COPYCENSE

Leftovers gone and plates cleared, Copycense Clippings weighs in a tad larger than expected, given last week’s holiday. Articles include the joy of watching DVDs of The Wire and The Sopranos in concentrated doses; the movie industry passing out spyware to colleges and universities; Maryland taxing computer services; and France’s ill-considered plan to terminate Internet access to consumers who are suspected of illegally downloading entertainment content.

This is Copycense.

Articles of the Week

Adam Liptak. Doling Out Other People’s Money. The New York Times. Nov. 26, 2007. Throw a million to an eating disorder program; $5 million to George Washington University’s law school for an antitrust settlement concerning settlement prices; and a random mill here and there for various and sundry causes, and all of a sudden you’re talking about real money. Meet cy pres, the flip side of the class action lawsuit. Categories: Cases & Litigation.

if:book. The Novelodeon. Nov. 26, 2007. A delightfully tasty article about the joys of waiting for cable series to be released on DVD, then watching the entire series sequentially in a concentrated dose. This is how we were introduced to The Wire, whose Season 4 gets released on DVD next Tuesday, and whose fifth and final season begins January 2008. Categories: Film & Video.

Security Fix (WashingtonPost.com). MPAA University ‘Toolkit’ Raises Privacy Concerns. Nov. 23, 2007. “Rootkit” redux: the content lobby surreptitiously spies on colleges and universities, exposing the schools’ network in the process. Columnist Krebs identifies two open-source monitoring tools — including Snort (a tool that captures detailed information about all traffic flowing across a network) and ntop (a that captures data feeds from tools like Snort and display the data in more user-friendly graphics and charts) — in the “toolkit” the movie industry offers schools identified as havens for illegal music downloading. We want to know why any institution would think of installing this software on its network, even without a known security risk? Categories: Education; File Sharing, P2P & Downloads; Open Source; Privacy & Security.

Quote of the Week

“We could not agree more that anyone who truly wants to be President needs to understand the age they are living in. Each candidate should be asked and expected to answer how they would change or influence the copyright policy and law in the coming decade – policies and laws that affect every single American.

“… Thanksgiving or not, here is where this rare agreement comes to an end. With an accurate appreciation of how important copyright law and policy is to Americans, perhaps candidates of every stripe for every office should focus a little less on Hollywood’s agenda and more on the consumer’s rights and concerns. — Digital Freedom.

Digital Freedom. How Much Should Copyright Issues Matter? A Lot. Nov. 21, 2007. Digital Freedom’s response to Copyright Alliance propagandist publicity campaign (see Clippings below). We believe the group has summed up this issue quite nicely. Categories: Politics & Government.

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Happy Thanksgiving, and here’s to the free flow of day-after-Thanksgiving sales information, lest your favorite retailer abuse the Copyright Act by threatening or filing bogus DMCA takedown notices that preempt the online distribution of factual information.

Article of the Week

Greg Sandoval. Prince: The Artist Who Formerly Liked the Internet. News.com. Nov. 13, 2007. A superb article on Prince’s sudden and alarming attempts to control every bit of information about him available on the Web. Prince’s behavior has led to (or is connected to) several legal skirmishes, including the infamous EFF-sponsored Lenz v. Universal litigation, in which a mother is suing a record company after the label asked YouTube to remove a video of the plaintiff’s children dancing to the artist’s 1984 hit “Let’s Go Crazy.” This bizarre behavior comes after Prince freely gave away in the U.K. millions of copies of his most recent album, and after a period in which Prince was one of the artists most likely to search for new business models through the Web.

Prince’s tactics are even more bizarre when one considers he is one of the artists most likely to benefit from a return to a music industry in which artists earn money through performance rather than album sales. He already has a headlining live show in Las Vegas (at a club he owns, mind you) for which tickets are more than $100 apiece. And anyone who has been listening to Prince long enough knows that the shows always are better than the recorded performances. (Hello, the Super Bowl? In the rain?) Prince will make his money, and should have enough to manage a soup-to-nuts operation for distributing his content. So in the end, this all is peculiar … and oh so typically Prince. Categories: Film & Video; Music; Visual Art.

Quote of the Week

Food banks are a dominant institution in this country, and they assert their power at the local and state levels by commanding the attention of people of good will who want to address hunger. Their ability to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States. …

We know hunger’s cause — poverty. We know its solution — end poverty. Let this Thanksgiving remind us of that task.

