Copyright notices: complaint filed
p2pnet news view | politics:- The Computer and Communications Industry Association, which includes Google, Microsoft, and other major tech companies, has filed a complaint in the U.S. with the Federal Trade Commission over the copyright notices used by sports leagues (the NFL and MLB are named), broadcasters, movie studios, and publishers.
The gist of the complaint is that these industries use notices or warnings to misrepresent consumer rights with regard to copyright law as they often warn of significant liability for copying with no mention of fair use rights.
I raised the same issue last year with regard to Canadian publishers and their use of copyright notices that are exceptionally misleading and that perpetuate the incorrect view that nothing may be copies without prior permission.
While a complaint to the Fair Business Practices Branch of the Canadian Competition Bureau is worth considering (as is statutory reform to address copyright misuse), I argued that there may be another alternative. Book publishing and most other Canadian cultural industries rely on government funding programs – taxpayer dollars – for a portion of their costs. Indeed, tens of millions are distributed each year to Canadian book publishers, while television programming is among the most heavily subsidized industries in the country.
One way to stop misleading copyright notices would be to require fair copyright notices as a condition of funding.
Publishers and broadcasters that fail to properly balance their notifications by alerting consumers to their fair dealing rights would run the risk of losing access to taxpayer dollars that help fund their business.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.]
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August 1st, 2007 at 1:15 pm
THE SOLUTION: USER FRIENDLY PRODUCTS
The solution is to prohibit all legal advise on the media or web page where copyright matter is published (excepting legal textbooks, legal web sites, etc.). The reason is simple… the legal advise may be wrong in some places, or me stop being correct if the law changes or the advise cannot be interpreted by lay persons.
Legal advise should only be given by licensed lawyers and that advise is proper only within the boundaries covered by the lawyer’s license. It makes no sense to buy a book with legal advise from a California lawyer in Canada.
True, if all these scare tactics legal advise are eliminated, the so called infringement and file sharing may increase but also the purchase of user friendly copyright products may increase, and is that not what copyright holders want?
August 2nd, 2007 at 10:21 am
quote: “The solution is to prohibit all legal advise on the media or web page where copyright matter is published”
Freedom Of Speech requires that nobody limits my right to publish my interpretation of any law.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:53 am
SNAKE OIL LEGAL ADVISE
“Freedom Of Speech requires that nobody limits my right to publish my interpretation of any law.”
No so. If this theory were correct, the government could not prevent anyone from printing medical advice on the label of a snake oil bottle, saying the snale oil cures cancer, diabetes and heart desease.
Now, if a book says that an identified lawyer is of the opinion that the book is not in the public domain and cannot be freely copied in the coutry of origin, and the lawyer is licensed in the country of origin, I’ll buy that.
Anything else is snake oil legal advise.
Of course if the lawyer give a wrong legal advise, he/she may have to pay somehow for the wrong legal advise.
August 6th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Quote: “If this theory were correct, the government could not prevent anyone from printing medical advice on the label of a snake oil bottle, saying the snale oil cures cancer, diabetes and heart desease.”
Apples and oranges. Fraudulous medical claims kill people, erroneous legal advice in copyright matters does not. When balancing freedom of speech versus other interests, the potential for a bit of legal discomfort does not justify granting lawyers a monopoly on publishing legal advice.
August 7th, 2007 at 4:20 am
“Apples and oranges.”
I don’t think so.
My position is not that only lawyers be allowed to give legal advise. The same goes for medical advise. We all know that we all depend on lay persons for all types of advise but we adults always know the credentials of the person giving the advise and the person giving the advise always assumes some responsibility. Certainly when a non doctor friend gives me useful medical advise, I appreciate it.
The problem with the warnings on DVDs is that it is not legal advise as such. It is a legal threat directed to the customers. Then the threats are not in sync with the law and jurisprudence in countries where the DVD is sold or seen. Then the source and the source’s credentials are unknown. It’s all wrong.
Ideally the person who asumes responsibility for any advise, legal or medical or whatever should identify itself and its credentials.
Can anyone imagine if this article and its opinions about the warnings did not indicate it was written by Michael Geist or what his credentials were? The credibility of the story wouls simply be different, depending on the author.
August 10th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Whether the source or its credentials are unknown or not is irrelevant from a legal POV. If you don’t trust the source, you’re free to ignore its message and look for more reliable legal advice, opinion, conjecture etc. elsewhere.
If the author of this article would be unknown it might compromise the credibility of the story, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Would you give up the right to publish your opinion (or what you believe are facts) anonymously? I wouldn’t.
If you sell DVDs, you’re free to fill them with all kinds of legal crap, and if you buy DVDs you’re free to ignore said legal crap.