Virgin Media UK, a Broadband, cable TV, landline phone and mobile service provider began a trial of CView, a technology that allows for deep-packet inspection. Virgin plans not to tell the customers whose traffic will be examined.” They do not plan to target customers specifically but will inspect about 40% of all filesharing traffic. They also do not feel it is important to tell customers if they are part of this trial as, “it would be counter-productive because it doesn’t affect customers directly.”

It could come as a surprise that this trail comes on the heels of a recently announced Virgin Media music sharing initiative, in which Virgin is teaming up with Universal Music to create a legal (aka commercial) download service. Detica, the company that created CView, states in promotional material that, “CView could be used to categorize filesharers and apply technical measures against them, or target them to be sold legal alternatives,” although Virgin Media’s spokesman denied the companies plan to use those features. Jon James, Virgin Media’s executive director of broadband, however did say, “ “Understanding how consumer behavior is changing will be an important requirement of Virgin Media’s upcoming music offering and, should they become law, the Government’s legislative proposals will also require measurement of the level of copyright infringement on ISPs’ networks.”

Read story from the Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/virgin_media_detica/

So, in the UK, ISPs are taking it upon themselves to look into the information contained in individual packets. Is copyright infringement so scary for the western world that we want to emulate countries like China? It seems funny that China uses DPI to shut down rebellion or free thought or human rights issues, but does not seem to care about copyrights, while the Western World which is supposedly free, wants to use this technology to stop piracy. I guess what bothers me about this is the nagging concern of: where does it stop? This is compounded by the fact that those who are performing DPI don’t feel the need to notify those affected because their personal privacy is of no concern to them. I guess with DPI, it comes down to a lot of negatives and not a whole lot of positives.

Maybe I would be more ok with the market research aspect of Virgin Media’s plan if they notified those users whose information they were gathering and also provided an option to opt out. We keep talking about the entertainment industry developing a new business model, and these facts on filesharing usage could be beneficial. However, in light of the 3 strikes debate in the UK this type of monitoring of illegal filesharing comes off as more oppressive then it has to. If it was open and optional, it might not have a soviet vibe. What do you think about positive uses of DPI? Do they exist or are they not worth it for the ‘where does it stop’ factor?

Orphan works are defined as a copyrighted work whose copyright owner cannot be found or is hard to find.  This first became a problem with the creation of the 1976 Copyright Act, which allowed any original work, that is “fixed in a tangible medium” to be automatically copyrighted.  In 2005, the Copyright Office conducted a yearlong survey on orphan works and concluded in their report that it was an issue that needs to be dealt with legislatively. Some legislation has been brought up in Congress that pertains to the orphan works (most of it highly contested by artist communities) though none of it has passed.  Most recently, orphan works have been a topic in relation to the Google Book Search Settlement, which came about as a result of Google deciding to digitize books from university libraries without the author’s consent.  If the settlement is accepted, Google will have control over all of the orphan works including the ability to sell them.

While the Google Book Search Settlement would effectively introduce most of the currently unusable orphan works to the public, it would be as a result of Google dominating the orphan works market.  Additionally, some think that the problem of orphan works needs to be dealt with as a legislative matter and that by solving it with this settlement, a lot of important considerations would be overlooked.  On the legislative aspect though, there has been much contestation to the bills that were proposed, voiced loudest by artist communities who argue that it is unfair that they would be responsible for keeping their works from being used.  Additionally, they argue that idea of creating a database would be expensive and take a lot of time to do so.

When looking at other countries and how they handle orphan works, we see that the UK is currently trying to better define their stipulations to make them clearer, while Canada has a Copyright Board that examines a potential user’s search process and grants non-exclusive copyright licenses.  I think that our generation and the current culture of remixing has shown that access to these orphan works is vital.  The best way to allow everyone to have access would not be through one company having control of all orphan works, but through a comprehensive way of determining ownership.  We see ourselves being moved toward a completely digital world, where it is feasible to expect that in a few years time, all creative content will be available online, making it easier for us to determine what has an owner and what is in the public domain.  If we prepare for this inevitability now, we can rid ourselves of the problem of orphan works.  With the system that we have in place at the moment, we are all being punished by not having access to orphan works and it is restraining us from reaching our creative potential.

My analysis of The Pirate Bay presents the controversial torrent tracking website in terms of some key events in its history in an effort to understand how it has affected copyright, commerce, and culture.  Before any deep analysis, a basic time line of TPB is sketched out, delineating the factors that came together to produce the website.  These include bit torrent technology, the Swedish pro-piracy organization Piratbyrån, and the climate of legal pressure being applied to other file sharing services at that time.  From these factors, the Pirate Bay is created, and it quickly attracts the attention of many file sharers, as well as the ire of intellectual property owners via their organizations such as the MPAA and it’s European equivalent, IFPI.  Through it’s antagonistic behavior to copyright owners, the Pirate Bay begins to develop a reputation as using what they perceive as principles of human nature and technology to take a stand against copyright owners.

