Category: Copyright

Digital Fair Use Bill Introduced In Congress

Digital Fair Use Bill Introduced In Congress – Post I.T. – A Technology Blog From The Washington Post – washingtonpost.com & Reps. Boucher and Doolittle Introduce the FAIR USE Act of 2007

U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA) have introduced a bill which is designed to alter the Fair Use landscape under the DMCA. Rep. Boucher summarized:

“The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before. Historically, the nation’s copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public’s right to fair use.”

However, as any good copyright lawyer will tell you, fair use is a defense to infringement–not a right. Perhaps legislative action such as this could help give the public exactly what it sorely needs: guidelines or boundaries (I’ll still avoid using the word “right” here) for the typical user of a copyrighted work.

Under the “old” media landscape, deep pockets and insurance could withstand the threat of an infringement suit. Now, participatory media have pushed the fair-use-as-defense model to its breaking point. For the typical user of digital media to know what is permissible under the law, there needs to be a better way for users to engage with new media without worrying about being vulnerable to a lawsuit. A change like this may be controversial, but I would argue that it’s far superior to enforce a law by foster public acceptance and legitmacy…as opposed to purely enforcing the limits of the law through DRM.

Here’s a link to the draft text.

Communication Law News

Quite a bit of communication/technology law news today…just a few brief thoughts:

Oral Arguments in ATT v. Microsoft

The Supreme Court heard arguments today on whether Microsoft’s sending Vista master disks overseas with some of AT&T’s code constitutes patent infringement. While I’m not quite up to speed on this case, it certainly bears mentioning as the Court may rule on whether or not software may be patented. Currently, computer programs (or more specifically, their source code) are protected by copyright, while in some cases the functions that a program performs have been granted a patent. At one point, Justice Breyer asked, “Since it’s never been held that it’s patentable in this Court, if I were writing something, should I say ‘on the assumption that it’s patentable?’ Since the issue isn’t raised?” The Assistant Solicitor General arguing on Microsoft’s behalf dodged the question, the possibility of a Court statement on the patentability of software could answer some pressing questions.

Edit: Here’s an article from Ars Technica with a good overview of the case background.

RIAA College Crackdown (Full AP story, Local)

The RIAA is targeting higher education with higher numbers of copyright complaints–1000 at some institutions, and 513 so far this school year at UW-Madison. Our school takes a “three pronged” approach to encouraging copyright compliance (in full disclosure, I work for the UW-Madison Division of Information Technology, which is responsible for these guidelines):

The first line of defense is awareness, starting with the “appropriate use” guidelines Internet users on campus are supposed to read and acknowledge when they get their network ID. That’s followed up with e-mails, posters and presentations to keep the issue on students’ radar. DoIT also restricts the capability for music file-sharing by throttling down the bandwidth for UW housing.

This naturally begs the question: do students pay any attention to the e-mails, posters, and presentations? Certainly, part of the University’s duty is to educate students to be law-abiding (if critical) citizens. However, I wonder to what lengths we need to go to… “education” about copyright might become contentious or even political, but promoting critical thinking about a law that a large number of students break is potentially time and resource intensive.

AT&T v. EFF

Read on for more developments in the “state secrets” case against AT&T.

Internationalizing iTunes

The insanely great songs Apple wont let you hear. – By Paul Collins – Slate Magazine

This article gets right at what I’ve said a few times before…there’s a lot of great music hiding on other country’s iTunes sites. The broadband era has made it easier than ever to become exposed to great international music (both legally and not). I’ve grown a real (expensive) taste for Japanese music in the last year and a half, partly with help finding good bands on iTunes, and it’s always frustrating to know that it’s just licensing agreements holding Apple back from opening up more artists internationally.

To be fair, there are a lot of international acts starting to show up on iTunes America–partly thanks to the efforts of a licensing company whose name escapes me at the moment. Still, I know of at least a few great (Sony) bands that will never make it on to iTunes, regardless of country. Perhaps Norway is on to something.

A Recent Copyright Discussion

Someone on an e-mail list asked for opinions on the legality of a program called “Tunebite,” which allows one to strip the rights management limitations from a number of music file formats. What was interesting about the conversation was the wide variations in interpretations of the law. One poster was satisfied with the fact that Tunebite’s website states that the program’s functionality was legal, while another found that Apple’s licensing agreement (the company referred to by example) must be followed under all circumstances.

My take was that using a program like this is legally questionable, but ultimately amounts to an individual decision about risk/benefit. I’m not aware of decisions explicitly stating whether a license agreement trumps all other copyright arguments like fair use, first sale, etc. (the click-wrap and the DeCSS cases approach these issues, but don’t address them directly).

However, the truly interesting thing in my mind is the wide disparity in ways that the individuals participating in this conversation were constructing the law of copyright–and doing so in ways that impact their actions and compliance with the law. Dialogs such as this (and this one I just came across while reading the news) might be argued to impact on how we all see and understand the law.