In Praise Of Canada And Europe

In honour of the Fourth of July, this poster assumes that American readers are enjoying time offline, and not worrying about all things copyright-related, but our friends in Europe and Canada are not celebrating anything special.

Musicians, authors, photographers and other copyright holders are celebrating the wisdom and foresight of the Supreme Court of Canada for ordering the worldwide de-indexing of copyright-infringing websites!

https://artistrightswatch.com/2017/06/29/bsookman-worldwide-de-indexing-order-against-google-upheld-by-supreme-court-of-canada/

That means, not only must infringing individual links be removed, but entire pirate sites must be removed from search indexing. Moreover, that order does not just apply to search results provided on dot ca  sites

Barry Sookman explains it all in the greatest detail.

http://www.barrysookman.com/2017/06/28/worldwide-de-indexing-order-against-google-upheld-by-supreme-court-of-canada/

The Trichordist piles on with a music-related analysis of how much in dollar terms one band allegedly suffers --and conversely a search engine and host of a site that allegedly monetizes copyright infringing music video content-- allegedly saves itself in royalties when the search engine promotes the USG version instead of showing the link to the official video that pays royalties to the musicians and songwriter.

https://thetrichordist.com/2017/06/28/does-google-use-dominance-in-search-to-steer-traffic-to-unofficial-youtube-videos/

And also suggests that musicians might do well to look to Europe for justice.
https://thetrichordist.com/2017/06/30/arw-replay-beyond-eu-antitrust-sign-up-for-class-action-against-google-in-europe/

And so to Europe, with an older article from November 2015 about what is being done in The Netherlands to more easily unmask anonymous sellers of illegal ebooks.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2d149fee-8bd6-40d5-8043-72e096cf3138

The article is by  De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

They explain that the District Court in the Hague decided that the interests of the copyright owners (who create the valuable content) are more important than the interests of "traders" and middlemen and internet service providers.   (Perhaps we can now add "search engines" to the list?)

While internet service providers have a right to do business, but that does not outweigh their obligation to help put a stop to copyright infringement. Internet service providers may be forced by the courts to provide details of would-be anonymous infringers.

Remember, in Europe at least, "copyright" is accepted as "a human right".

For any alien romance authors (or any other genre of authors) thinking of setting up a website, and who have an hour to spare in the interests of learning how to avail themselves of safe harbour protections under the DMCA, Fenwick & West LLP have a webinar.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=18b71f2d-0b26-4892-a5a9-c0caf16f4d40&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2017-06-29&utm_term=

All the best,
Rowena Cherry

Is That Legal?

Disclaimer. This blog does not give legal advice, I simply point out where to find legal advice, and recap (make fair use of) some of the most interesting snippets from legal advice provided on the internet.

Attribution and kudos to Desiree F. Moore and Alexis Crawford Douglas of the legal firm  K&L Gates for a list of five things to consider if you see something (defamatory, offensive, infringing your copyrights, or private) on social media that suggests to you that you may have been wronged by the uploader.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=74cc5c3c-5193-4df4-b52d-dc01feac12fe&utm_source=lexology+daily+newsfeed&utm_medium=html+email+-+body+-+general+section&utm_campaign=lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=lexology+daily+newsfeed+2017-04-07&utm_term=

Some of this advice also could be useful to authors who are shocked by a negative review. The usual wisdom is to not respond to such things.

On a recent road trip, I listened to the audiobook version of "Rogue Lawyer" by John Grisham. I recommend that book.  One of the cases in "Rogue Lawyer" was that of an elderly couple who were not at all internet savvy, and who had the misfortune to live next door to a serial copyright infringer (or perhaps he was an internet drug dealer?) who managed to hack into their internet and do his dirty dark web deeds on their IP address instead of on his own.

I was reminded of this scenario when reading the blog by  William D Dalsen  of  Proskauer Rose LLP   
which concerns what happens when you cannot identify (or unmask!) a copyright infringer except by their IP address.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2100cf38-db3c-4f72-b5c7-a605edf9ab2e&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-04-06&utm_term=

Needless to say, the swat team in Grisham's yarn did not follow the advice offered by Proskauer Rose!

Those who think that BitTorrents are above reproach and safe for anonymous interest consumers of copyrighted material... should read the above article.

Thirdly, and finally for this week, Mark Sableman of  Thompson Coburn LLP offers some fascinating and useful insights into what one may and may not do with other people's Creative Commons works.

http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=a9ede4c2-a03f-4dd6-b2a7-c4a0e95306db&utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2017-04-03&utm_term=

The cardinal rule with Creative Commons licensed works is that subsequent users absolutely must provide truthful and accurate attribution. In a hypothetic situation where a user photoshops a real Creative Commons photograph into a different photoshopped location to perpetrate "fake news", the fine and witty legal mind of  Mark Sableman suggests “Original photo by Mary Jones. Deceptive alterations by John Smith.” 

All the best,

Rowena Cherry