The couple who is leading the legal fight for the freedom of the internet in Canadian courts was recently interviewed on the ‘Just Right’ radio program.
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EFF Patent Project Gets Half-Million-Dollar Boost from Mark Cuban and ‘Notch’
December 19, 2012 — xanthippaFrom the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
‘
San Francisco – America’s broken patent system needs major reform to protect innovators and the public. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is announcing a major new boost to its patent work: a half-million dollars in funding from entrepreneur Mark Cuban and game developer Markus “Notch” Persson.
“The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful,” said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. “Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That’s bad for consumers and bad for business. It’s time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help. So that’s why part of my donation funds a new title for EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels: ‘The Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents’.”
Cuban’s $250,000 donation also funds the hire of a new attorney experienced in patent reform and high profile patent litigation: Daniel Nazer, who will join EFF in January as a Staff Attorney. The rest of EFF’s seasoned intellectual property team includes Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry, Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl, and Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz. The team is also assisted by EFF fellows Michael Barclay and Jason Schultz.
Persson’s separate donation of $250,000 cements EFF’s ability to tackle the systemic problems with software patents. With a blend of lawyers, technologists, and activists, EFF will push for reform in the courts, through activism campaigns, and by educating the public and politicians about what is wrong with software patents and what needs to change.’
Read the rest here.
Iranian scientists under investigation for copyright infringement
July 25, 2012 — xanthippaCopyright infringement is no laughing matter – as some scientists at Iran’s nuclear facilities are about to find out!
Reports have begun to appear that these scientists have been listening to unlicensed copies of AD/DC’s popular song, Thunderstruck.
At full volume!
If they are not under investigation for this already, they are bound to be soon!
Sure, the scientists are certain to claim some lame defense, like that ‘hackers did it’.…
Come on, people!
Hackers may be naughty, but even they would not transgress against the mighty copyright trolls!
Iran is about to learn a very difficult lesson: the American government may be a bunch of pushovers whom they can bully at their will, but transgressing against the music copyright holders will bring Iran to its knees!
100% ‘fair use’ political ad censored by DMCA
July 17, 2012 — xanthippaThis is a perfect illustration of how the unbalanced copyright laws are abusive.
The political ad of Obama singing the song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ while showing images of him with rich lobbyists is as textbook ’fair use’ as there is. Yet, the song rightsholder, BMG, had it yanked off the interwebitudes:
‘A YouTube video produced by the Romney for President campaign got hit by a takedown request on Monday, highlighting the challenges that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act can pose for free speech.
…
Yet the “notice and takedown” process established by the DMCA and apparently utilized by BMG in this case doesn’t give the Romney campaign much recourse. It can file a counter notice stating that it believes its clip to be fair use, but YouTube is required to wait a minimum of 10 days before putting the video back up. In a campaign where the news cycle is measured in hours, 10 days is an eternity.’
Because sometimes, delaying a message is just as good as stopping it…
Another dimension of the problem is that individuals unfairly censored under the current policies are penalized for the other side’s failure – without any accessible or effective recourse or remedy readily available. They are, in a very real sense, guilty until proven innocent – at their own cost and by their own effort.
This is so contrary to our common law tradition I don’t know where to begin!
And it’s only going to get worse – unless we shift our enforcement focus from ‘fair dealing’ to ‘fair ‘use’ (as, hopefully, seems to be happening up here, in Canada).
