Is CSS copyrightable

Came across this article discussing whether CSS is copyrightable. It is pretty interesting because CSS consists the characteristic of software codes and also expression, in a formated way. So I was not sure how we should view CSS before reading this article.

Basically it says that CSS is not copyrightable due to software restriction: “The code fragment in question must generate machine code in the executable” to be copyrightable (executable being .exe or any other executable format (examples include is Linux ‘executables’ and Mac ‘executables’) as well as executable code  generated from HTML (and other languages that generate HTML code: asp, php, jsf, etc…) for the browser”

However, the whole look and feel, such as the use of color within CSS, as this together with CSS can be trademarked as trade dress and therefore be enforceable if you are competing directly or indirectly with the original creator.

More detail:
http://b0x0rz.deviantart.com/journal/Is-CSS-Copyrightable-214148624

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House Committee Bill on Sharing Information

Related to today’s lecture on interception and protection of your private information. According to EFF, this new Information Sharing Bill fails to limit how the fed. government can handle your private communications. Your information can be used for intelligence purposes. EFF claims that, “[The bill] would trump existing privacy statutes that strictly limit the interception and disclosure of your private communications data, as well as any other state or federal law that might get in the way.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/house-committee-rushing-approve-dangerous-information-sharing-bill

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Chanel v. Does: Policy Implications of Centralized Internet Infrastructure

FACTS OF THE CASE

Chanel has brought suite against hundreds of Internet domain name owners, accusing them of using the website domains that they own to traffic in counterfeit goods. A district court judge in Nevada has ruled that Chanel can legally seize the domain names in question, and force a company critical to Internet routing protocols to make the results resolve to a site where the case documentation is displayed. Furthermore, the judge ruled that Google, Bing, Yahoo, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook must de-index the websites from their search results!

Obviously many observers are quite concerned about the potential implications of allowing corporate interests to fundamentally interfere in such critical Internet services. Furthermore, the ruling pays no heed to the fact that the Internet is a world-wide network, much of which is hosted in regions of the world not bound by US copyright and trademark law. It is unclear how the demands of the ruling can be enforceable in this context, but nevertheless sites registered to US registrars have been made inaccessible, even if they are hosted overseas.

PUBLIC POLICY AND TECHNOLOGY

The legal implications are interesting on their own, but this case also provides further motivation for Internet protocols that are design with public policy in mind. The technical specifications of existing protocols and search engines happen to be susceptible to interference of this sort from third-parties, whether it be for the common good or crass commercial interests. We discuss the issues raised by the design of the DNS protocol and search engines, as well as how different technical approaches could achieve different policy outcomes.

DNS: WHAT IT IS

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical, distributed naming system for computers or services connected to the Internet, often described metaphorically as a phonebook for translating the human-readable domain names (e.g. “chanel-warez.com”) into IP addresses used by internet routing protocols (e.g. “74.125.224.146”).

For the purpose of this discussion, the most important fact about DNS is that responsibility for creating the mapping between domain names and addresses is delegated to internationally-accredited domain name registrars. These domain name registrars (which are often commercial entities) control registries that are responsible for maintaining the database of names registered within the domains that it administers. By adjusting the information stored in registries, a registrar can control to which IP address a particular name resolves, and thus the content that an end-user sees when they enter a particular domain name into their browser.

DNS AS A STANDARDS-BASED CHOKEPOINT

The problem with DNS and the registrar model is that while the registries themselves constitute a distributed database, the root servers run by each registrar effectively serve as a sort of “choke-point” (“a limited number of points through which data must flow” as defined by Morris and Davidson) in that information provided by the registrar is cached by all subordinate registries. This allows for third-parties, the US judicial system in this case, to effectively exercise control over the content available to internet users by coercing particular registrars or registry maintainers.

DNS was designed in the early 1980s, at a time when commercial uses of the internet were non-existent. Commercial registrars and registry operators did not exist until the late 1990s.The creation of DNS and its companion protocol exemplifies the the public-policy-oblivious approach decried by Morris and Davidson. While international organizations in charge of accrediting and managing registrars already exist, it is unclear what power they have in the face of legal action taken to manipulate registrar behavior in individual countries.

