Famous YouTuber Noah Kalina writes on his blog that a Simpsons writer called to say using the soundtrack from Kalina's YouTube video without paying a royalty was a mistake. Whatever. Here's what we should have said the first time, instead of rambling on about fair use and copyright: Watch this awesome video of Homer Simpson parodying a famous YouTube video. [Noah Kalina. Blog.]
The latest self-satisfied work from the Creative Commons crowd claims to be designed for children. But this thing looks more like the Codex Seraphinianus than it does Dr. Seuss. As a former professional editor for Condé Nast, I spotted a logic error in the first three slides that will confuse many readers. My first reaction was to edit the text, but — seriously — I can't figure out what the copyright rules on it are. Folks, if you're truly serious about sharing your creative works, publish your next comic on a wiki.
Noah Kalina's video, "Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years," has been viewed 7,278,715 times on YouTube. Apparently that's the threshold loser-generated content must cross before warranting a Simpsons parody. Like the one below, which isn't just clever, but also an ironic test of fair use, the broad exemption in copyright law which allows for commentary and criticism.
How did someone finally explain the Creative Commons copyright alternative in a way the average American can understand? By trying to explain it to children in the developing world. This illustrated guide to CC was made for the One Laptop Per Child project. I dunno if it'll scan well into Swahili, but it works great in English.
"Here Comes Another Bubble," the charmingly derivative video by the Richter Scales which satirizes Web 2.0 in the style (and to the tune) of Bill Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," is gone from YouTube. The reason? A copyright claim by an unspecified third party. One possibility: Sony BMG, the record company which owns Columbia, Joel's label; lawyers there might take issue with the use of Joel's composition. YouTube and Sony BMG struck a deal last year, though, so that seems unlikely. Another possibility: Lane Hartwell, the photographer whose photo of yours truly was used, uncredited, by the Richter Scales. Hartwell posted about the incident on Flickr. I sort of wonder if this was all my fault — and not just because I was in the video.
Vivid has taken the first steps by the porn industry to protect their content using the courts, following in the footsteps of Hollywood and the record labels. The adult-film producer is suing the companies behind PornoTube for copyright infringement. Vivid is making the same argument as Viacom has against Google's YouTube — with one significant exception that may have broad consequences for porn on the Web.
Curtis Jackson, more commonly known as the rapper 50 Cent or "Fiddy," has sided with the likes of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails in the ongoing search for a proper model for the recording industry. During an interview in Oslo, Fiddy said that "[file sharing] doesn't really hurt the artists." It hurts the studios. As an artist and G-Unit record label owner, Fiddy's in a unique position to understand that concerts and merchandise sales are where the real money is at. The industry has to learn to maximize its income from them. But what does Jackson care? He made $100 million when Coca-Cola bought Glacéau, the maker of Vitaminwater.
The Motion Picture Association of America is trying to hack universities, suggests Techdirt's Mike Masnick. Alongside the proposed education bill that will force federally funded universities to foot the bill for legal file-sharing services, the MPAA is offering a toolkit to monitor network usage that also happens to reveal each user's browser history to anyone who knows where to look. [Techdirt]
The New York Times gave futurist and avant-garde pianist Jaron Lanier space to complain that he wants you to pay up for Internet content. You probably don't know who he is unless you watched PBS science programs in the '90s. He allegedly coined the phrase "virtual reality" back when it meant bulky goggles and the Nintendo Power Glove, not cruising for a mistress in Second Life. We agree with this much: Everyone has the right to try to make a buck. Some Internet content has value. But definitely don't buy Lanier's CDs. Instead, we'd pay for a high-def webcast cagematch between Lanier and his unnamed nemesis. Can you guess who?
You think Viacom's nuts suing Google for $1 billion over "massive" copyright infringement on YouTube? Well, heads up, pal. You might owe somebody $12.45 million for your own copyright crimes. That is, if your days are anything like the "ordinary day in the life of a hypothetical law professor named John" that law professor John Tehranian's describes in his new paper (PDF) in the Utah Law Review.
