Facebook is promising
to make it easier for content owners to police the social platform for
unauthorised and pirated videos — and then either monitor or block them, or
potentially make money from them.
A year and a half ago, Facebook launched Rights Manager to
let media companies and other copyright holders identify unauthorised video
sharing based on reference files. But using the system has largely been a
manual process, unless rights owners developed hooks from their own automated
systems into the Rights Manager’s API.
Now, Facebook is directly integrating Rights Manager with
services from three third-party providers — Zefr, Friend MTS, and MarkMonitor —
to provide new options to automate such tasks. Facebook says the partners will
be activated over the coming months.
The logo replaces the longstanding yellow and purple pound symbol, and was chosen by party members at Ukip’s annual conference in Torquay.
Its unveiling brought immediate comparisons with the Premier League’s logo, which also depicts a lion’s head. The league said it had no immediate comment, but it is understood its internal legal team was aware of the issue and was looking into any potential breach of copyright (or even a trade mark action with the mark on the right a registered Premier League mark)
The European Commission yesterday published new guidelines for how internet companies should deal with
illegal content that is uploaded to their networks, in a bid to encourage net
firms to be more consistent and proactive in blocking illegal files, which includes
content that incites violence or terrorism, as well as copyright infringing
material.
Copyright owners will be pleased that that the
European Commission has including piracy in its review of how the net sector
deals with illegal content, and will now watch what progress – if any – is
made. Meanwhile within the tech sector, there are mixed opinions.
The Computer And Communications Industry Association –
repping many web giants – said that it “has advocated for a long time for the
introduction of well-thought-out notice and action guidelines, and [these
guidelines are] a welcome initiative for a more aligned approach on the removal
of infringing content across the European Union”.
Others say that – while the EC does talk about the
need to balance the speedy takedown of illegal content with ensuring free
speech rights are protected – the guidelines don’t do enough to protect freedom
of expression online.
A
federal judge refused to dismiss a copyright lawsuit over Pepsi’s
time-travelling 2016 Super Bowl advert, allowing an advertising firm’s case to
proceed to discovery.
U.S.
District Judge Kenneth Karas in the Southern District of New York ruled Tuesday that the soda behemoth must face part
of a copyright case brought by a Connecticut advertising agency that accused
PepsiCo Inc. of stealing its concept for a high-profile Super Bowl halftime
commercial.
Betty Inc. alleges Pepsi’s 2016 Super Bowl commercial
titled “All Kinds/Living Jukebox” lifted its concept for a “human jukebox”
scenario, in which music genres and fashions change “with the ability to
transport the viewer to imagine a scene consistent with a created joyous
feeling.”
The
video begins in the mode of early Motown and R&B set to the Contours’ “Do
You Love Me,” then jumps into the high-energy 1980s vibe of Madonna’s “Express
Yourself,” ending with a modern pop take on Pepsi’s familiar “Joy of Cola”
jingle. The commercial stars soul singer and actress Janelle Monae.
Betty
claimed Pepsi stiffed it on the agreed-upon $5,000 compensation for the
concept. It could end up a lot more expensive now!
The
Bundesgerichtshof has been considering a case that dates all the way back to
2009. The US adult website Perfect 10, which had already proved an enthusiastic
litigant in the US, sued AOL Germany for showing thumbnails of pictures of its
models.
Specifically,
people had taken images from behind Perfect 10's paywall and unlawfully
published them elsewhere online. It was from those sites that Google, whose image-search
engine was powering AOL's services, took the thumbnails that it then presented
to users.
As
the case wended its way through the courts, Perfect 10
maintained that it was owed damages for copyright infringement. Last week,
though, the Bundesgerichtshof disagreed.
Germany's
highest civil and criminal court said, under German and EU law, Google's tool
was not infringing copyright by reproducing the thumbnails of Perfect 10's
models.
A
key precedent here was the case of GS Media vs Sanoma, in which the Court of
Justice of the European Union last year ruled that it is possible to infringe
copyright by posting links to copyright-infringing material.
This CopyKat by Matthew Lingard (Walker Morris LLP)
