Does Every Cloud Have A Silver Lining? (Copyright-Related)

In 2016, Google claimed to have removed 900 million allegedly copyright-infringing links according to an article on TorrentFreak.
https://torrentfreak.com/google-removed-over-900-million-pirate-links-in-2016-161230/

Apparently, the number removed represents approximately 89.9 percent of the over-a-billion take down requests made to Google by rights holders. Surely, there would be fewer requests if there was a way to ensure that a link cannot be re-upped once it is taken down?

The comments on the piece make depressing reading. Let's say that the followers of torrent freak are not copyright-protection enthusiasts.

I gained a new perspective on why so many folks in society have so little respect for copyrights and the right of musicians, authors, photographers, movie-making participants and others to be paid for their time, talents and effort from the free Hillsdale College lecture covering the difference between Originalists and Progressives when it comes to the rights of an individual.

According to Professor Ronald J. Pestritto, the Progressive ideology is heavily influenced by European--especially German-- thinking, and holds that the needs of the Community is always superior to the needs (and rights) of the individual, and far from certain rights such as the right to Life, to Liberty, and to the Pursuit of happiness being bestowed on mankind as a birthright by the Creator, all rights that an individual has are permitted by the government depending on convenience and expediency.  (And can be revoked.)

How expedient and convenient do you suppose it is to uphold individual copyrights?

Also, in a guest post on TheTrichordist, Marc Ribot presents a chilling analysis of why individual "content creators" (aka copyright owners) are so helpless against piracy.

https://thetrichordist.com/2017/01/02/ghostship-mourn-the-dead-fight-like-hell-for-the-living-guest-post-by-marc-ribot/

The "Ghostship" title refers to the dreadful warehouse fire, and the economic plight of working artists in San Franscisco as a result (Mr. Ribot suggests) of political, legal, and economic decisions, not least of which concerns copyright.

I'd like to end on a positive note. However, there are some revelations about Risk Factors (intellectual-property-right related, of course) that Facebook had to disclose in its 2015 annual report. According to the fascinating Chris Castle, Facebook is selling artists' names as advertising keywords, allegedly without permission.

Perhaps, given the lofty stock values of some tech companies, it might be a good time to look into shorting Big Tech? Does The Cloud have a silver lining? (snort!)

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Copyright Compendium (and... Authors Beware Click-Through Contracts)

The latest (third edition) draft of the Copyright Compendium is available for public comment before the final form is released in December 2014.

Read the Copyright Compendium here: http://copyright.gov/comp3/docs/compendium-full.pdf


If so moved, having read it, leave a comment here: http://copyright.gov/comp3/comments.html

This is the section that interested me, because I worry about websites and blogs that appear to be legitimate, that post copyright notices in their footers, but that display copyrighted ebooks either for reading on the site or for download, and that claim immunity because the ebooks are "User Generated Content" or "Uploaded by Authors" or "Uploaded by Users".

http://copyright.gov/comp3/chap1000/ch1000-websites.pdf

Some of these sites, like certain auction site vendors, claim that collections of ebooks written by popular (and not-so popular) modern-day authors are their own, unique and copyrightable compilation, like a "playlist" because of the way the ebooks are sorted and grouped. Or, like torrents that collect together a few hundred "paranormal romances", for instance, on the assumption that no individual author of one of the hundred ebooks can claim ownership of the torrent.

Does this Compendium protect them?

Here's a small passage from a legal blog that caught my interest;

The new Compendium confirms that website users are “authors” of their original user-generated content (UGC) for copyright purposes. Therefore, to obtain ownership of the copyright in the UGC, a website needs a signed agreement that transfers the user’s rights and, therefore, should include an assignment provision in its “click through” terms of service. If the website owner desires to file an application to register that UGC, it must name the authors in the application and maintain records of the authors who transferred ownership rights

Credits: Sourcing@MorganLewis

Find the article here on Lexology (a very informative site for pro-copyright activists and lawyers):
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b5459593-61ae-46e5-bff3-859793eaeb9c&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Federal+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2014-10-10&utm_term=

Scribd used to call its uploaders "authors", even when they were obviously copyright infringers uploading unauthorized copies of copyrighted works to the site.  Last time I looked, it seemed to me that many of the allegedly illegally uploaded "documents" that are scans of e-books and of paperbacks remain available and monetized by Scribd as orphan works after the allegedly piratical original uploaders apparently have been removed as members.

If a click-through contract might confer copyright to the website, I think that copyright owners should be particularly wary of clicking "I Agree" when visiting any website.

From what I've seen, many pirate sites will not permit copyright owners to see the site or use the Search feature of a site unless they register and agree to the terms and conditions. Often, by agreeing to those terms, the new registrant agrees not to use anything they find on the site to sue the site (that is a simplification, but what a potential Catch-22).

What if a copyright owner clicks-through in order to discover whether some other user has uploaded that copyright owner's works to the site?  What if the act of clicking "I Agree" then grants permission for the site to continue in what was previously piracy?

According to this Compendium, a website cannot copyright User Generated Content without naming the author, so uploader "aliendjinnromancefangirl123" cannot be listed on a copyright application.

Will sites keep a record of what "aliendjinnromancefangirl123" uploaded and gave them implicit permission to share? What happens if Rowena Beaumont Cherry foolishly "Agrees" to their contract, uploads nothing, but under the wording of the contract, trasnsferred ownership rights to Rowena Cherry content that had been uploaded by someone else?

Color me paranoid, I guess. What do you think?

All the best,
Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 



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