Flava’s pay wall by viewing the uploaded copy is equivalent to stealing a copyrighted book from a bookstore and reading it. That is a bad thing to do (in either case) but it is not copyright infringement. The infringer is the customer of Flava who copied Flava’s copyrighted video by uploading it to the InternetSo a user who streams an infringing video from a website does not violate copyright's reproduction or distribution rights. But what about the uploader—isn't myVidster contributing to his initial act of infringement? Surprisingly, Posner suggests the answer is no.Flava contends that by providing a connection to websites that contain illegal copies of its copyrighted videos, myVidster is encouraging its subscribers to circumvent Flava’s pay wall, thus reducing Flava’s income. No doubt. But unless those visitors copy the videos they are viewing on the infringers’ websites, myVidster isn’t increasing the amount of infringement. An employee of Flava who embezzled corporate funds would be doing the same thing—reducing Flava’s income—but would not be infringing Flava’s copyrights by doing so. myVidster displays names and addresses (that’s what the thumbnails are, in effect) of videos hosted elsewhere on the Internet that may or may not be copyrighted.In Posner's view, no matter how many people view a video on a video sharing site, there's only one violation of the reproduction and distribution right: the original uploading of the video.
The distinction between "downloading" a video and "streaming" seems tenuous to us, though. Modern Web-based video streaming software typically caches a "streamed" video so that by the end of it the user has a complete copy of the video on his computer and can re-watch it as many times as he wants. That copy may stay on the user's computer for hours if the user leaves that browser window open. Posner did not examine how long an infringing video could be stored on a user's computer before it infringed the reproduction right.
Public performance
Copyright holders also have the right to control public performances of their work, and Posner argues that argument may be more promising for Flava Works. But here the law is ambiguous:The Copyright Act makes it unlawful “to perform the copyrighted work publicly,” defined, so far as relates to this case, as “to transmit or otherwise communicate a performance... of the work... to the public... whether the members of the public capable of receiving the performance... receive it in the same place or in separate places and at the same time or at different times.” One possible interpretation is that uploading plus bookmarking a video is a public performance because it enables a visitor to the website to receive (watch) the performance at will, and the fact that he will be watching it at a different time or in a different place from the other viewers does not affect its “publicness,” as the statute makes clear... An alternative interpretation, however... is that the performance occurs only when the work (Flava’s video) is transmitted to the viewer’s computer.Posner says the first interpretation is "hopeless for Flava" since myVidster had nothing to do with uploading the video. He argues that the second interpretation might prove more fruitful for the plaintiff, but then said that Flava had not proven its case was strong enough to win a preliminary injunction. myVidster will be allowed to continue operating its site while Flava and myVidster deal with other issues raised by the lawsuit.
"Legislative clarification of the public-performance provision of the Copyright Act would be most welcome," Posner wrote. Given the contentiousness surrounding copyright, we're not going to hold our breaths waiting for Congress to respond.
A warning about having multiple interlinked devices and accounts.Maybe add "...without adequate security, built-in and secure redundancy or proper backup contingencies...".
hacked really hard-NigelH (August 04, 2012, 12:43 PM)
I don't know if possible. In this case is forms recognition and data capture. But not all data. Selected fields to go into a database (txt, xml, csv, access, dbf,.....)It might not work to your satisfaction (YMMV).
Can Create Qiqqa associated txt, xml, csv from a file selecting ICR ?-Contro (August 04, 2012, 06:28 AM)
Forms recognition and data extraction from scanned documentsScan them to .PDF.
Forms recognition and data extraction from scanned documents
Do you know an open source or freeware to do this task ?
Qiqqa ?-Contro (August 03, 2012, 06:10 PM)
Looking back over this thread, I wonder has anyone done a review of Qiqqa?I don't think so, but I have been thinking of doing a proper Mini-Review, having used Qiqqa for a few months now. It's a superb document and information/reference management system.-Daleus (January 24, 2012, 06:36 AM)-IainB (January 27, 2012, 02:05 AM)
Old drives never die, they merely fall to bits.
(probably no big deal, but the two long links in the quote in your post are using your moniker)Thanks for telling me. I thought I had removed any personal links, but they evidently used a unique ID for me (it came from an email). I have removed the IDs, which rather breaks the links. They just go to the Demand Progress website now.-tomos (August 03, 2012, 05:32 AM)
Don't forget gun freedom! They stuck gun control into that bill as well... Seriously. I'm not kidding.Yes, I know. I think I already pointed that out in two places:-Renegade (August 03, 2012, 04:51 AM)