SEARCH ENGINES AND SOCIAL MEDIA AS DE FACTO CHOKEPOINTS

Any user of the Internet will immediately recognize the fact that, for the most part, a website that is not indexed by major search engines might as well not exist. Because they are a single, centralized entity used by virtually all internet users to locate content, search engines have become de facto choke-points, in that they are a single point of access that can be coerced into limiting end-user access to data. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are more recent examples of the same phenomenon, as they are increasingly the channels through which users locate or are referred to websites. Although proposed laws like SOPA explicitly provide the power to ‘de-index’ content on the internet, this case provides precedent for doing so without the need for legislative approval.

POSSIBLE TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

Fortunately, there are other protocols that avoid the choke-points presented by the centralized root servers in the DNS specification, or the centralized servers used by search engines or social networks. One example, Gnutella, uses technology similar to a distributed hash-table to provide resilient decentralized search. Using this protocol, an end-user needs only the IP address of single member of a given network to discover other nodes and thus access content stored in the network. Additionally, the protocol automatically replicates data on multiple machines making it resilient to node failures caused both by hardware failures or judicial intervention. Adopting truly distributed protocols for domain name resolution or content-based search would be a technical solution that would have the policy outcome of making such unilateral censorship more difficult.

Case citation: Chanel, Inc. v. Does, et al., 11-cv-01508-KJD-PAL (D. Nev.)

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Differences between non-competition agreements in California and Massachusetts

By Tim & Anita

We may be lucky to live in California, where the reach of non-compete agreements is fairly limited. The case of Edwards v. Anderson (2008) held that non-competition agreements are void in California with few exceptions. Furthermore, non-compete agreements signed with companies in other states may not be applicable here in the golden state.  However, things are a lot different in other states, many of which have significant numbers of scientists, engineers, and knowledge workers.

In the state of Massachusetts, non-compete agreements are generally accepted, and several states (such as Texas, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) do take a more sympathetic approach towards these agreements.  In contrast to California, Massachusetts has a long history of case law in which non-compete agreements have been upheld so long as they are 1) necessary to protect a legitimate business interest, 2) reasonably limited in time and space, and 3) consistent with the public interest.   It’s usually wise to read the fine print before signing an agreement, but especially important before signing one with an employer in Massachusetts!

This fall, an IEEE study found that non-compete agreements can push engineers to take jobs in different industries and accept pay cuts after leaving an employer.  This continues to be a problematic issue for many workers in the Biotech and IT sectors, especially since most employees are unfamiliar with the laws, and are given the papers to sign along with a host of other documents on the first day at a new job.  It may not hurt so much while you’re in the job for which the non-compete was signed, but can have a serious impact if and when you choose to leave that employer.

Some recent news that hits a little closer to home, and tying non-competes together with trade secrets, the Huffington Post recently highlighted Boston Beer’s (maker of Sam Adam’s) suit against Anchor Steam brewery, alleging that Anchor poached an executive with intent to steal trade secrets.   The employee in question, Judd Hausner, did sign a non-compete agreeing not to work for any competitor for one year after leaving the firm.  Unsurprisingly, the suit was filed in Massachusetts rather than in California.   It will be interesting to see how this case turns out, as the law regarding non-compete agreements is so different between these states.

 References

http://smallbusiness.jdsupra.com/post/7056691096/texas-non-compete

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/non-compete-agreements-1005.html

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/tech-careers/noncompete-agreements-carry-high-cost-for-engineers

http://faircompetitionlaw.com/2011/11/19/trade-secret-noncompete-issues-and-cases-in-the-news/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/10/anchor-steam-lawsuit-vs-boston-beer-company_n_1086719.html

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People v Weaver – An Appealing Reversal for 4th Amendment Privacy Protection

by Jacob Portnoff and Adriane Urband

NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS PEOPLE v WEAVER Decided on May 12, 2009

In People v. Weaver, a state police investigator placed a sophisticated GPS tracking device on the defendant’s van. The GPS was kept there for 65 days, with nonstop monitoring of the van’s movements. This was done without a warrant. In the court records, no reason was given for the decision to monitor the defendant’s movements.

