copyright infringement
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Google wins YouTube copyright case against Viacom
The Viacom copyright infringement case against Google and YouTube has been a long strange journey since it started, but it looks like the first major chapter is over: the federal court today ruled that Google falls under the "safe harbor" provision of the DMCA which protects service providers from liability for user content. Roughly, that means Google isn't liable for copyright infringement on YouTube in general: it can only be liable for infringing specific copyrighted works, and since YouTube pulls videos as soon as anyone complains, it can't get in trouble. Of course, Viacom isn't too happy about this decision and has vowed to appeal, but we think it makes sense -- otherwise Viacom could sue and win for things Google didn't even know about, like, say, the music videos Viacom employees covertly uploaded themselves and then demanded be removed. We'll see what happens -- in the meantime, we'll be celebrating by watching as much YouTube as possible.
The Lawbringer: The history of Blizzard and MDY (Glider)
It's a Glider! Sorry, that's as good as the jokes are going to get. Greetings from The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a newly minted law school grad acting as your tour guide between bar prep sessions. In the last two weeks, we looked at the difference between purchases and licenses. This is of vital importance as a major bit of cyberlaw plays out in the Ninth Circuit, namely the next stages of MDY v. Blizzard, Vernor v. Autodesk, and UMG v. Augusto. Today seems like an excellent time to review the case of MDY v. Blizzard, as we've covered the other two a bit. My source for this history will be the excellent collection of files at Justicia.com, which includes all documents filed in the district court of Arizona in this case. Let's get started!
The Lawbringer: License v. Purchase -- Sgt. Joe Friday Edition
Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly look at the intersection of law and the World of Warcraft. I'm a recent law school grad acting as your tour guide and trying not to think about the Bar Exam in a few weeks. Last week's discussion of seems to have left many of y'all rather confused. The occasional hazard of having an idea that is fun to write is discovering that it isn't always as much fun to read, so I apologize for that. This week we'll be skipping the dramatization about License v. Purchase issues to get just the facts, ma'am. (If you were one of those who really enjoyed last week, you might want to check out my fiction.) We'll begin by noting that the program of World of Warcraft comes with an End User License Agreement. While vocabulary isn't everything, one has a difficult time arguing that the relationship isn't a license when one has signed a license agreement.
The Lawbringer: Purchase vs. License cage match
Welcome to The Lawbringer, WoW.com's weekly tour of the intersection between law and the World of Warcraft. I am a new law school grad, acting as your crossing guard. Ladies and gentlemen, gnomes of all ages, welcome to THE CAGE! In our first corner, we have the provider of countless yachts to copyright lawyers, with the power of the contract, the big bad himself, the License! And in our second corner, it's the plucky defender of consumers' property rights, the champion of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the curse of the big bads everywhere -- let's give a big welcome to the Purchase! Now let's go to Bob for tonight's rules. The rules of tonight's fight are simple, Jim. These two contenders are fighting over who best describes World of Warcraft players' relationship to Blizzard. There will be three rounds, during which each fighter will present a case to persuade our judges. After three rounds of presentations, our judges will decide who really embodies the relationship between Blizzard and its customers. Why is this so important, Bob? Well, Jim, a license can contain pretty much any rights, but the EULA for a piece of entertainment software with a subscription like World of Warcraft is going to only give the bare minimum of what Blizzard is willing to allow. They can't be too stingy, or they'll go down like Linden Labs to an unconscionability claim, but they're much more worried about protecting their interests than allowing the customers to get all licentious. Licentious, Bob? Read a book, Jim. Anyway, if plucky little Purchase wins, then players get to be subject to the firmly defined laws instead of a mushy, Blizzard-defined license. The law regarding copyrighted copies allows them to make backup copies, get first sale doctrine protection and not be subject to copyright law for breaking the rules defined in the EULA.
NEC tech detects illegal video uploads in seconds, MPAA swoons
Surely by now you've come across something on YouTube that was flagged for copyright infringement, a process that's surely powered by massive teams of elves and other mystical creatures who watch each and every video uploaded to the site. NEC is looking to put them all out of work with a system that, with just 60 frames worth of video (about two seconds, typically) can identify copyrighted video with 96 percent accuracy and a false alarm rate of one in 200,000 -- even if it was copied from digital to analog or had captions added. This process is now part of the MPEG-7 Video signature tool, apparently the international standard, and works by creating signatures for copyrighted video that are just 76 bytes per frame. That's small enough for a desktop with a single core, 3GHz processor to churn through 1,000 hours of questionable video in one second, looking for matches all the while. Unless you freelance for the MPAA this isn't software you'll be running, but if you're a fan of the torrents there's a good chance that someone you know very indirectly will be.
