Access Copyright farce reaches America
p2pnet news | P2P:- News of Access Copyright’s latest balls-up has reached the US where it’s sparked observations by Kevin Smith in the Scholarly Communications @ Duke blog.
“In the digital age, it is hard to imagine that personal photocopying still poses much of a worry for copyright owners,” says Smith, going on:
Isn’t the real problem, after all, the ability to make perfect copies and to share them instantly with thousands of others? Traditional photocopying poses neither of these dangers, and personal copying is a long settled fair use, isn’t it?
Not according to Access Copyright.
Like its US counterpart, the Copyright Clearance Center, AC, “collects and distributes permission fees for various uses of copyrighted material,” says the post, going on to point out Access Copyright is jnow trying to stick it to office supply chain Staples for $10 million, “the largest damages award ever sought for copyright infringement in Canada”.
But, Smith continues, “the issue that should really worry us, the issue that makes this a radial attempt to change the terms of the copyright bargain rather than merely a desperate ploy to protect a new source of revenue as traditional sources dry up, is that Access Copyright will have to show that the personal copying done by customers is direct infringement of copyright.
Only if that’s true, “can Stables be held secondarily liable for providing the means for that infringement”.
But, “personal copying has been almost universally believed to be fair use (or, in Canada, ‘fair dealing’). Students have made single copies of journal articles and book chapters for their own study for as long as photocopies have existed, and consumers have made personal copies of TV shows with their own VCRs with the blessing of the US Supreme Court.”
So what’s changed?
The clue, Smith adds in Scholarly Communications @ Duke, is in the fact the suit was, “brought by a licensing agency, not by publishers or authors” and:
What we are seeing here is a new assertion that personal copying was never legal, only tolerated by copyright owners until they could create a mechanism to collect payments. The same digital technologies that have allowed so much infringement also now allow content owners to efficiently offer licenses and collect payments for individual uses that could never have supported a market before. Although it is still more efficient to sue the alleged contributory infringer instead of the consumer who is the direct infringer, this saber rattling by a licensing agency should tell us quite clearly that content owners intend to move toward a pay-per-use model.
If such suits are successful, every consumer-made copy logged at a store or even at a library photocopier could be subject to small payments, which would be administered through an online licensing agency.
Enter the RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) Cary Sherman who, at a, “recent conference in Washington, DC, “refused to acknowledge that personal copying of a music CD for listening on an individual MP3 player was fair use. Instead he said that this likely was infringement, but that the industry had agreed internally not to pursue such cases.”
The Canadian lawsuit suggests, “if a precedent can be set regarding the much less contested area of personal photocopying, any such forbearance around consumer copying will quickly become a thing of the past”.
As Ottawa law professor Dr Michael Geist posted today:
“Last year, Access Copyright blew thousands of dollars (much of which comes from Canadian educational institutions) on its ill-advised Captain Copyright campaign.
“Now it seems determined to spend even more on legal fees in what must be viewed as a longshot lawsuit. In this case, Access Copyright will need some very damaging evidence, because the law is pretty clearly not on their side.”
Also See:
latest balls-up – Access Copyright’s newest blunder, November 16, 2007
Scholarly Communications @ Duke – Desperate ploy, or copyright coup?, November 19, 2007
posted today – Access Canada ‘Staples’ debacle, November 19, 2007
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November 19th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
“If such suits are successful, every consumer-made copy logged at a store or even at a library photocopier could be subject to small payments, which would be administered through an online licensing agency.”
We are one step closer to monitoring when books are read!
“In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out.”
(from The Right to Read by Richard Stallman).
As we can see, more and more points from The Right to Read are implemented as the time progresses.
November 19th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Regarding The Right to Read, I would add two more distinct events:
* A Canadian company called Remote Approach is working on executable scripts embedded in PDF files that will report back to their creators whenever the files are opened, even after they have been copied and redistributed. That would help publishers keep accurate traffic data, whether the copies in circulation were authorized or unauthorized. You can tell what demand Remote Approach is trying to meet. [...] The Associated Press reported on March 31 that “Remote Approach is also working on a feature that would let a company block a document from being read if there’s no Internet connection.”
* Mandatory Ethernet connection on HD-DVD (will become mandatory on Blu-ray players after October 31 2007). Toshiba website says, “A mandatory Ethernet port in all HD DVD players ensures that consumers can receive updates to their units to support the latest offerings from the studios and maximizing their investment in the format.”. To this, I would add “This mandatory feature also ensures that discs you paid for can be remotely revoked in the future – studios learned that they must become nasty in small steps to avoid customer backlash”. And, for those of you, who read FBI warnings and the like – note that they call DVD media a “device” (anyone can confirm which law are they trying to use by using “device” in the warning?)
November 19th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
“…this saber rattling by a licensing agency should tell us quite clearly that content owners intend to move toward a pay-per-use model.”
Pay to play (or read, or photocopy, etc…). Every time.
That’s all they want. A virtual coin slot on very piece of media you ever come across. They will make it happen, if we let them.
November 19th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I still have my old Columbia wind up phonograph and a large collection of 78 RPM records. They can’t monitor that!
Now if I could just find some needles for it…