copyright law
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You can’t copyright AI-created art, according to US officials
The USCO says copyrighted works 'must be created by a human being.'
Lawsuits claim Amazon, Apple and more are streaming unlicensed music
When you walk into a bar, hotel or store, you probably hear music. The same goes for when you tune into a TV channel or radio station. Those businesses are supposed to pay royalties to the artists for using their music. Collection firms like Pro Music Rights (PMR) are tasked with monitoring these things. And they've had a lot more work on their hands, now that they need to keep track of streaming services which must properly license the songs they add to their libraries. PMR -- which sued Spotify last year -- alleges that 10 of the biggest services have been streaming unlicensed music from artists the company represents, and has filed lawsuits against each.
EFF petitions US government to resurrect abandoned games
The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a petition to the Library of Congress and the United States Copyright Office this week over the modification of abandoned games, particularly those that require an online connection to prevent piracy. The EFF is seeking a change to current laws that would deem mods that strip out authentication checks as fair use of the software after developers take those servers offline. The foundation noted Civilization 5 and Mario Kart Wii as examples in its petition, though the list of eligible abandoned games goes back many years. Should the Library of Congress approve the request, legally-acquired copies of many of those games would be open to modification so players can enjoy them on third-party servers. The petition does note that MMOs and "persistent world" games would be exempt from the change, as their "audiovisual content is primarily stored on the developer's server and not in the client." [Image: Electronic Frontier Foundation]
Supreme Court rules public domain isn't permanent, says Congress can re-copyright some international works (update)
If you've been enjoying the fireworks over PIPA and SOPA these past weeks, get ready for more intellectual property ugliness. The US Supreme Court handed down a decision in Golan v. Holder Wednesday granting Congress the power to restore copyright claims on works that had entered the public domain. The six to two decision (with only the conservative Samuel Alito and liberal Stephen Breyer dissenting) was issued primarily with an eye towards bringing the country in line with an international treaty known as the Berne Convention. The plaintiffs in the case included orchestra conductors, educators, performers and archivists who rely on public domain works such as Fritz Lang's Metropolis and compositions from Igor Stravinsky. Many orchestras, including that of lead plaintiff Lawrence Golan, will now be forced to stop performing works that are a regular part of their repertoire due to licensing fees. Hit up the more coverage link for the complete (PDF) decision.Update: To be clear, this decision upheld a statute granting copyright protection to a bundle of international works that were placed in the public domain (and therefore denied copyright protection) under previous US laws.
The Lawbringer: The trouble with fan fiction
Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play? Finally, I return home after a bit of bliss. Fun is over -- it's time to get serious by talking about fan fiction. Sort of. You see, fan fiction is one of those areas that people love to hate, hate to love and everything in between. What is it about fan fiction that gets people so upset and so defensive? Is it the personal nature of the craft, the accusatory piggy-backing on other people's characters, or just that so much of it is mind-numbingly terrible? Who knows? Today, we're going to explore a few of the concepts of fan fiction in a very no-nonsense, barely legal way, to give you aspiring authors something to consider while writing your own fan fiction or even original content. With my post-vacation bliss now completely out of my system, thanks to reading so much terrible fan fiction in preparation, I am happy to share with all of you a story that I've been writing for the last minute and a half. Don't be cruel, now. It's pretty much going to become the greatest story ever told. Enjoy.
Did the Fifth Circuit just make breaking DRM legal? Not quite.