Activision fails to have No Doubt lawsuit dismissed
If the whole West, Zampella and Activision kerfluffle is no longer satisfying your desire for daily litigation drama, we'd like to point you to an old friend we haven't heard from in a while. We speak, of course, of the No Doubt vs. Activision lawsuit, in which the former accused the latter of infringing on its right-of-publicity by allowing their in-game Band Hero avatars to be used to sing other recording artists' songs in the game. According to the LA Times, Activision recently attempted to invoke freedom-of-speech protections under the 1st Amendment to have the case dismissed out-of-hand -- a tactic shot down by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kenji Machida. Though Activision has the option to appeal this decision, it looks like the folks from No Doubt might have a chance at taking back their intellectual property and forming a new studio under EA. Wait -- we mixed them up again, didn't we? Yeah, we did.
EA: Rumors of lawsuit over South Park episode are 'nonsense'
Today, a recent post on Daily Informer was brought to our attention, which reports that EA has decided to sue over a recent South Park episode, "Sexual Healing." The episode in question shows a mock-up of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, mixing in some ridiculous fighting elements (involving the wife he cheated on) into the golf sim portion of the game. It's really over-the-top, akin to the show's usual satire practices. We contacted EA to get to the bottom of this, to which an EA spokesperson commented the rumored impending lawsuit is "nonsense." So, there you have it: EA is not suing over the episode. Nothing else to see here -- move along.
RealNetworks to stop selling RealDVD, your copyrights are safe -- for now
Remember when RealNetworks said it wasn't giving up on RealDVD, that it would fight the good fight and appeal the August ruling finding its DVD copying application wasn't quite legal. Well, a lot of things can change in five months and now it seems Real is caving in to the inevitable crush of the movie industry, setting the lawsuit filed by the MPAA for $4.5 million and instantly turning existing copies of RealDVD into collectors items. (Hope you kept those boxes in mint condition!) What's next for Real remains to be seen, as the company just spun off Rhapsody to be its own thing, but surely whatever it comes up with will not involve the copying of copyrighted things onto other things.
Blizzard and The9 fined $212,000 for copyright infringement in China
From Worlds in Motion we've learned that Blizzard has suffered yet another setback in China. As reported by JLM Pacific Epoch, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court has found that The9, Blizzard's onetime partner in China violated the copyrights of five Chinese fonts owned by Founder Technology Group. The9, Blizzard, and two other parties have been ordered to pay a fine of RMB 1.45 million, or approximately US$ 212,000. The9 has appealed the order to the People's Supreme Court. (Lovely place by the way. Just watch the steps.) To recap, Blizzard had licensed World of Warcraft to The9 to distribute the game in China. Apparently, in localizing the game for China, The9 used five fonts for the Chinese text in game. However, these fonts are owned by Founder Technology Group, who sued The9 and Blizzard for copyright infringement in 2007, requesting damages of RMB 100M, or about US$ 13M. In September 2007, when The Burning Crusade was released in China, all of the Founder Technology Group fonts were replaced with fonts that Blizzard had permission to use "as a gesture of goodwill to the gaming community" "without any admission of liability." Given the rocky relationship between The9 and Blizzard, it is likely that this fine will be yet another bone of contention between the companies and that responsibility for this fine may end up being decided in yet another court battle. Stay tuned!
Jellyvision suing Aflac over 'You Don't Know Jack' parody
Now, see, we were pretty certain that nobody was still working for Jellyvision -- however, we wouldn't be willing to risk a pricey copyright infringement suit over that assertion. According to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Aflac recently drew the ire of the developer by designing a new web-based promotion titled You Don't Know Quack. Jellyvision now seeks a court order to prevent Aflac from trademarking the title, as well as monetary damages. Hopefully, if the studio wins, they'll spend said damages on developing a new You Don't Know Jack, and not, you know, yachts. However, we really don't see the similarities between the two games. One is a hilarious and entertaining series of trivia games, and one is an interactive commercial featuring that talking duck which has never, ever, ever been funny. [Via Gamasutra]
Nintendo shuts down Zelda fan film, four years in the making
A few weeks ago, the fruits of four years of labor finally paid off for independent film studio BMB Finishes when its Zelda-based movie, The Hero of Time, was released for public consumption over the internets. Reaction to the film was mixed, but it seemed like everyone appreciated the 1,460 days of hard work that went into the feature-length film's creation. Apparently, that's not the case -- the movie's official site was updated on New Years Day, explaining that the studio had come to an agreement with Nintendo to stop distributing the film online. The update sounds less miffed than you might imagine, stating, "we understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself - even from fan-works with good intentions." The missive jokingly ends by saying, "I'm sure our next project will be right around the corner! No, it's not Majora's Mask." Yeah, that would be ridiculous. Twilight Princess, on the other hand, seems like a logical choice.
