Tech Titans challenge copyright claims in the media

Sounds a bit long-winded, but is a simple thing. When you watch a baseball match or a football match, you will get bombarded with warnings that tell you what you can or cannot do with the thing that you are watching on TV. They never tell you what you can do, instead it is all about not reproducing nor transmitting it any form, coupling this with an official warning and with logos of the league. This practice is now being challenged by a tech association, Computer & Communications Industry Association (comprising such titans such as Google and Microsoft) who contend that these warnings do represent the whole truth, and hence are essentially misleading customers about their rights.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission Latest News about Federal Trade Commission stating that such organizations as Major League Baseball, the National Football League and NBC/Universal, to name just a few, have been misleading consumers for years about their rights under the fair use doctrine in copyright law.
"Every time an American consumer opens a book, plays a DVD or watches a wide range of broadcast programs, he or she is confronted by strong language warning of what they are not allowed to do with that product," the executive summary of the complaint reads. "By design or effect, many of these warnings are misleading and harmful to millions of American consumers, customers and businesses," it continues. In fact, these statements grossly misrepresent federal law, which allows use of this material in certain circumstances, the CCIA contends.
"Uses of copyrighted works unauthorized by the copyright holder are not only permitted by federal law," reads the complaint, "they are actively encouraged by it. Section 107 of the Copyright Act, for example, encourages the unauthorized use of copyrighted works for various purposes, including criticism, commentary and news reporting. Under some circumstances, fair use permits the reproduction of an entire work by consumers."
Further, it goes on to say, MLB's claim that news accounts or "descriptions" of the game cannot be "disseminated" is, no pun intended, completely off base. "No author may copyright facts or ideas. Copyright serves to promote the dissemination of information by ensuring that every idea, theory and fact in a copyrighted work becomes instantly available for public exploitation at the moment of publication.

This seems an important issue. For years now, viewers have been essentially threatened that even if they take a section of the recording for doing a critical commentary, it is illegal; and how many users are so aware of that their rights that they don't get dispirited by such challenges.
The concept of fair use is subject to a fair amount of interpretations, and with the rapid advance of technology, legislation and legal compliance is typically falling behind. And for fundamental issues affecting the First Amendment Rights of a citizen, it is even more difficult for a court to refer to the Constitution and interpret it in such cases. Not to talk about how this complaint may even be biased, since many of the complainant companies are running searches, user to user networks, on which many of these clippings get posted.

Yet more identity loss, this time in Ohio

It seems like open season for identity loss. Inspite of the fact that trends for identity loss, and consequent financial fraud, are on the way up, these incidents keep on happening. And it seems so simple in many cases, almost like inviting thiefs to come and do such things. In the recent case, a computer tape, that held backup information for 64,00 Ohio state employees, as well as names and Social Security numbers for another 225,000 taxpayers, was stolen from the unlocked car of an intern. And why was this in the intern's car? Well, because taking a backup copy of the tape was part of security procedures for safety of the information. In this case, safety would have been to do with the data getting lost because of any data errors or computer malfunction, so seems like a good thing to do, except for the fact that the tape itself was kept in a physically unsafe location.
For data holding names and security service numbers, there needs to be a proper safety analysis and a proper plan, something that does not seem to have been done in this case. Otherwise, how could it have been so simple?

A missing computer backup tape containing personal information on state employees also holds the names and Social Security numbers of 225,000 taxpayers, Gov. Ted Strickland said. The tape, stolen last week from a state intern's car, was previously revealed to hold the names and Social Security numbers of all 64,000 state employees, as well as personal data for tens of thousands of others, including Ohio's 84,000 welfare recipients.
The administration has maintained it does not believe the information has been accessed because it would require specific hardware, software and expertise. But data security experts said the unencrypted tape, described by police as roughly 4 inches square and an inch thick, could be breached by someone with computer expertise, time and money.

And this is the other problem. When such indidents happen, many times the administration involved tries to minimize the problems associated with such thefts, by claiming that there is no record that anybody has tried to use this stolen information, or that the information is contained such that it's not easy to steal. All these are not correct responses, certainly not geared to bring confidence.
It is far better to invest the required time and money to bring in systematic data protection policies, for the cost of not taking such measures and then trying to take corrective measures is far more. This is not the first time that we are hearing of such theft, and it is unlikely that this will be the last time.
This is even more problematic in the current case because a number of people who are affected are on welfare, and will have no idea about what to do, or what the implications of such moves are.