The jury convicted the defendant of two counts in one burglary and acquitted him in the other. An Appellate Division reviewed and upheld the conviction, rejecting the concept of any Fourth Amendment violations, as argued by the defendant’s lawyer(s). However, in a dissenting opinion, one of the Justices also agreed there was no Fourth Amendment violation but similar rights provided by the State Constitution were violated, wherein citizens “have a reasonable expectation that their every move will not be continuously and indefinitely monitored by a technical device without their knowledge, except where a warrant has been issued on probable cause”.  This dissent allowed for appeal, and the New York Court of Appeals reversed.

This decision reveals the history of decisions that have transformed the Courts’ understanding of the Fourth Amendment as applying only to property to that of a protection of privacy. From Olmstead v United States, in which the Supreme Court stuck with the strict interpretation of the Fourth Amendment as only involving infringement affecting property (thereby dismissing wiretapping as a violation), one Justice’s dissent (Brandeis) offered a much broader interpretation of the rights conferred by the Fourth Amendment:

“The protection guaranteed by the Amendments [the Fourth and Fifth] is much broader in scope [than the protection of property]. The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man’s spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment . And the use, as evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth”

The Olmstead decision was finally overruled in Katz v United States. In United States v Knotts, the Supreme Court decided “A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his [or her] movements from one place to another”. While superficially similar to the circumstances in People v Weaver, the Knotts case involved a very primitive predecessor to the very sophisticated GPS used to track Weaver’s van. It is also pointed out that the police in the Knotts case were tracking one particular container of chloroform, while Weaver’s every movement, destination and deviation from established and recorded patterns of motile behavior were minutely and extremely accurately analyzed by the police, from information obtained by the GPS tracking alone.

Other cases, such as Delaware v Prouse, and Arizona v Gant make it clear that the Court sees a diminished right to privacy while in a moving vehicle is not a complete loss of expectation to privacy. The Court also sees a need to ensure decisions that involve Fourth Amendment rights keep pace with existing and evolving advances in tracking and surveillance technologies.

In response to many concerns with warrantless GPS tracking, the state has relied on previous court cases which show that technological innovations do not themselves constitute a “search” and thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment.  In United States v. Lee, the “use of a searchlight is comparable to the use of a marine glass or a field glass.  It is not prohibited by the Constitution.”  Similarly, the case of Smith v. Maryland showed that a pen register could be used to gather phone numbers because a reasonable person would not expect privacy when inputting numbers into the phone.

While the precision of a GPS is potentially an issue for an unwarranted use by the state, the general perception of privacy has long been held to not exist on the roads.  Add the case of California v. Greenwood where there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for trash bags left outside of the private property of an individual.  Considering both the use of a pen register (which has a degree of precision above just an observation of a person placing a call) and the restrictions placed on the rights to privacy that the government maintains outside of the home and extensions, the state can and does continue to make extensive use of unwarranted tracking both GPS and otherwise.

Sources:

NEW YORK COURT OF APPEALS PEOPLE v WEAVER

Victory For Location Privacy in New York GPS Tracking Case

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Falun Gong v. Cisco – Aiding the Golden Shield

by Andrew Chao & Gilbert Hernandez

Background

In the class action lawsuit Doe v. Cisco Systems, the Human Rights Law Foundation, representing a group of Falun Gong practitioners, are accusing Cisco of aiding human rights violations through the distribution and deployment of firewall systems. In the 10th cause of action (out of 14), Cisco is cited in violation of U.S. Code Title 18 §2512(1) for manufacturing, assembling, possessing, and selling equipment used for surreptitious interception of electronic, wire, and/or oral communications. Plaintiffs also claim that, in selling devices used to create and operate the Golden Shield of the Communist Part of China (“The Great Firewall of China”), the defendants consciously aided surreptitious interception.