TimeGate sues SouthPeak for alleged breaches in publishing agreement
Chalk up another frustrated party accusing SouthPeak of wrongdoing. The company has been sued by Section 8 developer TimeGate, which alleges that the publisher has withheld royalty payments and entered into a PS3 licensing deal on the game with Russian company IC, an arrangement that TimeGate claims SouthPeak had no right to make. In legal documents obtained by Joystiq, TimeGate also alleges that this SouthPeak T-shirt promotion was unauthorized, that the publisher had mislead TimeGate about sales figures and that the publisher has stated it should not have to adhere to TimeGate's original agreement, as it had been made with Gamecock, which SouthPeak purchased in late 2008. We've reached out to SouthPeak for comment. If you prefer your language far more formal, the lawsuit puts it like this: "[SouthPeak] failed to provide a sufficient sales report, withheld royalty payments and did not adhere to the obligation to act in good faith and fair dealing when they established the sham transaction in order to deprive TimeGate of royalties despite the special relationship between the parties and being in a position of trust." No specific amount is mentioned in the suit, with TimeGate asking only for "compensatory damages in an amount to be determined" following an independent audit of Section 8's sales.
Psystar to shut down 'immediately,' world shrugs
Has the saga finally come to an end? Dow Jones is reporting that Psystar will be firing its eight employees and then "shutting things down immediately," in the words of the company's attorney with the bad-ass name, Eugene Action. Besides, after the latest round of losses at the hands of Apple, this should come as a shock to nobody. Now that we've put all that behind us, can we concentrate on something of importance -- like Tweeting swears from the Zune HD Twitter app?
Psystar banned from copying any version of OS X, helping others install it
And it's all over, folks: The US District Court for the Northern District of California has just permanently forbidden wannbe Mac cloner Psystar from selling modified versions of OS X, providing any tools that enable users to bypass the OS X kernel encryption, and / or intentionally aiding anyone else from infringing Apple's OS X copyrights in any way. We knew this was coming following Apple's decisive victory against Psystar last month -- the only open questions were whether the court would include Snow Leopard and Psytar's Rebel EFI software in the ban, since the lawsuit was specifically about Leopard and Rebel EFI wasn't the subject of any proceedings. Both issues were predictably resolved in favor of Apple: the court specifically included Snow Leopard and any future versions of OS X in the scope of the injunction, and while Judge Alsup couldn't address Rebel EFI directly, he did expressly forbid Psystar from "manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking" in anything that circumvents Apple's OS X hardware locks -- which we'd say covers Rebel EFI's functionality pretty thoroughly. Psystar has until December 31 to comply, and the Judge Alsup isn't kidding around: "Defendant must immediately begin this process, and take the quickest path to compliance; thus, if compliance can be achieved within one hour after this order is filed, defendant shall reasonably see it done." Psystar can still appeal, obviously, but it's already got its own hefty legal bills and a $2.67m fine to pay to Apple, so we've got a feeling this one might have reached the end of the line. P.S.- Amusingly, Judge Alsup appears to be pretty sick of Apple's shenanigans as well: in the section discussing Snow Leopard, he says Apple first tried to block any discovery of Snow Leopard before the OS was released, and then pushed to include the software in the case after it launched. That's why the Florida case over Snow Leopard wasn't merged into this case -- Alsup thought it was a "slick tactic" that "smacked of trying to 'have it both ways,' and offended [his] sense of fair play." Ouch.