You may recall that recording-industry lobbyists managed to insert a rather nasty clause into the College Opportunity and Affordability Act to penalize universities which don't follow a strict antipiracy indoctrination campaign. (The bill is up for debate when the Senate returns from Thanksgiving recess). Even though the bill is said to be mostly a scare tactic, it could potentially hold federal funding ransom. The bill demands that universities receiving federal funds purchase a music subscription service to deter piracy that, by some estimates, could have taxpayers forking over $100 billion meant for financial aid to pay instead for digital subscriptions. Why the grab for education dollars?
U.K. album sales are down 11 percent for the year to date and it's been a slow holiday season so far. British music retailers blame record labels for worrying about digital piracy too much. Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers Association, told the Financial Times her members specifically want labels to quit insisting on using digital-rights management code that prevents customers from making copies and playing the music on multiple devices. Bayley said research indicates consumers are about four times more likely to buy DRM-free music than DRM-encoded music. Apple, Amazon.com, and others already sell DRM-free music online, but the selection is limited.
Warner Music CEO and antipiracy crusader Edgar Bronfman has admitted that the recording industry shares some of the blame for the proliferation of file sharing. "We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding," he said at a mobile conference in Asia. "We were wrong." No, really? Bronfman relayed how the music business's "glacial" adoption of the digital era inadvertently started a war by denying consumers what they wanted. One would think Bronfman, an entrepreneur, would have realized all this a little sooner. But then again, the music business has never actually been about pleasing the customer.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police — Canadian cops with some of the sweetest uniforms in the world — have announced that they will not go after users who download files, music and movies for personal use. Instead, they will focus on organized crime and copyright violations related to medicine and physical products. [Slashdot]
Last month, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker told the nation's governing bodies they needed to make intellectual property theft a priority. Well, the House is fed up with the public berating and is finally doing something. A proposed education bill threatens to withhold federal aid from colleges and universities that don't proactively deter file sharing. Along with technical countermeasures, like network throttling, campuses will be asked to find file-sharing alternatives that will eventually wean students off their illicit ways. In other words: Force educational institutions to subsidize Napster's shareholders.
American laws and economists may favor YouTube in the United States, but overseas the copyfight is not going well for Google. On Monday, major Indian content owner Super Cassettes Industries won a restraining order against YouTube, forcing it to remove all of SCI's infringing content immediately. SCI also seeks a permanent injunction and damages, according to reports. It's likely they'll get it.
Google has seemingly backed down in its fight with Hollywood over copyright violations on YouTube. But it has a new strategy for dealing with video producers who want to sign up to have their clips yanked from the service: red tape. The company which famously automated the buying of online ads can't seem to figure out how to streamline its video-identification service. Instead, it's asking people who want to stop YouTube from hosting their copyrighted clips to answer an eight-point email questionnaire, sign a series of legal documents, and undergo four separate pieces of training. No wonder Viacom is proceeding with its $1 billion lawsuit. YouTube's bureaucratic nightmare, after the jump.
Photographer Mitch Aidelbaum has accused CNET of copying without permission a picture he took of Jerry Yang. One small problem with his claim: He actually did grant CNET permission, through a Creative Commons license. (He also asked CNET to hire him for later photo shoots.) While Aidelbaum later marked his photograph as "all rights reserved," the Creative Commons license, once granted, cannot be revoked. Still, fellow photographers are steamed at CNET for not attributing the photo on its second use — a possible violation of the license by which Aidelbaum granted CNET rights to use the photo.
Science fiction writer Cory Doctorow continues to use his regular gig with The Guardian to rail against copyright. In particular, against video-sharing sites' efforts to filter content which belongs to others. He may be sincere in his feelings, but Doctorow makes a dishonest argument. He proclaims the problem with video copyright filtering is "it's all lies, wishful thinking and irresponsible promises." That nicely sums up Doctorow's own argument. YouTube and Microsoft don't need to police the entire Internet to be effective, for one. And while Doctorow may be willing to give up his rights, not every artist shares his view, nor will they appreciate Doctorow imposing them by fiat. Doctorow also claims that monitoring video uploads for copyrighted content is an invasion of privacy — which seems strange, because the users are submitting video to share it with others. Then again, Doctorow doesn't really need to make sense here. He just needs to cater to his rabid geek fanbase to sell science-fiction novels. That's the most rational argument of all. (Photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)
