Recently there has been a leak around the Internet world that Congress is drafting another controversial bill following up a last year’s bill called COICA anti-piracy bill. The critics are calling it an “Internet censorship” bill. The main point of the bill includes the following: the government would have the power to regulate and shut down pirate websites if needed. Thus the Justice Department will have three main powers in regulating pirate websites such as Napster and Grokster. First it would have the power to confiscate domain names, second block payment processors and ad networks from working with the site, and third, require deletion from search engine’s search results.

If the bill gets passed, the government will be granted a great control over the Internet. A proposed idea that the United States government can regulate and control what the general public can view through the Internet search is concerning Internet users. There are two major problems regarding this Anti-Piracy Bill. One problem relates to First Amendment and second, the government’s overpowered ability to control and define on its own.

Firstly, the control over the search result is no longer a matter of eradicating an illegal website, but it is a matter of violating First Amendment, the freedom of speech. Public has the right to know what is out there and decide for themselves. Removal from the search result can work as an immediate punishment for copyright infringers. Nevertheless, while focusing on what should be done to the infringers, the public is unwillingly and unknowingly blinded by government’s kind censorship actions.

Secondly, through the Anti-Piracy Bill, the government gets to shut down pirate and illegal websites immediately. It would be the government who would decide and define the identity of the website. Some critics points out the problem within the bill’s text. The bill defines the pirate website as this: “such a site would have to have no substantial use other than enabling the unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or performance of substantially complete copyrighted works.” The text of the bill is not clear enough, such as pinpointing problematic contents within the website. The more attention and discussion it gets, the larger the influence it will have on actual passing of the bill. It is an ongoing topic that is worthy of following up.

Bibliography

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-draft-of-bill-designed-to-shutter-piracy-websites-leaks-online/

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-to-introduce-draconian-anti-piracy-censorship-bill-110511/

http://www.tgdaily.com/opinion-features/55935-analysis-new-us-anti-piracy-bill-will-kill-the-internet

There have been 25 billion sent tweets on Twitter in 2010. This is how much involved we are in the Twitter world. What people twit includes mainly summed up original words of a user, a link, photographs, and videos. Are these copyrighted? Yes they are. As we all already know well by now, those uploaded tweets are protected by the United States Copyright Law. The law protects “original works of authorship.” Nevertheless for Twitpic, a website that helps facilitation of uploading of the photographs, it was never easy to draw a clear line but recently they have straightened up the copyright section of their terms of service. In the renewed section, there were some parts that are noteworthy and could start off a controversy.

First of all lets look at what Twitpic has done well. Twitpic states, “All content uploaded to Twitpic is copyright the respective owners. The owners retain full rights to distribute their own work.” This part of the terms of service sounds fairly generic and acceptable for Twitpic users. Then it states, “By uploading content to Twitpic you give Twitpic permission to use or distribute your content on Twitpic.com or affiliated sites.” This part seems to be acceptable as well. There is always a give and take. Twitpic provides the space for users to upload pictures, thus Twitpic should have permission as well. On the other hand, the controversy and uneasy feelings among Twitpic users arouse from this line:

“However, by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formants and through any media channels.”

I admit that it is a fairly long paragraph to look at but the wide range of Twitpic’s influence over a photograph you may have uploaded without giving much thought is scary. Twitpic can actually sell and gain monetary profit from what you have uploaded without giving much second thought.

One blogger has pointed out a fairly noteworthy part of the Twitpic’s terms of service. There is a part where Twitpic seems like it is overusing its power over what has been uploaded. It says “you are required to obtain permission from Twitpic in advance of said usage and attribute credit to Twitpic as the source where you have obtained the content.” Twitpic is requiring the content user to contact Twitpic for using the used content rather than the person who has uploaded the content. It may be a policy of Twitpic to become a mediator between the user and the original uploader with appropriate authorship of its picture, but some uneasy feelings of rightfulness lingers. There seems to be no controversial occurrences with Twitpic so far. If you do not wish to be the first one, think before you Tweet!

Bibliography

http://twitpic.com/terms.do

http://www.scribbal.com/2011/05/twitpic-updates-terms-of-service-you-own-any-content-you-upload-but-they-can-sell-your-photos/

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#what

New Zealand has decided to act strong against copyright infringers. Among many copyright infringements, New Zealand is specifically paying its attention to file sharers and file sharing platform providers. In New Zealand, the Copyright Amendment Bill that aroused a lot of discussion includes three time notice warning system and suspension of Internet account for up to six months by a district court ruling. The three-time notice system is Internet Service Provider (ISP) sending warning notices over a three-month period to their customers about their customer’s copyright infringement activity. Then next step goes to Copyright Tribunal providing an efficient, low-cost process to hear illegal file-sharing claims, and finally the copyright infringer can be charged up to $15,000 and face the possible termination of his or her Internet account. All these changes have already been made and ready to take off from first of September 2011.