Nintendo investigating possible copyright infringement in new Nokia smartphone
Nintendo's says it will investigate possible copyright infringement in Nokia's N900 smartphone after a Nokia blog post showcased the device playing retro games through the use of an emulator application. According to Edge, the video (which is no longer available) featured someone playing Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, and also showed off buttons that supposedly opened emulators for Nintendo's Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES and SNES. Nintendo UK PR manager Robert Saunders told Edge the company was unaware of the smartphone's emulation feature and stated that Nintendo would take "rigorous steps" to protect its intellectual property. "Our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place," Saunders added. Even if the feature ends up on the cutting room floor, we imagine some crafty hackers are already taking steps to get emulation software working on the Nokia device. Just like they do with everything else.
Fallout 3's 'Vault Boy' now delivering pizza, copyright infringement
Ever since Fallout 3's Vault Boy went to space in Mothership Zeta, we've been at a loss for where to find the congenial gent. Alas, we never expected to see his mercurial face gracing the cover of a Massachusetts pizza shop's menu. Expresso Pizza of Billerica, Ma. put the young lad to work on the menu's cover, holding a pizza and pretending he's a waiter. We all know you're a Capital Wasteland Wanderer, silly Vault Boy! The only question now is "How long until Bethesda shuts this down?" We contacted the Fallout publisher to find out its reaction, and were told, "Well he is a big part of our Fallout brand and is copyrighted, so, yeah, deciding on your own to use him to promote your business or product, or to sell stuff, or whatever, without getting permission from us ... not a good idea." Ruh oh! (Thanks, Dan) [Via BadCartridge]
Apple wins copyright infringement case against Psystar in California
Well, well. Apple's won its copyright infringement claim against would-be Mac cloner Psystar in California. Anyone surprised? As we've been saying all along, the key argument wasn't the OS X EULA or Psystar's failed monopoly claims, but pure, simple copyright infringement, since Psystar was illegally copying, modifying, and distributing Apple's code. Psystar was also dinged for circumventing Apple's kernel encryption in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, but that's just another nail in the coffin, really. There's still some legal fireworks to come, as Apple's various other claims like breach of contract, trademark infringement, and unfair competition weren't addressed in this ruling, but those are all secondary issues now -- and we'd expect this decision to have quite an impact on the other case currently ongoing in Florida. We've broken down the highlights after the break, hit up the read link for the PDF and follow along.
Fortune-hunting industry hit hard by recession, apparently
What Nathan Drake possesses in charm and acrobatic adroitness, he seriously lacks in luck. Much like that fedora-capped, state-named adventurer, he never seems to end one of his adventures with the loot he set out to obtain, leaving his cash-flow as non-existent as his reservations over killing thousands of pirates and mercenaries. Therefore, we're not surprised to see he's been branching out, and is now putting his keen analytical mind to work as a detective in Big Fish Games' Hill Stone Animation Studio's PC puzzle-solving title, The Broken Clues. Of course, the preceding paragraph only makes sense in a world where video game characters are sentient beings, capable of performing activities outside of the scope designated for them by a hard-working team of programmers and designers. In reality, it seems that Drake's likeness was straight-up yoinked by Big Fish HSA Studio, in a brazen display of copyright infringement that's reminiscent of Limbo of the Lost, only without the added bonus of being unintentionally hilarious.Update: Corrected developer name (i.e., Hill Stone Animation Studio). Big Fish Games is the distributor. Also, check out the even more striking resemblance highlighted in a new image comparison after the break! [Thanks, 7ucky & Sayed] [Via PSU Forums]
What compromises would you make to reduce Second Life copyright infringement?
Seems that most of what you hear in and about Second Life recently revolves around creator rights, copyrights, trademarks, intellectual property rights, infringement and so forth. It's not that intellectual property infringement is new – you can certainly replicate content with the official viewer if you know how – but it is in the limelight and a major feature of Second Life discussions by virtue of assorted high-profile infringements, and legal actions. Copyright infringement can't be made to go away. Since the Statute of Anne in 1710 originally codified copyrights in law, infringement has only been somewhat quelled by various means, never practically eliminated. In these predominantly digital times, there are many new tradeoffs could be made that could reduce the incidence of infringement, but at the cost of also reducing functionality.
How to email a Second Life DMCA notice
While Linden Lab allows you to submit a DMCA notice via post or fax, there is a third option that's valid while you're waiting for the promised new DMCA process to come along. While many service- and platform-providers insist that they do not accept emailed DMCA notices, if you submit them correctly, the provider is lawfully obligated to accept them. Interestingly, a proper DMCA notice by email can actually give the recipient more surety about the identity of the submitter than faxed or posted notices.
