The CopyKat - weekend scratching post

Farewell to wall to wall Beyonce, Shakira and Pitbull. Ecuador’s airwaves are about to undergo a domestic invasion thanks to a recently passed communications law which says that half of all music played on the radio will have to be homegrown (oh la la, how very French). The move "has station managers scrambling for local talent, musicians tuning up their guitars and long-languishing record companies dusting off their equipment" hoping that home grown talent such as Juan Fernando Velasco (nominated in 2010 for a Latin Grammy in the Folk Album category) and Danilo Parra can compete on the global stage. 

Police say a Louisville man,  graffiti artist Philip G. Rodriguez, has been charged with stealing T-shirts after he told the store owner that his actions were acceptable - as he owned the copyright to the graffiti image on the garments. The image is the word "brrr" along with a bug-eyed character and can be found painted on buildings, trash cans and alley ways all over Louisville (see picture).  Rodriguez, 25, was arrested  in connection with an alleged assault and robbery at the Regalo gift shop. According to the arrest warrant, the owner of Regalo was upset when he discovered the "brrr" tag on the outside of his store. After removing the tag, he created shirts with the design and started selling them. When Rodriguez found out, police say he entered the store and grabbed 19 of the shirts, telling the owner he had no right to sell his copyrighted image. An arrest report says Rodriguez shoved the owner and knocked over a store display on his way out. But another local artist, Damon Thompson, told WDRB  "I was immediately on brrrs side when I heard the story. Mainly because a very similar thing has happened to me" saying that about six years ago, he (Thompson) came up with a T-shirt design that was then used without his permission by the same store.

The New York Times reports that the creators of Youtube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, have rolled out an alternative to Instagram and Vine, called MixBit which allows users to mix and remix their content as well as someone else's content, too. The website does have some fairly clear disclaimers saying "Only add content that you create yourself or are authorized to use. You should never upload music videos, music tracks, clips from TV shows or content from other internet sites without the copyright owners permission" but the reality is that like YouTube ...... MixBit won't police itself with one commentator saying "Is there anyone out there who still believes anyone even tangentially affiliated with Google is actually pro-copyright at this point".

Victoria Espinel, the first White House intellectual property coordinator, has stepped down after almost four years in the post, according to industry sources. Espinel’s final day on the job was Friday August 9th. Howard Shelanski, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will serve as acting head until President Obama names a successor.

The Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) are highlighting how Fast Track, also called Trade Promotion Authority, could allow the US executive to "legislate" on copyright issues saying "is a process that hands away Congress’ constitutional power to set the terms of U.S. trade policy, and gives the executive branch concentrated authority to negotiate and finalize trade agreements. Under Fast Track, the White House would have the power to sign off on treaties, after which Congress will only have the power to have an up or down, Yes or No vote to ratify the deal" and highlighting the the fact that lawmakers would lose the power to amend or revise the effects of controversial legislation such as the  Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) - and would allow the copyright industries to exercise too much influence

Buma/Stemra (the Dutch music copyright collection Society) and International Copyright Enterprise Services AB (ICE) have signed a 5 year copyright services delivery contract. Based on its 'state of the art database' and multi-territorial copyright 'processing solutions', ICE will manage all of Buma/Stemra's copyright documentation for both domestic and international repertoire, with a pre-agreed service delivery contract for 5 years.

There has been a sudden flurry of articles about potential clashes between copyright and the manufacturers of 3D printing devices - all referring back to HBO's action against Fernando Sosa for his Game of Thrones 'inspired' iPhone dock with Sosa saying “It’s going to be a problem for the future ... a lot of new products are going to come out, and big companies are going to squash the little companies.” Well, if 3D printing gets you going - more here, here , here and here.

Madison-based artist Quincy Neri, who designed a glass-blown sculpture installation called “Mendota Reflection” has won an appeals court decision to protect her copyrights. Neri designed the 60-piece sculpture for Linda Hughes, who had an architecture firm redesign and reconstruct her Madison home to include a vaulted ceiling that would feature the hanging art - and installed specialised lighting - but photos of the design ended up on the websites of the architects, the lighting designer, and the photographer who took original photos of the sculpture to illustrate their skills on the project, as well as in other publications, including an application for an award. Neri opposed these uses, asserting that all of them violated her copyright in the sculpture, but a federal district court dismissed the case, ruling that Neri lacked a registered copyright but a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated that judgment,saying that Neri's unpublished work could be protected if an 'orderly form' of materials had been submitted. The Court also noted that 'fair use' might well be an appropriate defence and also considered what rights, if any, the glass blower who blew the sculpture's pieces  to Neri's design might have. Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook held that the glass-blower was not the true artist of “Mendota Reflection" saying “Defendants might as well say that the typesetter owns a book’s copyright or that the members of an orchestra who play a new composition using their own interpretations of the score become the music’s authors” although the appeals panel noted that the glass-blower may have a separate claim, to the extent the he “added features in the course of blowing the glass.”