Concerns over this three-strike law seem to reach many places. Unlike what has happened to copyright infringement action so far, such as holding only a representative infringer or punishing the platform providers like Napster. On the other hand, New Zealand’s law can even hold retailers, schools, and universities liable for copyright infringement. It has definitely turned up a notch and extended its influence. The major motivation of this amendment to the law is to discourage illegal peer-to-peer sharing among Internet users.

Another concern regarding this three-strike law is that Internet Service Provider will be sending the warning to their customers. In the increasing trends of free WiFi anywhere we go, New Zealanders are facing some holdbacks. If a specific Internet line is pleaded guilty and receives a warning from its own Internet Service Provider, free WiFi offering zones will start to decrease in number. The copyright infringer, disregarding intentional or unintentional motivation, could use the free WiFi in order to be involved in an illegal activity online. For example in a public space like cafes, it would be very hard to track down a person for punishment. The WiFi provider could be held responsible instead.

The three-strike system may sound like a reasonable warning system but it already has too many downsides after all. Since it has not been initiated yet, we need to follow up and keep track of how New Zealanders will react to their Internet regulation changes when it really hits them.

Bibliography

http://www.futuregov.asia/articles/2011/apr/25/new-zealand-file-sharing-bill-passed-law/

http://www.3news.co.nz/NZs-new-internet-laws-still-dangerously-inadequate/tabid/423/articleID/209925/Default.aspx

Unlike industries such a entertainment and publishing , the food industry is one filled with plenty of innovation but not much intellectual property protection. As shown in Paul Bicknell’s article “Copyright in the food industry; a recipe for disaster?” (http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/20-APR-(2)-recipes.htm), a recipe book technically could be protected as a literary work, but a list of ingredients would have a difficult time meeting the requirements of originality and the final food product a person makes after following a recipe would not be able to receive copyright protection.

However, many argue that the food industry continues to flourish with creativity despite the absence of copyright protection. An example of this is the rise of the “Korean taco”, which Professors Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman have written an interesting article on, called “Who Owns the Korean Taco?” (http://www.freakonomics.com/2010/07/02/who-owns-the-korean-taco/). A few years ago, Mark Manguera and Roy Choi started a business together in which they sold tortillas stuffed with Korean barbecued short ribs out of a truck, calling it Kogi. It became so successful that other businesses began adapting not only the Korean taco truck, but also the Korean taco, with food chain Baja Fresh, for example, adding Korean tacos onto their menu.

As mentioned in Raustiala and Sprigman’s article, “copying the Korean taco is not like copying the latest Lady Gaga download”, and the creation of the Korean taco raises questions about innovation in the food industry such as “Why do chefs continue to invent new dishes when others are free to copy them?” Why does creativity thrive despite not only the lack of strict intellectual property protection, but also the unrestrained copying and recreation of dishes that often occurs? Should we strength copyright laws? Are they even needed? It’s interesting that even though copyright protection does not exist in the food industry, the field is still thriving with competition and innovation, challenging our preconceived ideas of copyright’s role in the process or creating new content.

As I was browsing through copyright infringement issues in photography, I stumbled upon an interesting blog post (http://jorees.wordpress.com/2007/08/19/facebook-and-copyright/) in which the blooger, Joanna Rees, mentions the importance of ethics and copyright of photos on the Internet. Rees claimed that after uploading onto Facebook a few photos she had taken, a former colleague decided to download one of her photos and upload it again as her Facebook profile picture without Rees’ consent. As stated by Rees, “People need to be aware of the ethics of copyright on Facebook and the internet. Just because a friend has taken a good picture of you it does not mean that you have the right to download it and use it for your own purpose. That is stealing…Giving a photographer photo credit is a sign of respect for their work and talent…M
oreover, it is the correct ethical action so please remember to credit the work of your friends and colleagues”.

I thought that this topic was interesting because I feel that the re-uploading and reposting of pictures online through websites such as Facebook and Tumblr is an action very commonly done by people, but many do not fully understand the ethics behind such actions or how copyright plays out. The issue of ownership becomes more complicated when a picture enters the digital world, where the photographer in a sense loses some control over their work and access to their work. For example, by uploading their photos on Facebook, photographers automatically grant the rights to Facebook, as stated in the Facebook Terms of Service. Therefore, some may argue that in order to fully protect the copyright of an image, one should never make it publicly available online, which is unfortunate because with technology’s influence on society today, photographers may want to use the internet as a way to publicize their work.

Another issue when it comes to photography online is the rights of the subjects in the pictures. A subject usually has no rights over a photograph, with the photographer as the copyright owner, unless a contract stating otherwise has been made.However, many argue that subjects should have more rights to the photographs that they are in, especially if it is for perusal use.