Apple puts buyer information in DRM free tracks

A lot of people have celebrated the decision by Apple and EMI to provide DRM free audio tracks through iTunes (even if they cost 30 cents extra). But suddenly, when there was some amount of excitement among anti-DRM users, Apple has caused some amount of caution. It has been discovered that users who buy DRM free files are getting files that have their user names and email id's embedded in the files.
Users who download the latest update for iTunes, version 7.2 have got the ability to buy DRM free files. But analysis of these files have disclosed that these files have user information embedded in an unencrypted form. This should not harm anyone in an obvious manner.
However, for users who are going to share these files, analysis of these files will easily disclose the original buyer of these files, and know that these files have been shared, something that is still not legally permitted. However, Apple is not disclosing the reasons why these files carry the user information, something which makes privacy experts queasy. So, even though Apple has made files DRM free, it still wants to make sure that it has a way of tracking any movement of these files. Maybe this could have been part of the agreement with EMI.
Refer this article:

An Apple spokesman suggested by e-mail that Wired News contact Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research who has been briefed about iTunes Plus. The Apple spokesman didn't respond to further requests for comment.
Gartenberg said there are many reasons why Apple would want to tag music sold through the iTunes store. The information could be used as a proof of purchase, or to facilitate upgrades (songs previously bought through iTunes can be upgraded to higher fidelity versions for an extra 30 cents). The identifier could help identify songs missing from albums (iTunes offers a "complete album" feature), as well as to thwart piracy.

The silence by Apple is puzzling. It does not solve any immediate need, and Apple would have expected that this would easily have been found, and they did not have a canned reply. Seems a bit strange.

EMI signs deal with YouTube

YouTube has managed to sign a deal with another music company for letting YouTube users access songs and videos from the catalog of EMI. With this, YouTube has now managed to sign a deal with all major music companies - EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Entertainment. The deal with EMI will allow users to access music and videos, and even allow them to incorporate some of these elements in their own content.
Details of the deal in terms of financial compensation to EMI is not available. However, YouTube is still facing a major lawsuit on behalf of other videos on their site, with several companies such as Viacom, The English Premier League, etc having files lawsuits against Google for infringing their copyright. This lawsuit is being fought by Google on the grounds that they are not knowingly infringing piracy, and that YouTube is just a platform, protected by the law. It could be very much possible that Google will also claim that there are a number of companies who have signed deals with YouTube, and that the companies who have filed the lawsuit are the ones who could not reach an agreement. The market does not seem to worry about the lawsuit too much, with Google's share going above $500.

Amazon jumps on DRM free bandawagon

DRM (Digital Rights Management) was the ultimate solution to prevent piracy and trading through the torrent network and others, you could have a way to ensure that everybody is getting their songs legally. It was the solution recommended by the recording industry; but there is a contrary position pushed by a number of people. This position states that there is a large section of people put off by copy protection schemes (such as DRM) and would purchase songs if they were DRM free.
A start was made in this direction when Apple signed a deal with EMI a few weeks back when Apple announced that they would make DRM free songs available on iTunes (slightly more expensive than regular DRM restricted songs). Now Amazon has jumped on this same platform, announcing that Amazon will make DRM free songs available that will be playable on a wide variety of portable music players, including Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune.
If it turns out that this strategy starts to sell more songs, then a lot of other retailers will jump onto this effort, and start to sell DRM free music. More such successes will start to hurt the basic claim that DRM is necessary, after all, money and sales count. Refer this article:

Apple's iTunes and e-tailer Amazon.com are in position to test this hypothesis in the coming months. On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it plans to sell digital songs from record label EMI Group that will be DRM-free. Amazon's unprotected music, which will be sold from the retailer's upcoming download store, can be played on a wide variety of portable music players, including Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune. Amazon's announcement follows one last month from Apple, which is also due to begin selling unprotected music from EMI.
"DRM is the only thing that has given the industry any kind of control," said one record executive, who requested anonymity. "Amazon is a strong endorsement for this (unprotected music) strategy," Card said. "The question of whether it's enough to tilt the tables away from DRM remains to be seen. The sales would have to be huge to bring the others on board."
Sales of traditional CDs are in a free fall. The industry reported a 17 percent decline in album sales so far this year. Ipsos Insight, a Chicago-based market research firm, issued a report recently that showed a 15 percent drop from 2002 in the number of U.S. consumers who had bought a CD within the past six months. The music industry is waiting for music downloads to make up these losses, but that hasn't happened yet.