The world of digital copyright law is a busy place this morning -- not only did the Library of Congress hand down new exemptions to the DMCA that allow smartphones to be jailbroken and short portions of movies to be ripped, but a new decision out of the Fifth Circuit has caused some major waves because it seems to say breaking DRM is legal. Except, well, maybe not. Here's the deal: an uninterruptible power supply company called MGE sued GE in 2004 for using hacked-up copies of its software to maintain its clients' power systems -- the software was only supposed to work when a hardware dongle is plugged into the system, but GE engineers were using cracked software. After a lengthy trial, the jury awarded MGE $4.6m in damages for copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and -- you guessed it -- violating the DMCA by circumventing the protection on the software. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit -- which was reviewing this kind of DMCA claim for the first time -- noted that MGE's hardware dongle only protected access to the software, not copying it, and that the DMCA is only effective when the protections in place guard something more than simple access. Here's the money quote from the decision: Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the DMCA's anti-circumvention provision. The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners... The owner's technological measure must protect the copyrighted material against an infringement of a right that the Copyright Act protects, not from mere use or viewing. Broadly read, this means that breaking DRM just to look at or use a copyrighted work is fine -- it's when you break DRM that expressly protects activities reserved for copyright owners (like, say, making copies) that you get into trouble. That's a tiny little step back from other DRM-related decisions in other circuits, which have generally held that any DRM-breaking is illegal, but it's not completely without precedent -- since this was the first time the Fifth Circuit looked at this type of lawsuit, it looked to decisions from other appellate courts and found similar rulings on which to rely. Let's get back to what this means in practical terms, though -- although many are breathlessly reporting this to mean that breaking DRM is now legal, that's actually not the case at all. First of all, Fifth Circuit rulings are only directly effective in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, so this isn't the law across the US yet -- that's going to take a Supreme Court decision. (We'll get to that in a second.) Second of all, the crux of the decision is that DMCA lawsuits are only valid if the DRM systems actually protect against copyright infringement, as opposed to merely controlling access, and that's only a slight narrowing of the law. Think about it: the number one thing forbidden by copyright law is making unauthorized copies. There's nothing in this ruling that suggests anyone can make copies of works without the explicit permission of the copyright owner -- it's still very much illegal to strip copy protection DRM off a video in order to transfer it to a portable media player, for example, since you're making an unauthorized copy. It's a subtle, but extremely important distinction. All that said, most of the other appellate courts in the US that have looked at DMCA issues have generally found that breaking DRM for any reason not covered in the exemptions is illegal, so the Fifth Circuit's decision here has set up what's called a "split in the circuits" -- different interpretations of the law in different parts of the country. That's the sort of situation the Supreme Court is there to resolve, so it's possible we'll see MGE appeal this one all the way to the top and DRM law will drastically change in one way or another. In any event, it's clear that the legal tide is slowly starting to turn against DRM, and that's definitely a good thing -- regardless of how small each individual step might be.
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!
Psystar files official notice of appeal, ruthlessly attacks windmill
We're still not clear on whether Psystar is still in business, or if it's selling anything other than T-shirts, but the would-be Mac cloner isn't totally out of the game yet: it's filed an official notice of appeal in the California court, which means it's going to try and fight that decisive victory and injunction won by Apple a month ago. Just based on the simple open-and-shut legal reasoning involved in the decision -- surprise, you can't copy, modify, and resell a copyrighted work without permission -- we'd say this appeal is a long shot, but we didn't go to Harvard Law School like Psystar attorney Eugene Action. Man, we missed that guy. Let's quote from his website again, shall we? The matrix is born and the energy sucking machine herds Americans into pods of predetermined limitations. Forced programming on your computer is just one of the provisional patents looming against freedom and democracy. Capitalism spurring innovation and creativity through open and competitive markets is at risk on this new frontier. This new battle is being fought on the abstract electronic plains of America while most of us cannot even open our email. The beachheads are red with the blood of ambitious Americans gunned down for their initiative. Let's be honest: we never, ever, want this story to end. P.S. -- Wondering why Rebel EFI is listed as "out of stock" on the Psystar website? It's because there isn't any stock, shockingly enough -- in a statement filed with the court on December 31, Rudy Pedraza says all copies of the bootloader have been destroyed except for one that's in the possession of his attorneys. Between this appeal and the pending case in Florida over Snow Leopard, we'd say that means it'll be a long time before the software is back on the scene -- enough time for the legit OSx86 scene to leapfrog it entirely.
LGJ: If 24 songs = $1.9 million, then 1 game = ?
Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq ("LGJ"), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games: Maybe you heard about the verdict that just came out in one of the music file-sharing cases: $1.9 million for 24 songs. So, what does this have to do with gaming? More than you would probably imagine, since this gets to the root of copyright and statutory damages. In fact, EFF legal scholar Fred von Lohmann posted an interesting piece on whether the penalty is even Constitutional. Whether this is the suit that breaks the back of statutory damages has yet to be seen, but it's something that any media producer or consumer should be keeping an eye on.Of course, much of that may be getting ahead of the issue of explaining this decision in greater depth so that everyone can understand what the actual problem is. We've talked about copyright infringement and piracy at length on LGJ, and the issue here is what comes after someone is found to have infringed on a copyrighted work: damages. Specifically, we're talking about statutory damages, which something a lot of people may not be very familiar with at all.
