May I point out that what you are getting is a “contraband copy”, made in this Department, of another “contraband copy” made by the DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions, the official responsible for prosecuting criminal offenses] from a copy which he legitimately obtained from the shorthand writers on the usual commercial basis. The making of extra copies in this way is, I think, a breach of the shorthand writers’ copyright and I think that they would be aggrieved if they knew about it. I should therefore be grateful if you would use the enclosures with discretion.
Category: Copyright
Linux Developer (Antoni Norman) Who Issued Bogus YouTube Takedowns Threatens Techdirt With Legal Action For Publishing His ‘Private Information’
It looks very much like Techdirt is correct in this analysis:
What is for certain is that Norman is either unwilling or unable to learn from his mistakes. He was given a chance to salvage his reputation but instead has decided to double down on matches and accelerant. He’s a respected developer, but he’s swiftly shedding what’s left of that respect with an unfortunate proclivity for retaliation and bluster.
Creativity and economic incentives
Imagine you were asked to write a law that encouraged creativity. What would it look like? Whatever your answer, it’s pretty clear that it wouldn’t look like copyright.
Which is weird, right? Because copyright is supposed to be the law that spurs creativity. The problem, it turns out, is that the central features of copyright are directly opposed to the things that support creativity.
Creativity is a tricky thing to understand, and we have very little insight into what animates the creative spark and why some people are more creative than others.
But one thing we do know about creativity is that a really good way to make people less creative, is to pay them. A series of studies by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan Teresa Amabile, and others, have shown that primary school kids don’t learn to read if they’re paid to, artists produce their worst work when they’re commissioned to produce it, and people get worse at solving puzzles if you reward them for successful solutions.
The reason for this? Creativity is closely linked to motivation, and humans become creative when they’re internally motivated by curiosity or interest or desire. They get demotivated — and less creative – when you introduce money into the equation.
How Copyright Forced A Filmmaker To Rewrite Martin Luther King’s Historic Words
Among the most powerful moments of Selma, the new film about the march Martin Luther King, Jr. led in 1965 in support of voting rights for African Americans, are the speeches, sermons, and eulogies King delivered during that tumultuous period. However, the speeches performed by actor David Oyelowo in the film do not contain the actual words spoken by King. This is because the King estate would not license the copyright in the speeches to filmmaker Ava DuVernay. Thus, the King estate’s aggressive stance on copyright has literally forced the re-writing of history.
According to the Washington Post, the King estate licensed the film rights to King’s speeches to DreamWorks, with Steven Spielberg producing any resulting films. DuVernay said that she never even asked for the rights to King’s speeches “because we knew those rights are already gone, they’re with Spielberg.” She added that she knew that there were strings attached to the rights: “with those rights came a certain collaboration.” In other words, the King estate uses its control over the copyright to control how King is portrayed. The Post article suggests that this control has prevented the making of a feature film about King
Talos Principle Traps Pirating Gamers in An Elevator
Every day hundreds of thousands of games are downloaded from various torrent sites. While it can be quite a challenge to get a pirated game working, most will play just fine.
The same is true for Croteam’s latest release The Talos Principle. A few days ago a pirated copy of the puzzle title surfaced online which initially appeared to work as a regular game.
However, the fun didn’t last long as the developers had previously embedded a feature that traps free-riding pirates in a virtual elevator.
(…)
Croteam acknowledged the feature on social media by retweeting a mention of the puzzled Steam user, which must have been good for a few laughs among the developers.
Even more so, it probably led to a few extra sales as well. Apparently some pirates were hooked enough to get a legit copy of the game on Steam, to continue playing without any hassles.
“I hit the bug where the elevators stopped working correctly, so I bought the game on Steam and was able to import my save,” an anonymous user wrote on a popular torrent site, adding that it’s been worth the money.
Sony About to Get Sued For Pirating Music in The Interview
The way things are panning out, the Sony movie The Interview is on course to become one of the most controversial movies of all time.
The comedy, which depicts the violent death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, made headlines worldwide when the so-called Guardians of Peace hacking group threatened Sony if it was released. Facing what amounted to a “terrorist” threat, theaters all around the U.S. backed away from showing The Interview in the week leading up to Christmas.
After pulling the movie completely, Sony had a change of heart and on Christmas Eve released the music online via YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Live. Predictably the movie was quickly gobbled up by pirates, with the latest figures suggesting that in just two days the movie has been downloaded 1.5 million times.
