Copyright in a Digital Age (Comm/IS 429, fall 2007)

Lessig ‘08!

Adam B. — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:02:59 +0000

Some Facebook applications copyright friendly

Rachel — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 22:26:13 +0000

With the now hundreds of available Facebook applications, one has to wonder what implications there might be for copyright infringement. One application at least, BIG photo, has taken measures to protect IP rights. Under the application in someone’s profile, users have the option to “report infringing content.” The link takes you to this copyright policy, posted by the application’s creator.

“Jerome Poichet (”us” or “we”) respects the intellectual property rights of others and we prohibit users from uploading, posting or otherwise transmitting through any application or website offered by us any materials that violate another party’s intellectual property rights. When we receive proper Notification of Alleged Copyright Infringement as described below, we promptly remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing material and terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

Just Another Copyright Problem in the Digital Age

JP — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:37:15 +0000

Here’s another example of a copyright problem (blocking fair use of material): Western Digital is selling network hard drives that don’t let you share your movie files. The hard drive itself doesn’t actually block the sharing - it’s not a physical limitation, which would be a massive leap in content control - rather, it’s a software-based control. The software that comes with the hard drive controls file sharing from it and doesn’t allow sharing of specific file types over the Internet. It’s worth noting that changing the file extension is one easy way around this restriction. (Ha! Take that!)

Even before WD bought Mionet [the file sharing service on the hard drive], the service blocked people from sharing music and video files with friends.

So Western Digital either completely overlooked this issue with network hard drives- drives designed for sharing - or looked at this issue and decided to be “cautious.” In fact, it looks like the latter was the case. Here’s how the blog entry summarized what Western Digital Vice President for Corporate Communications Catherine Scott had to say on the matter:

Ms. Scott said the company needs to be conservative when so many Internet services that enable file sharing in one way or another are getting sued by Hollywood. … WD is trying to look at fingerprinting technology that will let it filter out copyrighted material and still allow sharing of other material.

If it can figure out a fool-proof way of doing this, I’m sure everyone in the world will be interested, so I’m slightly skeptical on this point.

Nielsen to police video online?

Rachel — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:48:24 +0000

Nielsen media ratings has developed a service to help eliminate online video piracy. Working with Digimarc, a digital-watermarking company that helps to produce authentic driver’s licenses, Nielsen hopes to work with Google and large media companies to filter online video content. If a user wants to load a video clip onto a Web site that uses the Nielsen/Digimarc filter, the filtering program uses its fingerprinting technology to identify the clip while it is loading. When identified, the filter will crosscheck its database for video-distribution rules given by the media company that produced the clip. The video may be allowed to load or only allowed to load it if it is attached to certain advertising, for example. If the content is unauthorized, it will not load at all. This service may seem like old news, but according to Rick Cotton, executive vice president and general counsel of NBC Universal, “The point is the big boys are coming, and that signals that this is a field that has reached technological maturity, It will achieve widespread commercial adoption, and from a content point of view, it will contribute dramatically to reducing the easy theft of copyrighted material online.”

Last but not least

Luning — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:30:29 +0000

Hey, since the class is ending, in your opinion, what’s the most valuable thing you have learned from it? I go first, it reshape my understanding of copyright works!

software price

Luning — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:29:42 +0000

Some software still are expensive to individuals, like the products from Autodesk. (Microsoft and Adobe products are cheaper compared with Autodesk.) If we can raise the price for enterprise users (users in companies) and lower it for individuals, especially students and low income people, what do you think? Do those companies agree with this plan?

the itunes store: record execs strike back

Adam P. — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 14:44:25 +0000

Check out this great article from Wired magazine that offers a view of the digital music dilemma from a side we don’t hear too often: the record label execs. The article offers an interview with Universal Music’s CEO, Doug Morris, and his thoughts on Apple’s market supremacy with the iPod. Basically, Morris has been consistently frustrated with the fact that the iTunes Store employs a type of DRM protection that is not an industry standard because Apple refuses to license their FairPlay right management technologies.

Now, Morris is courting the other major record labels to join together in an attempt to take some of Apple’s market share and knock them out of their market leadership. Morris’ model is called Total Music, and is a subscription service that would be an alternative to the iTunes Store. He hopes to unite many of the major record labels to give consumers unlimited access to song catalogs and early exposure to new releases for a monthly fee. Whether or not his idea will be successful remains to be seen, but it does offer a viable subscription model as an alternative to the iTunes Store. Regardless, Morris is steadfast in his aim to bring the power back to the record labels themselves:

“Our strategy is to have the people who create great music be paid properly,” he says. “We need to protect the music. I know that.”

the importance of cultural changes

Tarleton — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:48:51 +0000

We talked briefly yesterday about whether we should care if the legal and economic arrangements were going to have “experiential” implications, beyond the democratic ones we have focused on. This article and the blog response struck me as being in that spirit — they’re not really about copyright, or even new distribution systerms, but they are arguing that the environment for music (read: digital, distributed) may have implications for how we know music, its history, its importance, etc. read both, they’re an interesting conversation.

“The Segmented Society”, David Brooks, NY Times op-ed

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/opinion/20brooks.html

“Clueless”, Tim Mohr, Playboy

http://www.playboy.com/blog/2007/11/clueless.html

Coining a Phrase….

Adam B. — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 04:15:51 +0000

After our class today,I think I may have created a new word that describes
the responsible, civic minded buyer:

The citizumer!!

It can be used to describe any type of enlighted purchaser, from
those who only choose to do business with ethical firm to folks who buy based on carbon foot print to whatever.

Or maybe it’ll be the next big super hero!!!

Remember, you heard it here first!!!

So all this time the difference was money all along?

Maria — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:03:27 +0000

I was quite surprised at Gandy’s reading “The Real Digital Divide: Citizens vs. Consumers” for many reasons, one of which includes the fact that they went all Twiligh zone-like on me. lol.

I was definitely not expecting the real divide in digital technologies as something that stems from our switching individual roles between citizens and consumers. Technology is driven forward by what we need/want. I guess as people we also wear different hats that enable us, like the architecture of new technologies, to do specific things and limits other things. Throughout the class we have been debating about how technologies function and what they do and what their role is–and to a certain extent that frames the topics in such a way that I started feeling frustration about all these laws and how they are supposed to protect our rights, but instead end up imposing on them. It’s a nice, pleasant surprise to have someone think the people still have the power.