Mark Winne. When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 18, 2007.

Clippings

Nate Anderson. Overly-Broad Copyright Law Has Made USA a “Nation of Infringers.” Ars Technica. Nov. 19, 2007. Highlights an interesting paper from University of Utah law professor John Tehranian, which argues “three key trends bear close observation. First, copyright law is increasingly relevant to the daily life of the average American. Second, this
growing pertinence has precipitated a heightened public consciousness over copyright issues. Finally, these two facts have magnified the vast disparity between copyright law and copyright norms and, as a result, have highlighted the need for
reform.” Ars, itself, ask two important (somewhat rhetorical) questions: “What better way could there be to create a nation of constant lawbreakers than to instill in that nation a contempt for its own laws? And what better way to instill contempt than to hand out rights so broad that most Americans simply find them absurd?” Categories: Bundle of Rights; Research.

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This week’s edition of Clippings is a tad more svelte than those featured in previous weeks, but it still includes stories about “360 deals”; Mrs. Sonny Bono’s most recent foray into copyright extension; unique perspectives on the Writer’s Guild strike; and House Democrats hitting higher education with the financial death penalty.

This is Copycense.

Clippings

Emili Vesilind. Fashion Designers Take on Pirates. LATimes.com. Nov. 11, 2007. A Sunday feature article features commentary on the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (H.R. 2033), which features Mrs. Sonny Bono (recall the 1998 term extension?) as a co-sponsor. Categories: Fashion & Ornaments; Legislation & Regulation.

Jeff Leeds. The New Deal: Band as Brand. The New York Times. Nov. 11, 2007. Chronicles the increased frequency of so-called “360 deals,” in which recording labels “partner” with the musical act to “share” revenue sources such as licensing and performance revenue. Traditionally, those revenue streams have been exclusive to the recording artist, but in this brave new (commercial) world, the labels seek help from the artists. Never mind that most artists (individually or collectively) never will earn enough to plug the sieve of a business plan the labels have yet to change. And never mind the irony of the labels asking the artists to share revenue, after the aforementioned business model has depended (to a great degree) on taking money out of artists’ pockets. Given this history, is it any wonder Jay-Z has rapped “I’m charging labels double for what they did to the Cold Crush?” Categories: Business & Commerce; Licensing & Permissions; Music.

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The latest edition of Copycense Clippings features game theory; a writer’s strike; recording labels passing the plate; and file sharing defendant Jammie Thomas pitching unmentionables.

Article of the Week

Michael A.M. Lerner. The New Nostradamus. Good. Oct. 1, 2007. We wonder if Viacom, AAP, or Google has retained NYU political science professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita to determine the outcome of their respective copyright infringement cases? Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory, a form of applied mathematics that analyzes strategic interactions between two actors, and assists in decision making. (Most people recognize basic game theory from a simple game called “the prisoner’s dilemma.”) Conceptually, game theory always has appealed to us, but we’ve never sought to investigate it because math gives us the willies. This article is a good, straightforward profile of Bueno de Mesquita and game theory concepts, and even mentions Bueno de Mesquita’s use of the theory in litigation. Categories: Cases & Litigation; Fair Use & Other Exceptions; Research.

Clippings

Brooks Barnes. Writers on the Picket Line Would Feel a Varying Pinch. The New York Times. Nov. 5, 2007. In the first strike since 1988, the coastal branches of the Writer’s Guild of America go out on strike. Among the contentious issues is how writers will be compensated for new, unforeseen manifestations of their work online and through things like podcasts. Categories: Broadcasting & Journalism; Film & Video.

Broadcaster. Broadcasters Denounce Music Labels’ Copyright Demand. Nov. 5, 2007. While this story is set in Canada, American music companies have been spouting the same refrain with more regularity over the past two years. Historically, the two industries have been symbiotic and mutually supportive, but with recording labels grasping for new business models, it has chosen to slap two hands (consumers’ and broadcasters) that have put food on their table. In the States, though, the broadcasting lobby is one of the strongest in the nation, and its power puts that of the music lobby to comparative shame. Hell could freeze over, but it’s unlikely: that’s about as much chance as the music lobby has of getting broadcasters to pay more royalties. Categories: Broadcasting & Journalism; Music.

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