Amazon suspends Kindle account after too many product returns
The Kindle should be a pretty straight forward proposition, but this just goes to show you how sometimes folks can stir up controversy even with something as innocuous as an e-book reader. First there was the hassle with the Writers Guild over text-to-speech, and then Amazon threatened MobileRead with legal action for merely linking to software they didn't take kindly too. And now we're hearing alarming tales of Kindle owners who have had their accounts turned off when inadvertently running afoul of company policy. Case in point, a user on the MobileRead forums reports being locked out of his account for what was termed an "extraordinary" rate of returns (that is, he returned electronics that arrived damaged or defective). Because of this, our man was unable to purchase new books for his device, or even check out magazine / newspaper / blog subscriptions he had already paid for. Luckily, this gentleman was able to plead his case and get his account reactivated -- but other users haven't been quite so fortunate. We'll be keeping an eye on you, Amazon -- so let's try and play nice for now on.[Via Channel Web]
Amazon using DMCA to restrict Kindle content sources
Oh, Amazon. Just a couple weeks after the Authors Guild's overzealous copyright-maximalist stance forced the bookseller to modify the Kindle 2's text to speech feature, the company's lawyers have had a fit of irony and sent out a DMCA takedown request to MobileRead, claiming that the site's links to a Python script that enables Kindle owners to shop at Mobipocket-format ebook sites constitutes circumvention of the Kindle's DRM. There's all kinds of corporate-lawyer idiocy at play here: MobileRead was just linking out to another site hosting the script, which can't actually be used to break Kindle DRM, and the only people using it are the people who want to buy more books -- not exactly the sort of customers you'd want to piss off. Amazon's sole motivation here seems to be the fear that people might buy Kindle content from somewhere besides Amazon, and it appears to be using copyright law to try and prevent that. Another corporation driven mad with DRM power? Say it ain't so.[Via TechDirt]
The Engadget Interview: Paul Aiken, Executive Director of the Authors Guild
As you're no doubt aware, this week's launch of the Kindle 2 came complete with copyright controversy -- the Authors Guild says that Amazon's text-to-speech features will damage the lucrative audiobook market. To be perfectly frank, we're of two minds on on this debate: on one hand, we're obviously all for the relentless progression of technology, and on the other, we sussed out the fundamental reasons for the Guild's objections almost immediately. It's pretty easy to find the first set of arguments online, but we wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything, so we sat down with Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken and asked him some burning questions. Read on!
Know Your Rights: Does the Kindle 2's text-to-speech infringe authors' copyrights?
Know Your Rights is Engadget's technology law series, written by our own totally punk ex-copyright attorney Nilay Patel. In it we'll try to answer some fundamental tech-law questions to help you stay out of trouble in this brave new world. Disclaimer: this isn't legal advice, but it is best read aloud by a text to speech app. Hey, so does the Kindle 2's Read to Me text-to-speech feature really infringe on authors' copyrights? It's nice to be back! It's been a while. Yeah yeah. Get to it. Okay, so the issue is that the Kindle 2's Read to Me feature obviously threatens the audiobook market, and while at first blush it seems like the Authors Guild has a pretty weak case when executive director Paul Aiken says things like "They don't have the right to read a book out loud," it's not necessarily as ridiculous as it seems.
Blizzard wins lawsuit against bot makers
You may recall the long running Blizzard vs. MDY battle from various reports here on WoW Insider. In short, Blizzard sued MDY, the makers of the MMOGlider bot (formerly the WOWGlider bot), claiming that the bot violated Blizzard copyright by writing portions of the game to RAM in order to work (since you only have a license to run the game files, and do not actually own them, unauthorized copies are against the EULA). They also claimed that the bot tortiously interfered with Blizzard's customer base. MDY sued them right back, claiming they had every right to sell and distribute their bots. MDY received a crushing blow yesterday as the court ruled against them, Virtually Blind reports, declaring them guilty of copyright infringement and tortious interference (Apparently, bots stealing your kills is now a legal issue, which is sort of cool). The ramifications of this decision are still being discussed in various corners of the net and legal world.
The possible outcomes of Blizzard's Glider lawsuit
Terra Nova put a quick post up about putting the Blizzard vs. WoW Glider case (and the Public Knowledge amicus brief) in the larger context of whether or not End User License Agreements are "good" or "bad," but even better than the post is the comments section. Lots of MMO heavies, including Richard Bartle, show up to break down just what Blizzard is trying to do with their claim against the botting software, and what they might end up doing to the industry at large.No one is against Blizzard's goal of trying to stop cheaters. But the way Blizzard is going about it puts their stance in jeopardy -- they're saying that cheating in their MMO is a violation of copyright, and that is a completely different issue. Even Bartle himsef says this is an "ends justify the means" argument -- Blizzard is just using the copyright issue to get the judge to say that cheating is bad. As we posted the other day, Public Knowledge believes that any decision that says "yes, Glider breaks copyright law," could then be used as a precedent for calling any EULA violation a copyright violation.Adam Hyland, in the Terra Nova thread, has the breakdown of outcomes: either a judge rules completely in favor of MDY/Glider (thus leaving every software maker open to EULA violations -- very unlikely), or a judge rules either narrowly in favor of Blizzard (saying that yes, cheating is wrong, but it's not a copyright issue), or wholly in favor of Blizzard (which Public Knowledge fears the most -- if breaking the EULA is a copyright violation, everyone who names their character XXNoobz0rXX is breaking copyright law). We'll have to see what comes out of this case, and hope that it's for the best for both Blizzard and their players.