» Read more: Summary of the Presentation on the Pirate Bay

Last week, Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Media Solutions Holdings, a company that sells knock-off power adapters compatible with Apple products. It sells these knock-offs through several websites (Laptopsforless.com, Laptopacadapter.com, and Ereplacements.com).

Take a look at Laptopsforless.coms’ Macbook power adapters, listed at prices of $37.95 or less, approximately half of what a typical Mac adapter costs.

According to an InformationWeek article, Apple is claiming that these products violate its Power Adapter Patent that it filed in 2003.

As far as I can see, Apple’s patent only really covers the design of the adapter. The official claim listed in the patent reads as follows: “We claim the ornamental design for a power adapter, substantially as shown and described.” And design-wise, I don’t see an oustanding resemblance between the adapters, besides the fact that they apparently both possess magnetic plugs. I would also argue that a magnetic plug is more of an idea/function feature of Apple adapters, rather than an actual element of design. However, I suppose it is a component of the adapter that is “innovative,” since most PC computer chargers don’t have that feature.

It’s interesting to see which battles Apple chooses to pick. Why haven’t they ever gone after Senuti (yes, that is iTunes backwards), the application that lets you upload your friend’s iPod music to your computer? I’m sure there are dozens of websites and companies that Apple could squeeze money out of. The InformationWeek article reports, “Of the 15 or so filed during the second half of 2009 that involve Apple, the company is the plaintiff only in this one case.” Perhaps this has to do with the fact that Media Solutions Holdings makes a direct profit off of Apple knockoffs, whereas things like Senuti are free and user-driven.

While I completely understand why Apple filed this infringement case, I wouldn’t want to see those knock-off adapters go off the market to be perfectly honest. I’ve had my Macbook for 3 years and have already gone through 3 power adapters because they all seem to “mysteriously” stop working. And let’s face it, the Apple Protection Plan only lasts for so long. $73 for a computer charger? We’re in a recession, Steve Jobs. Get with it.

A pub in the UK has been fined ₤8,000 for illegal downloading, when really all it did was provide the internet access to a third party user responsible for the illegal activity. The pub is a wireless hotspot offering Wi-Fi connections to its customers, one of whom downloaded copyrighted material while using the Wi-Fi service. Unfortunately, however, the activity can only be traced back to the IP address of the hotspot, and so investigation of the illegal activity does not produce the individual infringer. This case is believed to be the first in the UK in which a wireless hotspot has been successfully sued for an infringement occurring on its network, and becomes significant in what similar rulings and fines—which amount to $13,000—would do to the internet café type business model. It is impossible for such providing companies to monitor what users on their network are doing, and so the applicability of such fines becomes a risk perhaps too great to take.
The risk is compounded by the imminent Digital Economy Bill in the UK which has yet to pass but would enforce a 3-strike rule where repeat infringers would be cut off from internet service. While the 3-strike rule likely would not apply to internet hotspot providers as they are not individual subscribers, the potential to be held responsible for customers’ infringements and denied internet access is daunting to the business plan. Making matters worse, “the rights holder seeking infringers of their copyright would probably not know that the IP address in question was not that of a subscriber,” notes UK law professor Lilian Edwards, “It would then be up to the hotspot operator to point out that they were not the end user downloading copyrighted material,” but “when would they get to say that? Maybe straightaway, maybe not until after disconnection—it’s not currently clear.”
Essentially, while the hotspot would “not be responsible in theory,” the laws and proceedings “surrounding open Wi-Fi networks and the liability of those running them is a grey area.” Even if the hotspot would not be targetable by the 3-strike rule as only subscribers can be sanctioned, it remains unclear whether the fine for copyright infringement would be waved as well. Do you think the hotspot should be responsible for users’ infringements? If they were not responsible, and infringers were individually untraceable, would this lead to increased infringements on hotspot connections where rights holders would be powerless to fight back? If they are held responsible, will this risk mean the end of internet cafés, and apparently internet pubs?

If you searched for Michelle Obama in Google Images earlier today, you may have been disturbed by the first result, an extremely racist and offensive picture of the First Lady photoshopped to resemble a monkey. Google had removed the image after it had first appeared at the top of results last week, because the host webpage was infected with malware. However, the photo has since been published by other websites that are virus-free and comply with Google’s rules, so this time, there is really nothing that Google can do. The company is using their ad space to explain that, as a search engine, Google’s only function is to reflect content that is available online, and a site’s ranking is based on complex algorithms that use an abundance of factors, including how people are linking to content across the Web, the words surrounding an image, and words in a file name, to determine the best result to a given query. Perhaps this situation will cause Google administrators to question if this recipe for providing relevant results should be reviewed.