As I was browsing through the blog posts and comments, a particular comment made by KristiBerry recently especially caught my attention. In response to Mje277′s “So, “California Girls” has been Ripped-off by Cascada” post, Kristi pointed out how Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” and Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” are basically the same song, but it is because they are written by the same songwriter, Dr. Luke. I found this very interesting since the topic of songs “knocking-off” other songs has been brought up so many times.

Many of today’s top hits have similar features. Videos trying to prove how songs “X”, “Y”, and “Z” are all “the same song” flood the internet as listeners accuse specific artists of “stealing” from other artists. Though the audience may be correct in identifying the suspiciously similar beats and melodies certain songs may share, there may be more to the songs than meets the ear. Specific producers and songwriters such as Dr. Luke dominate the pop charts with their work, but it’s artists like Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, and Kelly Clarkson that we usually associate the songs and their ownership with.

Jacob Ganz and Maura Johnston’s conversation about songwriter and producer Dr. Luke and his work (http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/09/20/129992395/the-secret-of-dr-luke-s-success-might-stay-a-secret-forever) shows how he has a certain style to the songs he writes for various artists. As stated by Jacob Ganz, “…so many of his songs are about exactly the same thing. He’s writing dance club pop, and most of the songs fit in one of two molds”, showing how Dr. Luke’s music contain similar content lyrically as they address the same topics. In addition to reused subject matter, Dr. Luke’s songs also have a distinct style that make his songs identifiable, as seen through Jacob Ganz reference to Sasha Frere-Jones Tumblr post, saying

“Handy steam-powered app to tell the difference between Dr. Luke tracks:

Killer chorus? Wrote song with Max Martin.

Familiar enough to skirt copyright infringement and low on melody? Did not write song with Max Martin.”

and Maura Johnston’s comment, “That song is a crazy collision. It sounds good at the gym. All of Dr. Luke’s songs sound good at the gym”. Therefore, is the artist of song “X” really “ripping-off” the artist of song “Y” when there was a songwriter/producer who served as the common denominator by helping out and providing some creative input during the process of making both songs “X” and “Y”?

Creating music is very much of a collaborative process, and numerous artists work together in producing just one song. Sometimes, those who work together have certain attributes and aesthetics to their work that may influence others or be more noticeable in the final product. Many people today complain about songs on the radio sounding the same and accuse artists of copying other artists, arguing over who is the true originator, when in fact the only copying that is being done is the recycling of the collaborating producer’s or songwriter’s signature sound.

“Instead of pursuing independent product development, Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple’s innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design, in violation of Apple’s valuable intellectual property rights.”

This is what Apple Inc. claims Samsung Electronics is guilty of in producing and introducing their latest products to the market. Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy tablet bears more than a passing resemblance to the IPhone and the IPad. Apple has filed a 38-paged lawsuit against the South Korean manufacturer giant and it’s the birth of a sensational intellectual property battle in the mobile market.

Apple claims that the Galaxy S i9000 model is a direct evidence of Samsung’s copyright infringement as this handset has copied both the hardware and the software features of Apple’s IPhone 3GS including the product’s packaging. Further, Apple claims that Samsung’s User Interface with the applications’ icons is a strong proof that they’re trying to imitate Apple’s design combinations. The Android Operating System is currently Apple’s strongest competitor in the mobile device market where Samsung is one of the most active Android device manufacturers.

Samsung has issued a statement saying that ”Samsung will respond actively to this legal action taken against us through appropriate legal measures to protect our intellectual property.”  It seems as if Samsung stands their ground and are prepared to fight back on Apple’s claims while Apple is seeking for an injunction to get Samsung’s Galaxy Series out of the market shelves.

Incidentally, Samsung is Apple’s microchips and memory chips supplier for some of its products. We don’t know how this will turn out yet but it’s clear that it will be an important decision for the market in the future, which will show how far you can go. Since Apple is leading the market in many countries it’s very likely that Samsung wants to make their products look like theirs for this reason, since Apple seems to have found a design and technology that appeals to the public. However, they are both two giants in the mobile market and anything can happen even though Apple is known to be a persistent player in intellectual property battles. Some of its famous legal opponents have been Microsoft, HTC, Amazon, Nokia and Motorola.