A lot of people are pushed off by the restrictions on purchased music, where the music can only play on one player, and not others. However, by offering both DRM protected songs, and non DRM protected songs, they could end up confusing users, large sections of which cannot be expected to understand the reasoning and basis for copy-protection.
Another possible outcome is that users do not buy these songs just because they are priced higher than protected songs. If such a thing happens, it is not going to be far-fetched for music industry executives to claim that consumers have rejected DRM free songs, while the reasoning could be a matter of simple economics.

Microsoft attacks open-source Linux with lawyers

Microsoft has been an open advocate of dangers posed by open-source systems; trying out concepts such as Total Cost of Ownership (to make it seem that MS was cheaper than Open source if you add training and support), that these systems were unsafe, and now Microsoft has launched its latest attack on Linux, using its famous method of legally harassing a competitor to death. This policy is certainly not going to win it any friends, even if it may be a legal way. Refer this story:

Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday that open-source software, including the rival Linux operating systems, violates 235 of its patents, making its most detailed intellectual property challenge to open source.
The maker of the Windows operating system said it wants to work out licensing deals with open source companies instead of fighting out the patent disputes in court.
"The real question is not whether there exist substantial patent infringement issues, but what to do about them," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft Vice President of Intellectual Property and Licensing in an e-mail statement.

This can be a serious challenge, because Microsoft will use it arsenal of lawyers to harass open source companies, and at the same time, if they actually have some patents that seem to have been copied, it will be open season.
Of course, with open-source being a big thing, such moves by Microsoft are likely to draw even more bad press and deal a blow to its efforts to portray itself as promoting some form of open source for a section of its technologies. Developer mistrust of Microsoft is deeply entrenched, and such moves are likely to make them even more so.

Google blasts Viacom over lawsuit

Viacom had filed a $1 billion lawsuit with Google, alleging that YouTube, owned by Google was indulging in massive intentional copyright infringement. This is based on the fact that YouTube has a large number of video clips from Viacom's properties (MTV, Paramount Pictures, and numerous other media properties). Viacom claim that all these infringements are encouraged by the nature of YouTube, and that they are not doing enough to remove these.
Google, in a counter-offensive, has claimed that it is actually a hosting provider, and similar to numerous other hosting providers. It claims that Viacom's legal action, if taken forward will threaten the information exchange across the internet. The claims made from both sides are heated, and follow after failed negotiations.
Further, Google claims that it is protected by the terms of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which protects Internet service providers that act quickly to block pirated material once notified by the copyright holder. Viacom claims that because of the large number of clips, it takes a large effort to identify these pirated clips.
There was a fair amount of debate over this exact issue when Google had acquired YouTube. Did Google factor in the legal troubles that it would face when it decided to spend around $1.6 billion to buy YouTube ? In a bit of time, as this case progresses, we will get to know.

Rivals fear spread of piracy after EMI - Apple deal

Last week's decision by EMI and Apple to announce a big deal for selling music online with the protection of Digital Rights Management (DRM) has led to 2 different reactions from other competing groups. Since the DRM removal can lead to potential piracy since the music albums / songs can be moved to other players as well as potentially transferred to other people. The rollout of this new version is planned for May 2007, with the expectation that this will appeal to a music enthusiasts who are currently turned off from buying off iTunes due to its DRM restrictions. Competitors are claiming that this move by EMI is a short-sighted move by EMI that will short-circuit the drive to make consumers aware of the need for DRM.
The other move by competitors is that they are going to be constantly tracking how this gambit of releasing DRM free versions of songs is going to work. If this seems like working, then one can be sure that they will immediately get into the act.
Read excerpts from this article:

Media industry executives and analysts have expressed surprise and alarm at last week's decision by EMI, the record label, to start selling music videos without the protection of anti-piracy software.
While labels have previously insisted on DRM to prevent illegal copying, many in the industry have come to believe that the restrictions are deterring people from buying songs and may be driving them on to peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as LimeWire - where pirated music, free of constraints, can be downloaded without paying.
One media industry executive said that EMI's restriction-free video on the iTunes site was setting an unwelcome precedent. "We are perplexed as to why EMI has done this and surprised at their thoughtlessness," he said.