Copyright thugs

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Aug 01 - 09:31 AM

That was page 2 of the Salon article. Here is page 1.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Aug 01 - 09:29 AM

Here is a Salon article which shows an example of the DMCA in action.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 09:44 AM

Here is an article in Business 2.0 which discusses the same case (U.S. v. Dmitry Sklyarov) which the lyric linked above discusses.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 01 - 10:24 AM

The URL http://zork.net/pipermail/free-sklyarov/2001-July/001126.html contains a lyric about the case of Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian computer programmer who was arrested under the criminal provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The lyrics is intended to be sung to the tune of "The Wreck of Old '97" a.k.a. "Charlie and the MTA" a.k.a. a variant of "The Ship that Never Returned".

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 01 - 11:37 AM

Here is a link to a story about how Victor Hugo's descendants are trying to use "moral rights" arguments to censor an author's use of the public domain. Read it while the link lasts!

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010515/od/miserables_dc_1.html

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 09 May 01 - 07:11 PM

hesperis, so far I haven't been able to find any reference on the MP3.com message boards to bands that have been forced by their labels to remove anything. If you have some more specific information about where to look, it would be appreciated.

I don't consider myself obliged to point out the following, but I will anyhow: I don't consider every request for enforcement of copyright to be a form of thugee. Reasonable requests for reasonable monopoly privileges to be respected are, in a word, reasonable. Formerly, even when some rightsholders were unreasonable, we could hold our nose and put up with it, knowning that the copyright would expire after a reasonable time. But the scope and duration of copyright have become so extreme that the problem of unreasonable rightholders has become one that con no longer be accepted as simply a necessary cost of encouraging the arts through grants of monopoly.

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: hesperis
Date: 09 May 01 - 12:45 AM

Don't have time to read all this now, but yes, I do know of bands who have signed with labels and then had to remove their stuff from mp3.com

http://msg.mp3.com/msg/

You ought to find a few in there.

The way things are going at mp3.con, though, it's probably a good thing to remove your stuff... Just have a look at the message boards.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 May 01 - 04:08 PM

The phrase "Copyright Thugs" is (probably intentionally) reminicent of Woody Guthrie's "Copper Boss Thug Men" which would appear in the Digital Tradition if the Copyright Thug Men hadn't forced us to remove it.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Jim the Bart
Date: 08 May 01 - 02:39 PM

Facinating stuff. Thanks a lot, T, for starting this up. It becomes more and more obvious that the only rights that US government officials are interested in protecting are property rights. When will someone say that enough is enough?

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 08 May 01 - 09:55 AM

Life imitates Mudcat! A column by Lawrence Lessig in The Industry Standard, titled "Copyright Thugs", can be found here.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Wolfgang
Date: 03 Jan 01 - 08:55 AM

T., please,
I like your contributions, nearly without exception, especially those about copyright (due to a lack of knowledge I do not contribute, but I read). And I also like Richard's contributions, again nearly without exception.
Now don't tell me you have not seen what Richard has meant in his last post. It was this sentence from you (sorry if I'm wrong): If the first sale doctrine is not universal, then it's high time it became so. The meaning of this sentence is defendable and cannot cause irritation in my eyes, but the wording is slightly chauvinistic.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 07:15 PM

Richard Bridge wrote:

I do get rather fed up with the assumption that American is best. I did not expect to find it here.

The only "assumption that American is best" that I would expect a reasonable individual would get fed up with is the proposition:

P1: that an American practice is superior to all others solely by virtue of being American, entirely without regard to intrinsic merit.

Since proposition P1 is nowhere implied or expressed in this thread, Richard Bridge's statement is rather puzzling. The confusion could be removed by assuming that Richard Bridge holds to the proposition:

P2: that an American practice is inferior to all others solely by virtue of being American, entirely without regard to intrinsic merit.

but since P2 is as unreasonable a proposition as P1, I will refrain from reading it into Mr. Bridge's statement.

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 02:39 PM

I do get rather fed up with the assumption that American is best. I did not expect to find it here.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: wildlone
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 01:40 PM

I wonder if public performance covers the playing of loud music in cars? some nights there can be three or four cars parked in a small car park opposite my flat all seeing whose in car system is the loudest. In fact when I put my head on the pillow I can feel the vibration from the bass.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 11:03 AM