Issues and Discussion

This case brings to question similar issues of ambiguity brought against U.S. Code Title 18 §2512 in U.S.A. v. Spy Factory. While the plaintiffs are accusing Cisco Systems of “purposefully provid[ing] the Golden Shield technology to the Chinese authorities as the only or primary means by which Plaintiffs could be identified as Falun Gong” (Doe v. Cisco Systems, pg. 44), did Cisco intentionally make and sell the devices (routers and firewalls) knowing that they would be “primarily useful” for the “surreptitious interception” of the Plaintiff’s “electronic, wire,  and/or oral communications”?  The Plaintiff could possibly use a slide containing the words “Combat ‘Falun Gong’ evil religion and other hostiles” found in a Cisco Systems presentation regarding the goals of the Chinese government for the Golden Shield project as evidence of this (Cisco Presentation, slide 57).  While this might be used to suggest that Cisco had knowledge of the government’s intent to use their equipment against Falun Gong, this does not prove that the primary use of the devices is for wiretapping and might fail in a claim against USC18§2512(1)(b).

Similarly, another question is whether or not Cisco falls under advertisement portion of USC18§2512(1)(c). Did Cisco intentionally advertise to the Chinese Government that they would be able to wiretap the Falun Gong using their devices? This claim might fail in the same manner as above. The scienter requirement (i.e. including “intentionally” in the statute) of Section 2512 is quite powerful and helps save against vagueness claims regarding the statute (U.S.A. v. Spy Factory).

We must also ask, is Cisco exempt under U.S. Code Title 18 §2512(2a)? This begs the question of whether or not Cisco Systems is considered a provider of wire or electronic communication service. Even if Cisco Systems is considered a such a provider, do their actions qualify within the normal course of business of providing such wire or electronic communication service? Typically network systems do not necessarily work out of the box; configuration is usually required and is not unlikely that customer support would assist in setting up such communication devices to fit the client’s needs. Cisco’s actions seems to fall well within the normal course of business.

Conclusion

This statute (§2512) creates an interesting barrier of entry into the field of such interception devices. It unfairly biases companies that have existing government contracts to build and test such products. There is also ambiguity in where liability lies for educational use.

We also feel that there could be parallels to the origins of our right to bear arms. Our right to bear arms was provided as a means to add self protection from the government. In this modern age, how do we protect ourselves from unwarranted surreptitious interception of communications? However, there is a departure in parallels in that possession of said devices does not equate to defense against the same devices. Do U.S. citizens have a legal means to protect themselves from such recording by the government or a “domestic provider of wire or electronic communication service” and others authorized to do so? As history has shown, we can’t expect to rely on the government to “do the right thing”.

Finally, what are the legal parameters for liability in situations of business overseas? It seems unlikely that United States legal system would apply to actions that occur overseas. Should Cisco be found guilty of violating U.S. Code Title 18 §2512(1), this brings the question of how far does the United States jurisdiction extend? What should companies do in situations where compliance with local laws are at odds with United States’ Law? Such a decision would implicate far more than just the manufacturing and selling of communication intercepting devices.

References

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SOPA: R.I.P. Internet (As We Know It)

by Vimal Kini & Jennifer Wang

On Wednesday, November 17 an entertainment industry-backed measure to “kill the Internet” comes up for review in the House of Representatives in the form of the Stop Online Piracy Act. The act claims to target only foreign copyright infringement but the broadness of the language ostensibly opens the door for copyright holders to target domestic Internet users. The Act’s guidelines for a “market-based system to protect U.S. Customers and prevent U.S. Funding of sites dedicated to theft of U.S. Property” entails a site falling under two vague measures to be considered in violation. First, the site would have to be directed towards the U.S., and secondly it must be “taking or have taken deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site” that is supposedly in violation, or “allegedly engages in, enables or facilitates infringement”. Internet Service Providers would become burdened with the responsibility of enforcing supposed infringement at the risk of being fined. Should an ISP suspect a site of meeting the criteria meted out by SOPA they are obligated to send notice to any of the suspected site’s payment processors and/or ad services the suspected site(s) rely on. Payment providers have five days to cut off funds to the allegedly infringing site. Although one can file counter-notice there’s only that window of five days to do so and payment providers aren’t obligated to abide by that. Further, should the accused seek to fight that claim, it is likely they will be at a great financial disadvantage, especially if their funds are cut off. Doesn’t all this sound familiar, Mr. Assange?