Elbow \”Grace under pressure\”

Coldplay \”Fix You\”

Lady Gaga vs. SNSD

David Guetta vs. Swedish House Mafia

Pablo Picasso is famously quoted saying “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

The practice of one artists ”borrowing” from another is clearly not new and has probably existed forever. The members of Coldplay have talked about their ”borrowing” from other artists’ work and said that ”We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original.” Chris Martin even admitted in an interview with Rolling Stone that he regarded him and his group to be increadibly good plagiarists. The guitarist Johnny Buckland further explained in another article that their song ”Fix You” is a close copy of Elbow’s ”Grace Under Pressure” and that they never so directly stolen off anyone before and never paid for their plagiarism. Song after song seems to be accused of infringing on another artists copyright, and you can’t help to wonder if a song, a book or any piece of art actually can be truly original without any influence from earlier works?

You can’t escape outside influences and there’s really no reason why you would want to since great works in my opinion don’t develop from sterility. Artists borrow consciously or subconsciously from the artists that came before them. You take what someone created and add, subtract and manipulate it until it’s transformed into something greater than the sum of its parts. This is essential to the progress of artistic expression and it’s not a bad thing unless you actually copy someone else’s work with the intention of claiming it as your own or out of laziness.

Many people don’t seem to have a problem borrowing from works in the public domain, which raises an interesting question of whether copying from someone else goes against the principles of artistic expression or simply is wrong because the law has made it wrong? The key to the legitimate reuse of creative works is not in what you take or how much, but in the end result. If you can make something that someone else has created better, or give it new meaning, or a new kind of value, the end result justifies the means. Art is collaborative and as long as you don’t go too far I think it’s a powerful resource to be influenced, inspired and borrow from others in order to create great art.

Apple has been suing many companies, especially Samsung for copying its phone products, and this time it is the Galaxy Tab.

The Galaxy Tab runs on Android, and the similarities between Apple’s iPad a staggering. First of all, the functions such as viewing videos, books, photos, downloading and using various applications, internet streaming, etc. are all the same. Although the Galaxy Tablet is slightly smaller, according to an Apple spokesperson, “with the same rectangular shape with rounded corners, silver edging, flat surface face with substantial top and bottom black borders, gently curving edges on the back, and the display of colorful square icons with rounded corners… Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple’s innovative technology.”

Apple’s complaint against Samsung includes 10 charges of patent infringement, more specifically, 2 charges of trademark violation and 2 charges of trade dress violations, as well as unjust enrichment and unfair business practices. “The case was filed at the district court in San Francisco but is being transferred to Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler at the court’s Oakland, California, location.”

In addition, Apple claims that the packaging of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab had copied that of Apple, using a cleanly designed box dominated by an image of the phone, with the device cradled in the box so it appears as soon as the lid is removed.

What do you think about the “Tab Wars” that is going on today? Do you think Apple has the right to sue all of these companies that they claim are copying the iPad? What is your take on Apple’s claim of companies copying the packaging of the products, and using it against them?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40094205/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/t/galaxy-tab-vs-ipad-tablet-war-begins-now/http://mashable.com/2011/04/18/apple-sues-samsung/

There have been numerous incidents involving fake iPhone 4s from China, such as the “SoPhone” in 2010.

According to the video that reviews the SoPhone, the Apple logo looks identical, the buttons, app folders, multi-task function are all flawless. The only difference that I could tell by the video was that the movement was less smooth, only by a bit. Unless you have used the real iPhone and know it from a-z, it seems like you would not be able to tell the difference. Looking at the interior, the back cover of the SoPhone actually comes out and you are able to remove the battery, and add a Sim card. These are the only differences that are noticeable, and other than this, it is just like an iPhone 4. If you type “SoPhone” in the search bar of Youtube, you will see numerous comparison videos of the SoPhone and the real iPhone.

The manufacturers of the SoPhone claim to dedicate it “as a salute to Steve Jobs,” which really doesn’t change the fact that they’re producing a knock-off product, stealing Apple’s idea.

Here are the more detailed comparisons between the iPhone 4 and the SoPhone, which are pretty much undetectable unless examined closely.

Apple iPhone 4:

Size: 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm

Weight: 137 grams

SIM card:  micro SIM

Battery: Non removable

Internet: 3G and wifi

Camera: 5 megapixel

SoPhone:

Size: 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm

Weight: 133 grams

SIM card:  normal SIM

Battery: removable

Internet:  wifi

Camera: 2 megapixel

As you can see, it is difficult to tell the differences of the two phones, but I have not found any information on what Apple has done to deal with this issue. Apple has sued manufacturers all over the world such as Samsung, HTC, Amazon, etc. for stealing ideas. In this case, the manufacturers of the SoPhone seem to have literally copied the whole thing. What do you think this says about the future of technology? What can major companies do to prevent issues like this? Would you buy a SoPhone if it was much cheaper than the iPhone (the iPhone is around $200, and the SoPhone costs around $150)

http://micgadget.com/10605/2010s-best-iphone-4-knockoff-the-sophone/

http://micgadget.com/10759/the-greatest-fake-iphone-4-changes-everything-again/