Tag: Copyright

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

‘We are very pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear a challenge to Cablevision’s Remote Digital Recording Service.

“From a common-sense point of view, the lower court, and the U.S. Solicitor General, were correct in their interpretation of the copyright law that a recording is a recording, whether done on a set-top box or at the cable head-end, as Cablevision’s proposed service allows. By following the recommendation of the Solicitor General by not taking the case, the Supreme Court has struck a blow for the rights of consumers and for innovation.

“Consumers will benefit from lower costs and more recording options, while cable companies will see greater efficiencies in their operations.”

We just got word that the Supreme Court has declined to review the Cablevision remote DVR case. This is the case where Hollywood and some cable networks sued Cablevision for providing a TiVo-like service where the copy of the recorded program resides on the cable operator’s servers rather than on a hard drive in the home. The studios claimed that both the buffer copies and the copies residing on Cablevision’s servers were a violation of its right to reproduce the program, and that the recordings sent to the customer were a violation of its public performance right. A lower court in New York City sided with Hollywood, but the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, ruling that the remote DVR service did not violate Hollywood’s copyrights.

The Court’s decision not to take the case is a huge victory for consumers and all video service providers, not just cable.

All this talk of Internet surveillance is enough to cause intense bafflement. For the last couple of days, stories about the revolution Iran indicated that the government is able to keep track of the Internet doings of protesters by means of deep-packet inspection (DPI), a technology developed in the West that, like most dual-use technologies, has a good side and a bad side.

The good side is that it can be used to manage networks and deal with computer viruses and other nasties. The bad side is that it can be used to track computer messages, target insurgents, invade privacy, violate Net Neutrality and, as AT&T wants to do, target the use of copyrighted material online and have users thrown off of the Internet. Using DPI as the mother of all Internet filters would seem to be a non-starter, and yet the industry keeps pushing it, perhaps thinking that the U.S.

Perhaps you remember Rashmi’s post about how the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Omega v. Costco opened the door to copyright owners taking control of the import markets for all kind of products, merely by slapping a copyrighted logo onto everything they make. Wednesday, PK and EFF filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to take the case, explaining that the consequences of the Ninth Circuit’s decision go even further than controlling imports. The short version is that under the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation, any product which has a label or logo manufactured abroad cannot be imported into the U.S., resold, or given away by a lawful purchaser without permission of the owner of the label’s copyright. Sound like a big deal? It is.

The following statement is attributed to Gigi B.Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“President Obama has made an outstanding appointment in nominating David Kappos to become director of the Patent and Trademark Office. Kappos’ background with a leading technology company ensures that he is aware of the need for reform of the patent process.

“We also hope that Kappos will reevaluate the role that PTO has played in copyright issues, concentrating instead on fixing the patent issues that need immediate attention.”

Last week in DC, CISAC, a France-based international umbrella organization for collecting societies, sponsored the 2nd “World Copyright Summit.”  This event was billed as a “2-day event where the shape and impact of the new creative, economic, technological and legal environment can be discussed.” As a hardcore copyright geek, I was excited to attend the event. It appeared promising; with PK’s President Gigi Sohn on the first panel, I was hoping to hear some lively discussions focused on users rights, new media and new business models.   Unfortunately, PK’s appearance on the first panel was the end of the public interest focus of the conference.  The rest of the conference focused almost entirely on how to get collecting societies paid with no connection to the real innovations going on in copyright. 

Public Knowledge today said the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn a lower court ruling that, if upheld, would rewrite copyright law so that consumer choices in the goods they buy, and what they do with those items after purchase, would be severely restricted.

In the case, Costco Wholesale v. Omega S.A., (No. 08-1423) the warehouse store wanted to sell Omega watches it purchased legally from a third party, which sold the watches to Costco. Omega sued to block the transaction, however, arguing that the watches, which were made in Switzerland and sold overseas, carried its copyrighted logo, and that U.S. laws didn’t apply to the sales. The particular laws to which Omega objected are the “first sale” laws that allow anyone who buys a product to resell it, give it away or otherwise legally do as they wish. Omega claimed the sale of the watches to a third party infringed on its copyright of the logo, and the U.S. Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco agreed in a Sept.

Word came through the grapevine today that France's "three strikes" HADOPI law has been struck down by the French Constitutional Council. While this is fantastic news, it's not exactly surprising--until this point, the constitutionality of the law had remained an open question. What's more, even if the law had survived the French Constitutional Council's scrutiny, it most certainly would have attracted the attention of the European Union, who in October of last year, passed an amendment prohibiting member states from implementing three strikes regimes. Luckily, the French Constitutional Council sided with the EU Parliament, going so far as to cite the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a founding document of the French Revolution. "…[W]hereas under section nine of the Declaration of 1789, every man is presumed innocent until he has been proven guilty, it follows that in principle the legislature does not establish a presumption of guilt in criminal matters," the Council wrote in its ruling.

The following statement is attributable to Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge:

“The decision of France’s Constitutional Court striking down the country’s law allowing Internet users to be disconnected on the accusation of a copyright violation is a clear and persuasive signal to media moguls around the world that this type of policy is unacceptable. Coming after New Zealand declined to adopt their version of “three strikes,” the message is unmistakeable.

“In its decision, the French court made clear that the concept of innocent until proven guilty in a court of law still holds in that country, as it still holds here.

“We call on the content industries to stop their nefarious campaign to deprive Internet users of their Internet access on the whim of an accuser, or force users to prove their innocence. That is not a legitimate judicial standard by any measure we know.

Note: The full text of the filing is here.

Public Knowledge, Media Access Project, New America Foundation and U.S. PIRG said the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) needs to change how broadband is regulated, because the service is an ‘essential utility’ and not a luxury.

In a filing with the Commission, the groups said any new approach should reflect the failures of the marketplace, which have resulted in minimal competition, and higher rates for lower speeds than in many other industrialized nations.