copyright

Attributor lets syndicators keep tabs on their content

In the old days, wire service editors could easily keep track of which of their stories were picked up by the newspapers. That became a much harder task with the emergence of Web sites.

Now, however, there's a sort of digital clipping service that can keep tabs on which Web sites posted the articles and whether those articles were accompanied by ads or required subscriptions to view.

The technology is called Attributor and comes from a company by the same name. Attributor has signed contracts with two of the world's biggest wire services, Reuters and Associated Press, giving … Read more

First Prince, now Village People target YouTube

Somebody combined the Village People's hit song, "YMCA," with footage of a dancing Adolf Hitler and posted the clip to YouTube. Now the company that owns the rights to the band's music is preparing to sue YouTube.

John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, which hunts down pirated material on the Web and tries to get it removed, said his company has sent 500 "take-down" notices to YouTube. Each time the video is pulled, someone else uploads another copy. Giacobbi believes that YouTube has the ability to screen for copyright content in the same way … Read more

Prince lashes out at YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay

UPDATE: In an attempt to "reclaim the Internet," Prince is preparing to file lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay, for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, according to one of his representatives.

The rock star has hired Web Sheriff, a British-based company that specializes in hunting down pirated content on the Web, to launch a legal campaign against companies that wrongfully profit from the artist's work, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince plans to file suit in both the United States and the U.K., and has hired a top Swedish law firm to … Read more

Does copyright create $2.2 trillion in value? No, but fair use does (UPDATED)

The Computer and Communications Industry Association--a Washington D.C.-based think tank and lobbying group--has issued a report [PDF] that dispels some common mythology around the value of intellectual property to the U.S. economy. CCIA found that "fair use" exceptions to copyright created $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the U.S. economy.

That's a big number, but it's not surprising. Just think of how difficult it would be to innovate if anyone (including Microsoft et al., which are members of CCIA) relied on a strict view of copyright.

From InformationWeek's report of the study:… Read more

The future of DRM

If ever a technology was introduced prematurely, it was digital rights management (DRM). From the DVD Content Scramble System (CSS) to the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) in HD DVD and Blu-ray systems, millions of dollars have been invested in failed attempts to prevent piracy of digital content.

Security is difficult to do right. CSS failed because virtually every element of the system was poorly designed. It used weak 40-bit encryption and was vulnerable to break-once, break-everywhere attacks. CSS continues to be used because it's better than… Read more

Science Fiction writer take on Internet pirates, Part II

CNET user jasonbentley replied to my blog post yesterday (here) with a thought-provoking comment:

It is egregiously disingenuous to name Flickr and then refuse to name Scribd, which you've annointed a "pirate site," completely missing the fact that Flickr is *full* of copyrighted content (and a lot of content that's not).

Update, 3 September: I have learned that Jason Bentley is Director of Community Development at Scribd. The American Heritage Dictionary defines "disingenuous" as "Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating." I'd say that definition applies to this kind of astroturfing. So someone from Scribd is seeking to deflect attention away from the massive piracy going on at his company by throwing mud at Flickr. Interesting. But anyway, Bentley's points deserve to be addressed.

I suppose I was making a point by declining… Read more

Science Fiction writers take on Internet pirates

There's a website out there that presents itself as the textual equivalent of Flickr-- that is, users can upload any kind of text document, and the site provides public access to all these documents.

But unlike Flickr, it's pretty obvious that the primary attraction of this site in practical terms is that it's full of copyrighted documents, and the operators apparently don't much care. Much of the content there isn't pirated, but it's still a pirate site as far as I'm concerned, and so… Read more

This time Viacom is accused of violating copyright

Viacom includes video footage from an indy filmmaker on one of its TV shows and calls that Fair use. The filmmaker then posts to YouTube a copy of the TV show in which his work appears and Viacom calls that a copyright violation.

Viacom bashers are sure to paint this as the height of hypocrisy, but a review of the situation could be important to Web videographers.

The entertainment conglomerate, which filed a $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube earlier this year for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, says it used only heavily edited snippets of Knight's work as part of … Read more

U.S. to Russia: Allofmp3.com closes door on your WTO chances

Should Allofmp3.com reappear, as the controversial online music store has promised, it likely will doom its country's chances of joining the World Trade Organization this year.

"We remain committed to helping Russia make it into the WTO," said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative, the group that negotiates International trade agreements on behalf of the nation. "In order to make that happen though, they have to honor the commitments that they've made especially in the area of intellectual property rights."

If that wasn't clear enough, Spicer was more … Read more

MediaMaster's Facebook app close to perfect for music sharing

MediaMaster is one of many companies worth keeping an eye on, mainly for the potential of having your entire music library available anywhere you go, as long as you've got an Internet connection. Their Facebook app, which went live just a few weeks ago, is a prime example of a great use of the service.

The app lets you set up a huge playlist of music, and serve it up right on your profile in a miniplayer. Anyone who comes by your profile can then get the full quality versions of the tracks streamed in whatever order you set … Read more