Who Likes SOPA?
For some parties, SOPA sounds like the end of the parade of copyright infringement cases such as MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. Instead ISPs such as Grokster can no longer hide behind the claim of not being responsible for how their services are being used since they are not in control of the content being transmitted through their platforms, nor do they have knowledge of such infringement due to the hands-off nature of their platform. In fact, the question of whether or not copyright has been violated would not get the due process of law. In other words the broad shield of protection that USC 230 provides would be eviscerated. ISPs would have to turn on their customers at the risk of being found liable for contributory infringement.

Although Grokster and StreamCast had originally argued that their services could be used for non-infringing purposes, similar sites who make the claim today would have to actively monitor and filter content to make sure such non-infringing content was the only content being passed around. All this works in favor of large entertainment corporations who have long fought technological advances, as is seen not only in MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. but also in the much earlier iteration of Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios over the use of BetaMax players.

Chilling Effect on Free Speech
If SOPA passes to become a law, it would give governments and private corporations unprecedented amount of control over the Internet which has been the primary platform for free speech. Websites based on community driven and user generated content will be brought under acute scrutiny for the content hosted. There would be a flurry of copyright infringement claims and as result removal of websites by ISPs based on the flimsy justifications simply to avoid penalty. Websites like YouTube, blogs, social media would have a huge burden of monitoring their content in order to stay alive or they would simply not exist. As well as the first amendment disputes against SOPA, critics also cite studies which indicate a large percentage of actual copyright infringement is between families and friends not for commercial gain or from the “foreign” infringers the act supposedly targets. According to techdirt.com the Social Science Research Counsel has released a study on infringement amongst Americans. Amongst the facts it reveals, the study shows that people mostly infringe for noncommercial purposes and amongst their friends and family. It reflects characteristics of Sony v Universal Studios over Sony’s Betamax video tape recorder in which the courts found that copyright holders carried the burden of showing noncommercial uses are harmful and that if widespread would potentially affect the market.

Limiting Innovation in Tech and the Arts
SOPA essentially would force Internet service providers to play the role of copyright police. They will be required to remove copyright infringing websites if they have “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement. There is no clear definition about how much data can be termed as ‘reasonable’. Thus it is highly likely that ISPs would rather prefer to take down content that is been claimed to be copyright infringement than be non-compliant to SOPA. There is no incentive for ISPs to spend the time and money to investigate the claim. Removing the website altogether, even if only parts of it contain infringing content, would be more cost effective.
While US courts have traditionally sought to maintain a balance between protecting the arts and encouraging technological innovation, these actions could have severe impacts on both these fields. Technologies like peer to peer file sharing which can have both lawful uses and infringing will probably not be supported by the ISPs and thus such innovations and developments will be hindered. In terms of the arts, it would greatly hinder creative collaboration over the Internet such as that which occurs on YouTube, Vimeo, blogs. Further it would cut into small businesses and start-ups who offer potentially infringing platforms to users.

Conclusion
As we learned from the Sony vs Universal Studios and Grokster vs MGM cases it one of the court’s primary goals to strike a balance between the respective values of supporting creative pursuits through copyright protection and promoting innovation in new communication technologies by limiting the incidence of liability for copyright infringement. SOPA clearly disrupts that balance by putting a ginormous burden on ISPs towards ensuring protection of copyright works. SOPA clearly shifts the burden of copyright protection from the holder to those who only provide platforms for user generated expression. It erodes safe harbor protections provided by the DMCA as well as those offered under section 230. The hearing on the Act also seems to be skewed heavily in favor of SOPA as critics have been denied a place at the table. If this act is passed into law, we will see a great change in the Internet as we know it.