Andy Oram's year-end round-up can also be found here and here

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 10:28 PM

Quite so.  Rights to a lot of my published work (illustration) belong to the various publishers, not to me, regardless of whether the stuff was original or dealt with licensed characters.  Equally, all my father's patents belong to his former employers (or more accurately, their heirs, whoever they may be.  Though it's far from ideal, it's the only way most of us can make a living in the first place, and I see no reason why people who are prepared to spend money to publish us should not have some rights in the material; I do feel, though, that rights should revert to the originator after a reasonable period, where it is clear that the technical owner has no genuine intention of using them -all too often they simply act as dogs in the manger, preventing us from re-publishing work in which they themselves no longer have any interest.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Stewart
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 08:30 PM

In a related area, as a research scientist I have published over 50 articles in various research journals, but I have to sign over my copyright to the journal publisher in order to be publised. In strictly legal terms I would have to obtain permission from the publishers to copy or quote my own work! The publishing lobby has worked hard to influence copyright laws in their own interest. So much for protecting my "intellectual property rights." So this is a very broad problem, not only for many musicians, but others also.

S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 07:23 PM

The link to Andy Oram's year-end report, in my post of 7:13 PM, was intended to be a link to this Daily Telegraph article.

Oram's article is good, too, and contains relevant examples.

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 07:13 PM

If the first sale doctrine is not universal, then it's high time it became so.

The "only" things that copyright restricts seem to becoming increasingly numerous, and the duration of the privileges has increased also, beyond all reason. For further examples of high-handed use of coprights, click here.

So far as I know the rights performers have as performers are not copyright privileges, but "neighboring rights" where they exist. It's true that in the U.S. they are included in Title 17, but they aren't copyright privileges but a sort of add-on. Performers have copyright privileges only where they also happen to be authors.

The only legitimate question to be raised about Amazon's resale of used books is whether the "used" books have in fact been legally acquired and are in fact "used" books which have already been bought in the primary market. As long as Amazon's "used" books are in fact lawful used books, then I will continue to view request of the so-called "authors guild" as an attack on human freedom. When those who claim to speak for authors begin to call loudly, clearly, and persistently for a shorter term of copyright and other reforms in favor of the public, then I will consider taking a less hostile view of the so-called "authors's guild's" request.

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 06:34 PM

Let's keep reminding ourselves that US copyright law does not extend worldwide, adn the "first sale" doctrine is not universal.

THe other thing to remember is that copyright only restricts the various thnigs that it restricts - EG the rules about public performnace are not infringed by a non-public performance.

THe other other thing to keep in mind is taht in many jurisdictions performers have rights too.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 04:38 PM

The freedoms the public is supposed to enjoy under copyright can be known by the following shorthand phrases:

(1) public domain

(2) first sale doctrine

(3) fair use

(4) idea/expression

(5) fact/expression

Here is a news article describing the latest attack on the first sale doctrine. That it is couched simply as a "request" strikes doesn't impress me much. I consider this an attack on my freedom, even if the so-called "authors'" guild doesn't so intend it.

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 01 Mar 00 - 10:06 AM

T.,

Keep those links coming.

Mary

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 01 Mar 00 - 09:19 AM

The following is from footnote number 135 of Niel Netanel's "Asserting Copyright's Democratic Principles in the Global Arena", Vanderbilt Law Review, Vol. 51, p. 217ff., March, 1998:

"[R]ecent Clinton Administration intellectual property agreements with the People's Republic of China mandate that China's central government assume the exclusive right to import compact disk presses and conduct constant surveillance of those CD factories that are still allowed to operate. The agreements also effectively require Chinese publishers to obtain approval from Beijing for each new title and place the notoriously ruthless Ministry of Public Security at the center of the intellectual property enforcement. See William P. Alford, 'Making the World Safe for What? Intellectual Property Rights, Human Rights and Foreign Economic Policy in the Post-European Cold War World', 29 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 135, 143-45 (1997) (concluding that the agreements may well provide China's more authoritarian leaders with 'a convenient legitimization for repressive measures they intended to take in any event while simultaneously constraining America's capacity to complain.')"

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 21 Jan 00 - 03:53 PM

Here are the papers presented at a conference on private censorship. Of special interest to the Mudcat may be the paper by Professor Jessica Litman. Referring to the music industry's campaign against MP3, Professor Litman states that "Bands who have posted MP3 files on their web pages have been ordered to take them down or lose their recording contracts", but she gives no citation. Does anyone know of cases of this happening ?

T.

Subject: RE: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST,Okiemockbird
Date: 21 Jan 00 - 09:22 AM

Here is a Village Voice book review which touches on a related topic.

T.

Subject: Copyright thugs
From: GUEST,T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 20 Jan 00 - 03:42 PM

Here is a Slashdot article which discusses some of the RIAA's antics. The article suggests that the RIAA is using "scare tactics" with success. For example, even though the suit against the Diamond Rio was legally weak, the Diamond Rio's maker was pressured into settling with the RIAA.

T.