It appears the high ranking is a the result of tech prank and calls to mind a similar mishap that occurred when George W. Bush was in office, in which a picture of the President was a top result when one Googled “miserable failure.” These antics, coined “Google bombs,” are organized efforts to change search results by linking repeatedly to a web page or image with certain key terms, as we discussed regarding links of Wikipedia which now carry a “do not follow” tag to reduce spamming on the encyclopedia and ensure such links are not artificially  inflated in popularity.

Google has apologized (sort of) for this upsetting experience, but is an apology really necessary? Should Google even consider requests to censor results? Google is probably asked to remove offensive search results or at least drop them in ranking all the time but to actually do so would severely compromise its reputation of neutrality and the integrity of its search results. A company seeking to create the world’s largest library cannot engage in censorship. Moreover, the impartial availability of such an image allows Americans to have important and necessary conversations about current political and racial relations in our country, reflecting opinions and controversies that are more contemporary than anything that can be found in other forms of mass media, even periodicals.

Another, and perhaps more important, good that can come of this situation is news coverage of the image actually highlights the way Google works, a topic of which most people remain clueless despite their heavy dependance on the search engine in their everyday lives. We have to remember that Google is created by humans and is far from perfect, and perhaps further actions need to be taken to make it more difficult for users to bomb especially if Google is to maintain its monopolistic control over the search engine industry.

So, I have not watched an episode of Project Runway since Christian Siriano won in season 4.

Photo Credit to bgwilson89 at flickr.

However, someone alerted me to a copyright infringement that took place during the season finale.

One of the contestants took material from New York Magazine, word for word, changed the typography, and then put it on shirts meant for her “final collection” at fashion week.

When producers realized that she had used copyrighted material, they forced her to change the imagery.

Here’s a blog post that summarizes the various copyright disputes that popped up during the two-part Finale episode:

http://projectrungay.blogspot.com/2009/11/controversy-spoilerish.html

The words she used on her clothing were lifted from NY Magazine:

http://nymag.com/news/articles/reasonstoloveny/2008/

(Honestly, she couldn’t come up with her own reasons to love NY? There are so many of them!)

NY Magazine’s reaction:

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2009/11/irinas_project_runway_shirt_kn.html

I have to echo one of the comments on the NYMagazine blog.

Did she really think no one would notice? She would be on national television, and her design would be seen by millions. Also, NY Magazine obsessively blogs about Project Runway and would definitely see the design sooner or later.

Is this a case of not being aware of copyright law? Or did she deliberately take the words and images out of desperation?

This brings me to another question:

Do we need to teach people about copyright law?

I don’t know about you guys, but all I ever learned in “computer class” (aka Oregon Trail time in school) was to make sure that information was correct and links were reputable. We never learned about attribution, or copyright infringement, or what copyright really means.

You’re reading this blog because you are interested in copyright law. Does the average layperson really need to know about copyright?

We all learned not to plagiarize, but why did we never learn about copyright or fair use? We learned about MLA citations for terms papers, but we are not told how to cite people’s photographs online.

Is copyright law just the next logical step in teaching people how to be more Internet savvy and media literate?

Before taking this class, I had never heard of net neutrality, let alone understood what it meant for me as a daily Internet user. Since seeing the bright light that is copyright, net neutrality really is a concept that people should learn more about because if net neutrality were to disappear, then it would not only affect big corporations but also the average user. After Tim Wu’s talk, I was on CNN and happened upon the above clip, which really got to the heart of net neutrality and what it means for the average user.

Tim Wu describes the Internet as meritocratic in that the little guys like Gary Maricle who sells chilies on the Internet has the same access to the Internet as companies such as AT&T. If net neutrality were to change, then companies like AT&T would be able to pay more for faster service, thus providing priority service for those who can afford it. This priority service could have devastating consequences. The current system allows for innovation to occur. Maricle can afford his website at $200 a month to sell his chilies. He can include high-resolution pictures and text because he has unlimited bandwidth. If net neutrality were to change, the amount of bandwidth that Maricle uses would cost too much overhead for his business to survive. Therefore, entry into the market level would be impossible for some small businesses, and innovation outside of major corporations would be hard to afford.

On October 22, 2009 the FCC approved of a plan that would continue to protect net neutrality. The rules are open for debate for 60 days to allow the public to weigh in on the rules. The rules include:

1. Broadband providers must not block users from sending legal content on the Internet.
2. Broadband providers must allow user to connect any devices and use any applications that do not harm the network.
3. Broadband providers must not prevent competitions among ISPs and online services.
4. Broadband providers cannot discriminate against content services such as VoIP services.
5. Broadband providers must disclose information concerning network management.

