Section 4.2: Lawsuit over Obama campaign
poster
During the presidential campaign, Shepard Fairey found a photo of Barack
Obama on the Internet, modified it to look more like a graphic design, and
made a very popular campaign poster out of it without any credit to the
photographer,
Mannie Garcia, or permission from the Associated Press, which owns the
photo. After Fairey declined AP's request that he pay licensing fees, AP
sued Fairey for copyright violation. Fairey claims his use was
a fair use. AP claims that the design, on sweatshirts, etc.,
has produced hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. (Mar. 2009)
Section 4.3.1: Change in tactics to fight
illegal music downloads
The music industry sued or took other legal action against about 35,000
people in the five years 2003-2008 for downloading unauthorized music files
on the Internet. In 2008, recognizing that the lawsuits angered customers
and were not particularly effective in stopping the practice, the industry
decided to stop the policy of mass lawsuits. Instead, the RIAA is making
agreements
under which ISPs will warn customers who the RIAA believes to be transferring
music illegally, but the ISPs will not disclose the customer's actual identity.
The ISP may close the accounts of customers who ignore the warnings.
Section 4.3.1: Selling IP without DRM
In 2008, Sony BMG Music Entertainment began selling music without digital
rights management. Also, after a successful experiment with a limited number
of titles, Random House began selling audio books without DRM. The company
said that, without DRM, it will be easier to sell through a larger variety of
online retailers.
Section 4.3.1: When is file sharing
a copyright violation?
Does placing copyrighted songs in a shared file folder
on one's computer constitute a copyright violation? Or
does the Recording Industry Association
of America have to show that someone else actually
downloaded the songs? Legal uncertainty about this
detail led to a new trial for a woman (Jammie Thomas) who was
convicted in 2007 and ordered to pay more than $200,000.
(Aug. 15, Sept. 25, 2008)
Section 4.3.2 and 4.3.3: Court rules against
TorrentSpy
The Motion Picture Association of America won a permanent injunction and a
large monetary award against Valence Media, the owner of TorrentSpy for
contributing to copyright infringement. TorrentSpy
says it did not store videos on its site, but it provided an index of other
sites that had torrent files. A TorrentSpy attorney says the servers were
in The Netherlands and the sites with the files were listed in plain text, not
as links. (May 2008)
Section 4.3.3: The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay case (in Sweden) has several parallels to the 2001 Napster case
in the United States.
In April 2009, four organizers of the Pirate Bay Web site were convicted,
sentenced
to a year in prison, and ordered to pay damages to a group of entertainment
companies. (They are appealing.)
The case addressed the issue of whether the site violates Swedish
copyright law
by helping users find and download unauthorized copyrighted material (music,
movies,
computer games) although the site itself did not host the material.
After the verdict, a Swedish software company bought Pirate Bay and
planned to convert it to a legal site that would pay copyright owners when
their movies, TV shows, etc., are shared.
Section 4.3.3: Viacom suit against
Google/YouTube
As of July 2009, a trial date has not yet been set for this case (mentioned on
page 222). See the next update for a case on a similar issue.
Section 4.3.3: Responsibility of auction sites for fake goods>br> Tiffany & Company sued eBay because some people sell counterfeit Tiffany products on eBay's site, in violation of Tiffany's trademarks. eBay removes listings that Tiffany identifies as counterfeits. Tiffany argues that it should not have the burden to monitor listings on eBay, but rather that eBay should have the responsibility for not posting listings that it could reasonably expect to be counterfeits. The issue is essentially the same as in disputes about whether sites such as YouTube should have the responsibility to removing videos that likely infringe copyrights. Tiffany filed its suit in 2004. A federal court decided in favor of eBay in 2008. An appeal by Tiffany was heard in 2009 (with no decision as of Aug. 2009).
Lawsuits on the same issue in Europe have had varying results. eBay lost two suits in France (to Louis Vuitton and Hermes) and was ordered to pay more than $60 million. EBay won a suit in Germany, and a Belgian court dismissed a similar suit against eBay.
Section 4.4: Google and publishers settle suits
The agreement focused on roughly five million out-of-print books that are
still covered by copyright.
Google will make such works available online but will share proceeds with the
publishers and authors (with 63% going to the publishers and authors).
The settlement provides a mechanism for copyright owners to
set prices, let Google set prices, or refuse permission for Google to use
certain books.
The settlement also addressed the contentious issue of how much of a book Google
could display as fair use, without payment. The parties agreed to 20%.
Google, without admitting it had violated copyrights, agreed to pay $45
million to compensate copyright owners of material it had
previously copied and made available without permission. Google also will
pay about $34 million to set up a registry through which copyright owners for
books can be identified and paid.
The agreement should benefit Google, publishers and authors, and the public.
(The lawsuits are The Authors Guild, Inc. et al v. Google, Inc. and
The McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. et al v. Google, Inc.) (Jan. 2009)
Section 4.4: Trademarked search terms
The practice of selling search terms raises intellectual property issues
for trademarks. Business pay search-engine companies such as Google and Yahoo
to display the business's ads when a user enters specific search terms.
What if a business "buys" the name of another company or some of its products?
Users searching for one company will see its competitor's ads.
A company that makes software for learning foreign languages (Rosetta Stone)
is suing another several other companies (including Rocket Languages) over
this issue. (July 27, 2008)
Section 4.6: Free art
The Free Software movement inspired a project of the Berkeley Art Museum.
The museum provides digital artworks online with their source files and
allows people to download and modifiy the art.
Section 4.6.1: Copyright protection
for open source.
A federal appeals court upheld copyright protection
for open-source software. The court said
a person who distributes open-source software can sue
for an injunction against someone who uses the software
for commercial products without following the open-source
licensing agreement. (The case involves model train software
distributed by Robert Jacobsen.) (Aug. 14, 2008)
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