Relevant Cases:
MGM V Grokster
Sony V Universal Studios

Sources:

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf

http://gigaom.com/2011/10/27/looks-like-congress-has-declared-war-on-the-internet/

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/243659/house_hearing_on_stop_online_piracy_act_scheduled.html

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111115/00240216771/new-study-shows-majority-americans-against-sopa-believe-extreme-copyright-enforcement-is-unreasonable.shtml

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/sopa-hollywood-finally-gets-chance-break-internet

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DOJ wants to modify CFAA

An interesting news article came up discussing how the Department of Justice is scheduled to deliver a statement to Congress tomorrow telling them that they would like to make it a prosecutable offense to violate a site’s Terms of Services (TOS). This specifically goes back to the Lori Drew case where the court discussed how it’s not correct for the private industry to set the conditions on what constitutes a criminal offense (this was involving the CFAA). The DOJ in particular wants to expand the “exceeds authorized access” portion of the act to include a site’s TOS as discussed in the article, saying that “the CFAA properly criminalizes ‘improper’ online activities.” That last statement alone sounds like a bad idea. The article also discusses how, if the DOJ gets what they want, the modified act would help the DOJ try to prosecute a person who consistently tries to upload copyrighted material to YouTube, because it violates their TOS. It’s unclear whether they would take into account the users’ intent such as if the person did not know they were uploading copyrighted materials. In any case, if the CFAA was modified in such a way that the DOJ suggests, it would likely give the DOJ a lot more power to prosecute users who violate any part of a site’s TOS. Scary thought.

Article – http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57324779-281/doj-lying-on-match.com-needs-to-be-a-crime/

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Hotfile vs. Warner Bros vs. DMCA

In February 2011 a group of big Hollywood studios sued Hotfile, a data storage website, for copyright infringement. The way Hotfile works is that users upload data and control access to it, so the user can share links for downloading the data as they wish. Hotfile has an affiliate program which allows individuals and companies to earn a commission from downloads when they sell a premium Hotfile account. The studios asserted that many of the affiliates of Hotfile are using it to share copyright materials.

In an effort to comply with the DMCA, Hotfile has given Warner Bros. access to it’s files so Warner Bros. can search for and delete materials they own the copyright for. Hotfile even built special anti-piracy tools for Warner Bros. which they were able to use to remove the infringing files once they were discovered. Warner Bros. used their own filter to find the materials.

However in September, Hotfile sued Warner Bros. for fraud and abuse, saying they were removing thousands of files which contained materials they didn’t own the copyright for. Last week Warner Bros. responded to the accusation, acknowledging they indeed had:

  • removed titles based on keywords without verifying the actual content
  • removed materials they didn’t own the copyright for
  • deleted open source software on Hotfile’s system (because it could make downloading files faster)

Warner Bros. defends their actions by saying that most of the files they took down were infringing on a copyright, even if it wasn’t theirs. The DMCA explains that one of the elements necessary to make a claim is: “(1) ownership of a valid copyright…” (Facebook v. Power Ventures), so it seems unlikely that Warner Bros. can get away with asserting that their takedowns were appropriate. In addition, Warner Brothers’ takedown of third party open source software that facilitated more rapid downloading is highly questionable and has yet to be reviewed by the courts. It’s clear Warner Brothers was not playing by the DMCA rules, but to what extent Hotfile’s “fraud and abuse” claims will be compensated remains to be seen.

 

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RIAA Says DMCA May Need Overhaul

According to http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57319344-261/riaa-lawyer-says-dmca-may-need-overhaul/, the four largest record labels are discontent with the way courts have interpreted the Digital Millennium Copyright act in recent years, says a lawyer who oversees litigation for the Recording Industry Association of America. Jennifer Pariser is quoted as saying: “I think the courts are interpreting Congress’ statute in a manner that is entirely too restrictive of content owners’ rights and too open to [Internet] service providers.” She is first among high-ranking entertainment executives to acknowledge that the battle to protect copyrights online, at least in the courts, has been against content owners.

For example, Viacom sued Youtube (and its parent company, Google) in 2007 for $1 billion in copyright suit alleging that Youtube’s content filter made it obvious to the layperson of copyright violations on the site. This kind of knowledge does not violate the red-flag requirement, according to District Judge Louis Stanton. A service provider must have knowledge of specific violations, and Youtube always asserted it is impossible to determine whether a clip/movvie/TV show was uploaded illegally versus the appropriate channels. Subsequent, similar judgings have determiend that infringing materials is up to the content owner, not the service provider.

This article touches upon ideas we have been studying in INFO 205, including vicarious liability.

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