How Copyright Enforcement Robots Killed the Hugo Awards
io9.com
io9.com
Ustream is incompetent, but Vobile is the villain here.
http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2010/07/16/launch-of-improved-mea...
I'd submit that, increasingly, these two ideas are indistinguishable.
I'm very much in favor of copyright (after all, I make a living by creating protected works) but as automated and over-reaching enforcement like this becomes the norm, it is increasingly difficult for me to defend this position.
Unfortunately, I don't know what the "next best alternative" to copyright protection is. That is, what kind of system would one need to protect us from these kinds of incidents?
I'll say that again for the hard of thinking. Taking a physical object is NOT the same as making a copy of some information.
Put another way, just to make sure, making a copy of some information is NOT THE SAME as taking a physical object.
It appears to be a de-facto requirement for these large media distributors to have automated copyright enforcement on them these days.
This would have been completely ridiculous a decade ago, but now it's all over the place, and no doubt will continue to grow. How long until it becomes a de-facto requirement for large hosting providers to have automated copyright enforcement on all outgoing streams from their data centers? How long until it becomes a de-facto requirement for ISPs to have automated copyright enforcement on all incoming streams, or GPUs to do it on content while it's playing, or...?
I'm afraid it's likely to cause negative knee-jerk reactions just bringing it up, but I have to say that The Right to Read is becoming less ridiculous all the time: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Shamefully my day job is producing apps for OS X and iPhone, so that's depressing and hypocritical I guess. Maybe I can switch up to web apps next year.
Or host your stream in a non-USA country, where you may be able to ignore the DMCA
There are a lot of streaming providers that want your business. Choose better next time.
If my reading of that statute is right (I'd give that about even odds - but feel free to read it for yourself), even a competent streamer would have had to do the takedown. The statute does not say how quickly the takedown has to be, it merely says "acts expeditiously". So any competent provider will have an automated procedure, and once that procedure is triggered, that's it unless the copyright holder takes it back, or 10 days passes.
I just love the irony that it is Neil Gaiman who it happened to. He has long been a vocal proponent of copyright maximalism, and his positions on this are sufficiently extreme that I refuse to ever again buy anything that he has written.
Update: I've left the last paragraph untouched, but I decided to look for Neil Gaiman in his own words on copyright. And I ran across http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qkyt1wXNlI which demonstrates that I'm remembering his "grumpy" period but he's since been educated that "online piracy" is not so bad.
I'm glad I found this out. I'll have to start buying his books again. (Yet another example of how I can form an opinion, and hold it for years after the facts behind that opinion stopped being true. If I didn't do this kind of follow-up research, I would have never known.)
Could they have used a different streamer? Sure. Would this have still happened? Probably not but who knows. Does this represent a trend in copyright enforcement? Yep.
Every time you hear a song on the radio you should remember: this was brought to you by people who also happily destroy everything good in this world, everything worthy.
if it's the case for you that every time you hear a song on the radio you are reminded of the excesses of the intellectual property patrol, I humbly suggest changing the channel to your local non-commercial station. perhaps you'll hear something you like.
(Not everywhere in the world you can find something sufficiently independent, but you are guaranteed to find "intellectual property" there)
This is because the development process stimulates features and automation and such a backoffice has to touch every system while bypassing many checks. It's a perrenial pain in the ass.
So I expect a lot of companies and processes to lack "Plan B" entirely.
Alternative: maybe it's time for some good fair-use cases to be heard.
What he ignores, though, is how easy it is for them to get sued about copyright infringement.
That's what copyright law creates: fear, uncertainty and overly complex, confusing DRM systems.
It is understandable that businesses will self-censor beyond the requirements of the letter of the law to avoid legal action against them, even if those legal challenges are likely to fail.
If you're doing something big, always draw up a contract. Otherwise you're subject to terms like...
https://www.ustream.tv/terms-popup [see sections 11, 12, and 13]
Why the hell should someone's creation not be protected from theft? If I write an amazing novel, why should it be ok for someone else to put their name on it and distribute it everywhere? Why shouldn't I be allowed to sell products using someone else's logo? Without IP protection, you don't have IP and you won't have any incentive for people to try and create something better. I wouldn't work years on a project only to have some jackass steal it.
With only a handful of exceptions, successful writing isn't enough to make a good living under the current regime, where writers make money by having a day job. As with music, publishers who make money, not creators.
Copyright infringement isn't theft, and no amount of tough talk will make it so.
That day, the shit will hit the fan.
If you really can't wait for P2P technology for browser you can check it : http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/cirrus/. As far as I know, it's the only way to do true P2P in a browser.