Supreme Court of Canada rules on ‘copyright’ in the context of education
July 12, 2012 — xanthippaThe Supreme Court of Canada has handed down a ruling that covers copyright issues as they relate to educational institutions. It’s ruling is not exactly supportive of the copyright cartel…
From Dr. Michael Geist’s commentary on the ruling:
‘The Supreme Court of Canada issued its much anticipated rulings in the five copyright cases (ESAC v. SOCAN, Rogers v. SOCAN, SOCAN v. Bell - song previews, Alberta v. Access Copyright, Re:Sound) it heard last December (my coverage of the two days of hearings hereand here). It will obviously take some time to digest these decisions, but the clear takeaway is that the court has delivered an undisputed win for fair dealing that has positive implications for education and innovation, while striking a serious blow to copyright collectives such as Access Copyright. ‘
In my never-humble-opinion, the ‘copyright issue’ in our society suffers from the same difficulty in being heard that the ‘atheist issue’ does: it is impossible for individuals who are simply speaking for themselves (whether they be individual people who are defending their property rights over copyrighted items they have purchased or individuals who simply do not belong to any religious organization) to be heard over the voices of well organized groups with ample funding (whether they be religious organizations or industry representatives).
It is my hope that the ruling, which says it is the consumer’s rights and not the copyright holders that must be given the broadest consideration, will discourage the initiation of frivolous lawsuits which maliciously target people and make the lawsuit process itself a punishment.
From OpenMedia
June 27, 2012 — xanthippaThis is from an email I received today from OpenMedia:
Imagine a world where you could be dragged to court and receive a large fine for simply clicking on the wrong link, where service providers would hand over information about your online activities without privacy safeguards, and where online content could be removed by big media conglomerates at will.
This scenario could become a reality before we know it. In just a few days1, a group of 600 lobbyist “advisors” and un-elected trade representatives are scheming behind closed doors 2 to decide how the Internet will be governed, including whether you could get fined for your Internet use.3 Instead of debating this openly, they’re meeting secretly to craft an Internet trap through an international agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).4 Our government just signed Canada onto this arrangement, without our consent.5
In short, it appears that it will be big-media lobbyists—not citizens—who get to decide whether Canadians will be fined as suspected copyright criminals. Please help us raise a loud call before it’s too late. Visit: http://stopthetrap.net
We know from leaked documents6 that industry lobbyists intend to blanket these new restrictions and laws around the world, without us having any say in the matter. How can they do this?
Instead of an open, public process, they’ll use international tribunals to go around domestic judicial systems.7 And once the trap is set, there’s no going back. That’s why OpenMedia.ca and SumOfUs are launching this campaign today.
Here are the details—the TPP’s Internet trap would:
- Criminalize some of your everyday use of the Internet,8
- Force service providers to collect and hand over your private data without privacy safeguards9, and
- Give media conglomerates more power to fine you for Internet use, remove online content—including entire websites—and even terminate your access to the Internet.10
We deserve to know what will be blocked, and what we and our families will be fined for. If enough of us speak out now, we can prevent the Canadian government from slow-walking us into an Internet trap. Make your voice heard today.
For the possibilities of an open Internet,
Steve, Shea, Lindsey, and Reilly—your OpenMedia team
P.S. We’ve been through a lot together. Industry and government bureaucracies have tried to make Canada’s Internet more costly, controlled, and surveilled. We fought back together and successfully held the line. Now some of those same bureaucracies are going around our democratic processes to impose an Internet trap through this extreme and secretive trade agreement. Let’s take the next step to safeguard the open and affordable Internet together now.
Footnotes
[1] The next round of TPP negotiations will take place between July 2nd and July 9th 2012. The meetings remain controversially secretive without meaningful public participation while, according to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, industry lobbyists from Big Media entities like Comcast and the Motion Picture Association of America are “made privy to details of the agreement”.
[2] The TPP suffers from a lack of transparency, public participation, and democratic accountability. In this letter, a number of U.S. civil society organizations detail and decry the opacity of the process.
[3] See the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s analysis to learn more about the ways the TPP increases the threat of litigation from Big Media. Under the TPP, Big Media could come after you in court even “without the need for a formal complaint by a private party or right holder”.
[4] Find our backgrounder on the TPP here, and our press release about Ottawa’s irresponsible participationhere.
[5] On Tuesday, June 19, 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
[6] Public interest groups have obtained the February 2011 draft of the TPP’s Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. In it, we can see that the TPP would drastically increase Internet surveillance, increase Big Media’s Internet lockdown powers, and criminalize content sharing in general, with a likelihood of harsher penalties.
