“She wants to prove that actors are entitled to a piece of the copyright when “authoring” their performances on film, something that is a first, according to the trade publication, which focuses on the entertainment industry.
Her suit also asserts that the video-sharing giant YouTube cannot use the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it failed to expeditiously remove the video at the behest of a copyright owner, ***namely her***”
So let me get this straight. She claims rights that don’t exist and have no known basis in statutory or case law and then claims that protections which actually do exist and do have bases in both statutory and cae law are invalidated because a request based on her fictitious right was handled according to existing law.
And WHY does she claim these rights? Because she doesn’t want people to see the video. In other words, she is using a claim of copyright to SUPPRESS SPEECH.
I’d actually like to thank her! This is a fabulous opportunity for us all to discuss the current disaster state of copyright but more importantly why people such as myself are so vocal about a topic which is *critically* important in this new global era of connectivity. People need to know the importance of the underlying assumptions and mechanisms that are a part of the global copyright regime which has been under construction all around us for 20 years.
When the mechanics of copyright favor the ‘maximalist’ approach the unavoidable end result will always be the suppression of information. Claims such as the one cited in this article show just how readily anyone and everyone will cry ‘copyright’ in order to erase information and silence critics or competitors they don’t like.
Most people don’t know the extent to which the U.S. flexes its international muscle to further the interests of a select few domestic copyright maximalist entities. Thanks to media organizations and publishers such as Wikileaks (or ‘enemies of the state’ and ‘material supporters of terrorism’ according to the current administration, a fact which by itself ought to scare the living daylights out of everyone based on the legal concepts they are using to justify the claim) we are able to know that the U.S. has been quite active. We instruct other countries to change their laws to meet lobbyst desires, and if they fail to do so we add them to lists of ‘bad actor’ nations and threaten them with penalties and sanctions. Most recently we added Switzerland to this list because… they apparently dared to ask questions that the lobby groups did not appreciate.
So what will we do when other countries smile, pass copyright maximalist laws, and then use those new laws to control news, restrict unflattering information, censor opposition movements, control the internet and silence critics & competitors?
The only answer is a dramatic rollback of rights inherent to copyright, a broadening of the exceptions such as fair use, and an unwaivering dedication to maintaining a system of enforcement which both respects the rights of copyright holders that are legitimate and fair while always maintaining deference to the goal of making sure copyright cannot be utilized as a censorship tool. So much of today’s world functions using algorithms and automation. Building an automated system that assumes any claim of infringed is valid and shuts it down without recourse or penalty for false accusations is moronic and absurd — in many cases not even lawyers and a million dollar lawsuit can determine whether something actually infringes. Such systems should always err on the side of caution rather than on the side of a monopoly rightholder.
It would seem that, by the same logic, others involved (e.g. writer, producer) could also assert the same copyright argument to insist that YouTube be allowed to keep the film availble, as per their wishes.
“She wants to prove that actors are entitled to a piece of the copyright when “authoring” their performances on film, something that is a first, according to the trade publication, which focuses on the entertainment industry.
Her suit also asserts that the video-sharing giant YouTube cannot use the safe harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because it failed to expeditiously remove the video at the behest of a copyright owner, ***namely her***”
So let me get this straight. She claims rights that don’t exist and have no known basis in statutory or case law and then claims that protections which actually do exist and do have bases in both statutory and cae law are invalidated because a request based on her fictitious right was handled according to existing law.
And WHY does she claim these rights? Because she doesn’t want people to see the video. In other words, she is using a claim of copyright to SUPPRESS SPEECH.
I’d actually like to thank her! This is a fabulous opportunity for us all to discuss the current disaster state of copyright but more importantly why people such as myself are so vocal about a topic which is *critically* important in this new global era of connectivity. People need to know the importance of the underlying assumptions and mechanisms that are a part of the global copyright regime which has been under construction all around us for 20 years.
When the mechanics of copyright favor the ‘maximalist’ approach the unavoidable end result will always be the suppression of information. Claims such as the one cited in this article show just how readily anyone and everyone will cry ‘copyright’ in order to erase information and silence critics or competitors they don’t like.
Most people don’t know the extent to which the U.S. flexes its international muscle to further the interests of a select few domestic copyright maximalist entities. Thanks to media organizations and publishers such as Wikileaks (or ‘enemies of the state’ and ‘material supporters of terrorism’ according to the current administration, a fact which by itself ought to scare the living daylights out of everyone based on the legal concepts they are using to justify the claim) we are able to know that the U.S. has been quite active. We instruct other countries to change their laws to meet lobbyst desires, and if they fail to do so we add them to lists of ‘bad actor’ nations and threaten them with penalties and sanctions. Most recently we added Switzerland to this list because… they apparently dared to ask questions that the lobby groups did not appreciate.
So what will we do when other countries smile, pass copyright maximalist laws, and then use those new laws to control news, restrict unflattering information, censor opposition movements, control the internet and silence critics & competitors?
The only answer is a dramatic rollback of rights inherent to copyright, a broadening of the exceptions such as fair use, and an unwaivering dedication to maintaining a system of enforcement which both respects the rights of copyright holders that are legitimate and fair while always maintaining deference to the goal of making sure copyright cannot be utilized as a censorship tool. So much of today’s world functions using algorithms and automation. Building an automated system that assumes any claim of infringed is valid and shuts it down without recourse or penalty for false accusations is moronic and absurd — in many cases not even lawyers and a million dollar lawsuit can determine whether something actually infringes. Such systems should always err on the side of caution rather than on the side of a monopoly rightholder.
It would seem that, by the same logic, others involved (e.g. writer, producer) could also assert the same copyright argument to insist that YouTube be allowed to keep the film availble, as per their wishes.
Surely someone has thought of that.