Madison (and T-shirts) are all the news this week - A federal judge has ruled that a “Sorry for Partying” T-shirt featuring the official portrait of Madison Mayor Paul Soglin did not violate photographer Michael Kienitz's copyright. Judge Stephen Crocker found that the T-shirts — 161 of which were sold — constituted fair use of the photograph, which was taken from the city’s official website and used as a humorous attempt to mock and parody the Mayor - himself arrested at a precursor to the student bash back in 1969: Soglin now wants to ban the annual end of year student celebrations - the Mifflin Street Block Party - because of excessive drinking.

Straight Pride UK, a campaign for 'hetrosexual equality' whose website reportedly (used) to proclaim  "there is nothing right with being homosexual, there is nothing right with being bisexual" have used a DCMA copyright takedown notice to force an article written by a student journalist - and blogged on WordPress - offline. The student, Oliver Hotham, emailed Straight Pride UK telling them he was a freelance journalist with a list of questions. They responded by sending a document that included the answers to most but not all of the questions, and the document was seemingly titled "press release". Once published, Straight Pride UK seemed to have second thoughts, and Hotham received a 7 day 'voluntary' take down notice, and after failing to respond, WordPress indeed received a takedown notice from Straight Pride UK and duly took down the blog. But the stunt backfired - with disastrous results for Straight Pride UK and their 'oppressed' supporters - as the original article was found and republished repeatedly and Straight Pride ridiculed on twitter: WordPress didn't come out of it very well either - accused of giving in to 'censorship' by the back door method of a supposed copyright infringement (in a press release?).  You can read all about Oliver's tale here . Somewhat inconveniently, Straight Pride UK's website seems mysteriously to be undergoing 'reconstructive surgery' at the time of writing, but the New Statesman has comment here.

Troll news - Torrentfreak reports that "evidence is stacking up that Prenda Law has been operating a honeypot in order to lure Internet users into downloading copyrighted material. A subpoena just returned by Comcast confirms that a Pirate Bay user called “Sharkmp4″ is directly linked to the infamous anti-piracy law firm. The case is controversial in many ways, not least because The Pirate Bay actively helped to expose the copyright troll in question." And boingboing reports that Jacques Nazaire, the lawyer who represented Prenda Law, has asked the court to seal the rest of the proceedings from the case, because he's worried that people might make fun of him on message boards. Really?

Internet surfers have been wrongly forbidden access to hundreds of sites due to an unrelated battle to stop copyright infringement of live football coverage. Hundreds of websites including the Radio Times have seemingly been blocked as a result of the ongoing fight between the Premier League and First Row Sports, a site that offers live streaming of football matches. "It's outrageous that our website has been suddenly switched off and our users wrongly informed that it's to protect against copyright infringement. The Premier League seems to be behaving like the worst sort of blundering striker who's forgotten the first rule of football - check you're at the right end before you shoot,” Radio Times editor Ben Preston told the BBC. Other wrongly blocked sites include Blackburn Rovers FC and Championship side Reading FC.

And finally .... X-Biz reports that European-based producer/director Max Candy has announced the advent of “The World’s First Copyright-Free Porn Film,” code-named “ZiP.” Candy says fans will be able to participate in the film’s production, “mash it up, re-cut it and upload it to their heart’s content” with the Film's producers (and we presume performers) forfeiting all rights -allowing the film to immediately fall into the 'public domain'. 

The CopyCat - tantalising titbits and techno tales

Stevie Wonder at Glastonbury 2010 by Nick Cordes

Stevie Wonder has offered to perform live for international negotiators who are in Morocco trying to forge a deal to give the visually impaired greater access to reading material. In a very amusing video message, the blind singer-songwriter urged WIPO delegates to agree saying “So do it, we get it signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.” Wonder said he’d fly to Marrakesh to celebrate with delegates if they struck a deal.

We had previously noted that Russia's social networks had started removing illegally uploaded music content en masse in the face of new laws - much to the annoyance of users. Was it all a waste of time? A Russian politician has now suggested that the country’s new anti-piracy laws should only protect copyrights in television programmes and movies – as these are expensive to produce. Aleksey Mitrofanov said he has submitted an amendment to the bill aimed at countering internet piracy saying “The bill must only cover movies and TV series - the copyright objects that are expensive to produce,” Mitrofanov to a session of the expert group on electronic democracy. Microsoft has already expressed surprise that software was excluded.

BuzzFeed, the viral news site, is facing a $3.6 million copyright lawsuit from an Idaho-based photographer who says BuzzFeed lifted an image from his Flickr page and used it in one of its signature photo montage listicles back in 2010. In a complaint filed on June 7 in the Southern District of New York, Kai Eiselein claims that BuzzFeed, Inc. “knowingly and wilfully” infringed on his copyright when it reposted his photo titled “Contact” which features a female soccer player getting hit in the head by a soccer ball. According to the complaint, the image appeared in a post called “The 30 Funniest Header Faces” , a photo montage of people getting hit in the face by soccer balls  posted by BuzzFeed staffer Matt Stopera. The montage was posted on June 14, 2010, and Eiselein claims he sent BuzzFeed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice on May 26, 2011. According to the lawsuit, the photo remained on the site for more than two years after Eiselein sent the notice. In addition to remaining on buzzfeed.com, the lawsuit claims the photo was shared to 63 other sites, most of which appear to be personal blogs.  The montage, has since been conspiciously renamed “The 29 Funniest Header Faces”, and Eiselein’s photo is no longer among the images. Eiselein, who is representing himself in the case, said he first uploaded the image to Flickr in 2009 and registered it with the US Copyright Office in 2011. More on the IPKat from Jeff John Roberts here.

UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller needs to show she is "not in the pocket of Google", former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw has said. The Labour MP said copyright theft costs musicians, writers and artists billions of pounds each year and asked when the UK Government is going to enforce copyright law, amid fears not enough is being done to ensure global internet service providers tackle online piracy.

We don’t often get the chance to mention Armenia on this Blog, so I am delighted to report that the Armenian parliament on has approved amendments to the country's copyright law and neighbouring rights, which will mean those using excerpts from newspapers, magazines and the web must reference to the source. The changes stipulate that mention must be made of the original source of information in newspapers and magazines and there must be an active  hyperlink in internet articles. The law will also define a limit on what can be taken and used.

Victoria Espinel, The US Intellectual Property Enforcement Co-ordinator has published her 2013 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement and you can read a shorter review here: "As the Obama administration tries to build on the present intellectual property structure, it’s also looking towards the future. In the first few pages of the report, the enforcement office lays out where it thinks the intellectual property debate will shift in the coming years. Some items, like an ongoing fight against patent trolls and theft of trade secrets from China and other countries, are already high on the administration’s priority list."

Google News in Germany will soon change says TechCrunch. Starting August 1, it will only index sources that have decided to explicitly opt-in to being shown on the search giant’s news-aggregation service. Google News remains an opt-out service in the other 60 countries and languages it currently operates in, but since Germany passed a new copyright law earlier this year that takes effect on August 1, the company is in danger of having to pay newspapers, blogs and other publishers for the right to show even short snippets of news. More from Eleonora on the IPKat here

Normally it’s Getty who issues the lawsuits, but now a US courtroom sketch artist has sued Getty Images for allegedly infringing copyright by displaying her illustrations online and selling copies of them without her consent. Christine Cornell of Weehawken says in her lawsuit that she has served as a courtroom illustrator for nearly every major trial in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey since the 1970s. She alleges that Getty Images wrongly sold drawings from those trials - including sketches of people like Martha Stewart and would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi, which she had licensed on French news agency AFP on a limited licence.  Cornell argues that Getty Images has a pattern of acquiring rights to image archives without first making sure that the sellers are allowed to transfer the images. In 2010 Daniel Morel complained that his photos of the earthquake in Haiti which he uploaded to Twitter were distributed to Getty via AFP which then licensed them to other news organizations. That case is pending in the federal court in New York.

And finally, more on China - and the Hollywood Reporter says there is an acute shortage of IP and entertainment lawyers. With the cinema sector alone enjoying 37% growth last year to $2.7 billion, and already up another 40% this May on the same period last year, there are great opportunities it seems. Although Chinese legal traditions and copyright development stem from a quite different base than the American economic traditions, “Part of the problem is a simple shortage of qualified intellectual property and entertainment lawyers in the country". So to all young entertainment lawyers struggling to gain a foothold - the future is clear - Go East!

But I'm going West, and off to Glastonbury! And sunny skies. Maybe.

US IP Czar wants illegal streaming to be a felony

The White House's Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, has submitted 20 recommendations to Congress aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement on items ranging from drugs to music and military equipment – calling for more effective law enforcement and tougher penalties for people convicted of copyright infringement. In particular Espinel urged Congress to make illegally streaming copyrighted content online a felony saying that online piracy and counterfeiting are "significant concerns" for the White House causing "economic harm and threaten the health and safety of American consumers".

Espinel has recommended that Congress act to "clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances." Bob Pisano, president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) commented "Closing the legal gap between two methods of equally destructive illegal behavior - unauthorized downloading and streaming -- adds more clarity to intellectual property law and, frankly, makes good common sense”.

Espinel own Report states that "Foreign-based and foreign-controlled websites and web services raise particular concerns for US enforcement efforts. We are aware that members of Congress share our goal of reducing online infringement and are considering measures to increase law enforcement authority to combat websites that are used to distribute or provide access to infringing products."
The list of proposals suggests that Congress legislates for longer sentences for many counterfeiting offenses, including selling fake military or law enforcement items, trade secrets and bogus drugs. The White House also calls for wiretap authority in counterfeiting and trademark investigations.

The recommendations gathered widespread praise from a range of groups, including the US Chamber of Commerce, which urged the Obama administration to make the US a "miserable place for counterfeiters and pirates". Perhaps unsurprisingly MPAA also applauded Espinel for "recognizing the danger posed to our workforce by theft, both in the online and physical marketplace, and by making the protection of the creative workers and their craft a top priority.

Espinel also included a proposal to allow a levy on terrestrial radio stations for playing recorded music in a move that will bring the USA into line with Europe and which drew support from the Recording Industry Association of America although US broadcasters were less than impressed.

http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2011/03/15/us-quotip-czarquot-espinel-make-unauthorized-streaming-felony

Image: Ian Britton: freefoto.com