Not everyone has supported the FCC’s proposed rules. Senator McCain’s Internet Freedom Act of 2009 would limit the authority of the FCC to propose regulations on the Internet. On the other hand, some companies like Mozilla support the new FCC rules. John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, and Mitchell Baker, chair of Mozilla, said in a statement, “The fundamental technologies of the Internet have always been open; the FCC’s proposed rules would merely preserve that openness.”

Net neutrality provides openness and access to the Internet that is vital for innovation to occur. Even as “little people,” we can start a business online because we can afford to do so. If the rules of net neutrality were to disappear, our Internet access would change dramatically. We could get onto AT&T’s website or any other corporation who can afford life in the “fast lane,” while the people like Gary Maricle would be forced to change the way he does business. Net neutrality is vital to the openness that is the World Wide Web. As copyright aficionados, do you believe net neutrality is important to keeping the Internet innovative and democratic? Is there a possible compromise between supporters and opponents of net neutrality that would provide priority service without affecting innovation?

As I was flipping through last week’s Entertainment Weekly, I came across a review/promotion for a new cookbook called Top Secret Recipes Unlocked, a cookbook by Todd Wilbur. Wilbur, who originally started off trying to make the top secret Mrs. Fields recipe from a chain letter that circulated in the late ’80s, has sold over 4 million books filled with “scores of original clone recipes, insider secrets and food lore” for the “perfect clone of famous brand-name products.” These products range from Stouffer’s Macaroni and Cheese to Olive Garden’s signature breadsticks to Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Most reviews (at least those on his website) rave about the accuracy of these recipes and the similarities his recipes have to the real deal tastes we are all so familiar with.

Obviously, as we have gone over many times in class, recipes cannot be copyrighted. That is, Olive Garden or Krispy Kreme cannot sue Todd Wilbur for copyright infringement. Perhaps an even further protection for Wilbur is that he creates his own recipes from trial and error. He does do some investigative digging with menus, using ingredients readily displayed in the descriptions of food items, but he does not have access to restaurants’ “secret recipes.” He simply makes his own, using lots of trial and error. And intuition. Essentially, he’s made a living divulging huge companies’ secret recipes, and legally there can’t be many repercussions.

One repercussion, however, relates more to trademark than copyright. The titles for the recipes he’s created are the same titles of what would appear on the menu at the original restaurant. He even uses the companies’ own ® signs in his title. Here is the recipe for Heinz® Heinz 57® ketchup. Of course, if Heinz is upset at Wilbur for trademark infringement (and copyright infringement, though they couldn’t do anything about that), Heinz would have to proactively go after Wilbur, as we know, their trademark is not automatically protected.
What do you all think of Wilbur’s cookbook? Does it seem fair that he is making millions off of other companies’ and restaurants’ recipes? As far as I’ve researched, no legal action has been taken against Wilbur. One could argue that the process of developing these recipes is highly creative, and because he is coming up with these recipes on his own, all is fair. Do you agree? On a completely unrelated note, it’s only $10 at Amazon, and I’m thinking it’ll make an awesome Christmas gift for my grandma.

According to boingboing.net, (lets ignore the anonymous source for now) the UK is lobbying to implement some pretty radical steps towards copyright protection. The article states that they are planning to give their Secretary of State the power to make “secondary legislation” to amend provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patent act (1988) This would essentially give them power to create mandates without the oversight or input of Parliament. This would give them authority to create new penalties for infringements, along with granting them power to grant copyright holders “investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect uses, Remove websites, etc.” The Secretary of State would also reserve the power to form copyright watchdogs, which would effectively police their proposed measures.

The Pirate Finder General is after you.

This huge amount of power is extremely problematic considering the discretion their Secretary of State has towards in copyright protection and privacy rights. To place one person in control of how copyrights are protected, without the checks and balances of a political system, is frightening because it allocates so much power to that person.

The article also says they are even proposing to look into the content of sites that allow users to send large amounts of information, think rapidshare, megaupload, etc.  If we thought that packet inspection was bad, this is on the next level. It seems like internet users rights these days are becoming less and less important in the scope of an evolving digital economy, and now with government initiatives like this that favor the rights of producers over privacy and free speech rights of citizens means this problem is not going to have a happy ending.

It is a radical proposal if you ask me, and I don’t know why Parliament would vote for this, seeing that they would in effect be giving away some of their power, but at the same time, maybe they see this as an easy way to have someone else deal with it. Give the article a read and see what you think, my favorite term is the Priate-Finder-General. Sounds pretty scary.