Policy Blog

There’s a lot of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) being spread by some who are opposed to orphan works legislation. Here’s a quick Myth and Fact about orphan works:

MYTH: The bills would mandate registration of all visual arts in expensive, private registries.

FACT: Neither bill contains such a mandate. Owners’ failure to register would not absolve users of their search obligations. The purpose behind the “visual registries” provisions is to help artists keep ownership information associated with their works and to help users find owners. In order to achieve this purpose, the bills contemplate the development of electronic databases of visual works in the market place. However, these registries do not have to be expensive. The bills do not require artists to use these services, nor do they require the services to charge a registration fee. Services that operate in the current marketplace, and provide services free of cost, could easily evolve into the visual registries contemplated by the bills. The bottom line is that the bills aim to encourage the market to solve a problem to help owners be found, but the bills do not require owners to register with these services.

In case you missed it, you can write your Congressional representatives and ask for their support of orphan works here. You can stay up to date on the Facebook Cause: Rescue Orphan Works as well. We need your support for this important legislation.

So, in the past week we’ve had a House Subcommittee markup of the House bill and the Senate was to mark up the bill on Thursday but they held the bill over until the following week. A markup hearing is a hearing without witnesses where the members propose amendments to the bill they’re considering. Those amendments are voted on by the committee or subcommittee members, and then the amended bill is voted on as a whole to be moved out of the subcommittee to the full committee and then the full committee to the full body for further consideration (House or Senate).

If you haven’t read about it, the New York Times reported yesterday that: Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune. Essentially, the large content provider would withhold their content from a distributor unless the distributor put in effective measures to prevent against piracy. We’re not talking about DRM here, we’re talking about filtering software, whether it resides on the playback device like a Zune or iPod, or in the software on a syncing computer that stores the consumers’ library of music and movies like the Zune or iTunes software. This software would troll your library checking for content that was somehow infringing or unauthorized. It may even be spyware that could report back to someone about the contents of your media library.

In response to my post a couple of days ago about the possibility that VZ might not plan to comply with the 700 MHz “open platform” rules, someone wrote:

would you have the FCC mandate that every mobile device must be capable of running every operating system? If Verizon sells me a BlackBerry, should the device allow me to install Android, Palm OS, Windows Mobile, or Symbian OS? Obviously, Google believes the answer is yes (they will make the most money if they can install their OS on every device). Is it good for consumers if the FCC starts managing software specifications for computers and mobile devices?

It must be spring, and a delightful spring at that. Like swallows to Capistrano, numerous pigeons created by the IP mafia over the years are at last coming home to roost. Today’s NYT provides the most recent returning pigeon dropping its unintended consequence out of a clear blue sky.

Last Friday (HT: IPDemocracy), Google filed a petition [PDF] asking that the Commission ensure that Verizon understands what those “open platform” requirements for the C Block really mean. Verizon has taken the position in the past that its own devices won’t be subject to the “open applications” and “open handsets” requirements of the C Block rules, and Google says it is concerned that Verizon doesn’t plan to follow those requirements in the future.

This is big. Here’s the background.

Today, PK asked a federal court in Arizona to accept our “friend of the court” arguments in MDY v. Blizzard, a case pitting distasteful gaming behavior against an unsavory over-assertion of copyrights.

The basic details behind the story are here.

MDY, Inc. makes a program called Glider that plays World of Warcraft automatically. Players using Glider can gain experience points in WoW while not at their computers. This causes a number of gameplay issues for Blizzard, the makers of WoW. It also violates their Terms of Use (“TOU”), which are incorporated into their End User License Agreement (“EULA”).

So Blizzard sues MDY. Ok. For copyright infringement. Less Ok. Here’s why.

Just in time for the House Telecom Subcommittee’s May 6 hearing on Net Neutrality legislation, Public Knowledge achieved a new level of notoriety when we were prominently mentioned in a blog post on the American Spectator, the publication best known for funneling millions of dollars to investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

One of the biggest problems in public advocacy is translating abstract policy issues into the sort of concrete realities that bite the public on the rear end and get them to care. Happily, the RIAA and its ridiculous insistence on the most secure DRM imaginable — no matter how impractical, expensive, or user unfriendly — provides an endless series of such “teachable moments.” The recent announcement by MSN that it will shut down its music service and will therefore no longer refresh DRM keys is just such a moment.

MS found itself in a hard place. To offer the service it wanted, it needed to make commitments to the music industry about DRM. I do not think at the time MS understood this to mean that it would have a perpetual expense to maintain the service no matter what. Generally, if you decide the headaches aren’t worth it, you shut down.

Two orphan works bills were introduced to begin to bring balance back to copyright law—to help find owners and encourage new and creative uses of unexploited copyrighted works. Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have introduced orphan works legislation (S. 2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, H.R. 5889: The Orphan Works Act of 2008), rooted in the same language based on the previous Smith Bill, which was based on the Copyright Office’s recommendation. It’s been a long time coming and from working with staff, I know they’re very happy to have the bills finally introduced. Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA),Howard Coble (R-NC), John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), (Chairman and Ranking Members of House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property and Full Judiciary Committee Chairman and Ranking Member respectively) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and their incredible staff members are to be congratulated for working to address concerns of both the user and owner communities.