[7] The recently leaked investment chapter of the TPP reveals that the TPP would establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt domestic courts and laws, directly sue governments before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges.
[8] In addition to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s analysis, also see Public Knowledge’s run down of concerns with The TPP IP chapter’s criminalization of downloading.
[9,10] See infojustics.org’s list of the TPP’s effects on the intellectual property law in Canada and Mexico for more information on penalties, privacy implications, and also Public Knowledge: What’s actually in the TPP?
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Ruling in the ‘Warman V Free Dominion’ case – well, in one of the cases, at least…
June 26, 2012 — xanthippaI have reported on what I saw and heard in court during the hearing itself here.
Richard Warman is an Ottawa lawyer whose hobby appears to be using the legal system to shut up people who hold views he does not like – and the consequences be damned. He also has frequent-flyer points on using the Human Rights commissions to persecute people he finds ‘annoying’ and many believe that it is at least in part because of the way Mr. Warman used (or, perhaps, abused) the Human Rights Code that the section he used most often, Section 13, got removed.
I suspect that Mr. Warman finds people who stand up to him to be ‘particularly annoying’.
Connie and Mark Fournier run Free Dominion, Canada’s perhaps oldest, certainly largest, discussion forum with a conservative bend. They have stood up to Mr. Warman and his hoard of henchmen for years.
The Fourniers have been a favourite target of the serial suer Warman.
The decision has now come down in the latest lawsuit, which will have impact on how copyright laws are interpreted not just in Canada, but to a lesser extent also in other common law countries. And, it is clearly in favour of the Fourniers and freedom of speech!!!
And, it is hitting all the internet high-sites!
From Dr. Michael Geist:
‘The court’s discussion is important for several reasons. First, the finding that several paragraphs do not constitute a substantial part of the work has echoes to the Supreme Court of Canada hearing in December when the court opened the door to questions about some of the copying in schools not rising to the level of substantial copying. Moreover, if this amount of copying is not substantial, it has implications in a wide range of additional cases (including the Access Copyright model licence). Second, the court’s conclusion is critically important to online chat forums, blogs, and other venues where copying several paragraphs from an article is quite common. Given the court’s analysis, such copying appears to be permissible on at least two grounds, including the notion that such postings can be treated as news reporting for fair dealing purposes.
The third claim involved a link to a photograph posted on the photographer’s site. The court had no trouble concluding that the link was not copyright infringement, rightly noting that the photographer authorized the communication of the work by posting it on his website. This finding should put an end to claims that linking to copyright materials somehow raises potential legal risks. ’
In other words, 100% in favour of the Fourniers!
And, let’s not forget – this is only one of many lawsuits the Fourniers have faced and are still facing. They have already set legal precedents in Canada when they stood up for the privacy rights of the users of their forum!!!
The practical implication of this is that they had to represent themselves in this latest court battle.
Connie Fournier, a computer scientist with a formidable mind, had to not only research all the laws and put the case together herself, she had to learn all the ‘tricks of the trade’ on how to do it and how to do it right. Not an easy task…
Well, she did something right!!!
From TechDirt:
‘All told, this is an excellent decision, and offers further proof that Canada has the very real potential to move copyright law in a positive direction. There are still lots of battles to be fought, but there’s also a genuine emphasis on the rights of users (especially in the courts) that can hopefully be harnessed and nurtured more and more over time.’
From boingboing:
‘Canadian fed court: linking isn’t copyright infringement, neither is excerpting an article‘
From Law 360:
‘Ottawa Federal Court Judge Donald J. Rennie ruled against attorney Richard Warman, who along with the National Post Co. had sued Free Dominion website operators Mark and Constance Fournier for having reproduced a speech Warman had written and parts of a newspaper article that had been written about him, and for linking a photograph that was…’
I’m sure there is more….
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