But while Sony deals with rampant piracy issues at one end, it’s now facing copyright infringement allegations of its own. According to new claims, Sony used copyrighted music in The Interview without permission and without compensating an artist.
UK Cinema Calls Police on Kids With iPhones Over Piracy Concerns
The movie industry sees the illegal recording of movies as one of the biggest piracy threats and for years has gone to extremes to stop it.
It started well over a decade ago when visitors began sneaking handheld camcorders into theaters. These big clunkers were easy to spot, but as time passed the recording devices became smaller and easier to hide.
While recording a movie for strictly personal use is not illegal in UK cinemas (despite industry efforts to have the law changed), theaters continue to outlaw the use of recording devices. Most recently, Google Glass was banned, and phones and tablets need to be switched off as well.
In a code of conduct the movie industry and cinemas have agreed that employees will take immediate action when they spot someone with a recording device, but some cinema staff take these obligations way too far.
At a Cineworld cinema in Brighton Marina, UK, employees dialed the national 999 emergency number after they spotted a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones and iPads at a showing of The Hunger Games.
The girls, accused of recording parts of the movie, were hauled outside where two police cars rushed towards the scene with flashing lights.
Furious Google Ended MPAA Anti-Piracy Cooperation
Each week Google removes millions of ‘infringing’ links from search engine results at rightsholders’ request, 9.1m during the last documented week alone. In the main Google removes these links within hours of receiving a complaint, a record few other large sites can match.
But no matter what Google does, no matter how it tweaks its search algorithms, it’s never been enough for the MPAA. For years the movie group has been piling on the pressure and whenever Google announces a new change, the MPAA (and often RIAA) tell the press that more can be done.
By most standards, this October Google really pulled out the stops. Responding to years of criticism and endless complaints that it’s one of the world’s largest facilitators of pirate content, Google came up with the goods.
But this, ofcourse, wasn’t enough for the MPAA.
In response to the snub, Google pressed the ‘ignore’ button. A top executive at Google’s policy department told the MPAA that his company would no longer “speak or do business” with the movie group.
In future Google would speak with the studios directly, since “at least three” had already informed the search engine that they “were very happy about the new features.”
Federal Judge: High statutory damages for copyright infringement violate the Eighth Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
-The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution
This Court finds an award of $30,000 for each defendant would be an excessive punishment considering the seriousness of each Defendant’s conduct and the sum of money at issue. Although Plaintiff contends the minimal revenue lost from each Defendant’s single transaction does not account for the extent of damages, this Court is unpersuaded that the remote damages — “downstream revenue” and destroyed plans for a sequel due, in part, to piracy — justify an award of $30,000 per defendant, even in light of the statute’s goal of deterrence. Instead, this Court finds Plaintiff has not made a showing justifying damages in excess of the statutory minimum. Accordingly, the Court, within its “wide latitude” of discretion, grants Plaintiff the minimum statutory award of $750 against D. & B. Barnett, jointly and severally and $750 against each remaining defaulted Defendant in the case.
Hooray For Licenses! Update Strips 17 Songs From Steam Users’ Purchased Copies Of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
It seems like Rockstar has pushed a steam update removing 17 songs from GTA: San Andreas, because they don’t have a license to distribute them any more.
The problem with this is that customers have already paid for a license to those songs, and should not be affected by this at all. Yet, they are.
You might have noticed Steam downloading a sizeable update for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over the weekend and wondered what that was about. A fancy secret tying into GTA V’s return to the west coast, perhaps? Not quite. The patch added support for XInput controllers like the Xbox 360 pad, which is nice, but also removed seventeen songs from various radio stations. No more angsting out and gunning it across Gant Bridge in the wrong lane listening to Killing in the Name, I’m afraid.
Edit:
Uriel-238 writes in the comments at Techdirt:
What the patch does
-removes 18 songs
(“Critical Beatdown”, “Running Down A Dream”, “Woman To Woman”, “You Dropped A Bomb On Me”, “Yum Yum”, “Running Away”, “I Don’t Give A f*ck”, “Express Yourself”, “Killing in the Name of”, “Hellraiser”, “Ring My Bell”, “Personal Jesus”, “Don’t Let It Go To Your Head”, “Express Yourself”. “Rock Creek Park”, “Grunt”, “Soul Power ’74” and “The Payback”)
-revokes all mods created for San Andreas on PC
-deletes all of your previous save files
-removes 1280×700 resolution
-has various textures missing and things like foilage completely removedSource: Luneth’s review on the Steam Store Page