The linkage between political funding and the major copyright lobby groups is not a new issue as for years there have been stories about how groups like the MPAA and RIAA fund politicians that advance their interests. Sites like OpenSecrets disclose the spending, though it gets complicated given how much money comes from individual companies or corporate executives. While those sites tell the story of how much, the recent leak of Sony emails reveal the how. They demonstrate the coordinated efforts by the MPAA to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for certain politicians with direct efforts from MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd to solicit donations from among the Hollywood studios. This will not be news to those who have been following Lawrence Lessig in recent years, but the matter-of-fact tone of these emails is still revealing.
Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP
Copyright
Canada’s Non-Commercial Copyright Fail: Why Did YouTube Mute a Holocaust Memorial Video?
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) starts tonight with events planned around the world. Last year, my daughter Jordan participated in the March of the Living, an annual event that brings thousands of people from around the world to the concentration camps in Poland. The experience had a profound effect and since her return she has become increasingly active within the March of the Living organization including joining the Ottawa board of directors. As part of tonight’s Holocaust remembrance event in Ottawa, she was asked to create a video to commemorate last year’s trip including interviews with participants, pictures, and video. She spent hours interviewing 18 participants on their experience and worked through hundreds of photos and hours of video to create a five-minute snapshot.
Last week, she posted the video to YouTube in anticipation of tonight’s event. Within hours, she received a message from the event organizer’s wondering why so few interviews appeared on the video. When she looked into the issue, she found that YouTube had muted the audio track with interviews after a couple of minutes (at 2:14 to be precise). The reason? The video includes some copyrighted background music. YouTube’s approach when it matches audio to a copyrighted work is to mute the non-music track, though it provides an option to fill out a fair dealing/fair use claim. Jordan did that, pointing out that Section 29.21 of the Canadian Copyright Act provides specific protection for non-commercial user generated content. The provision states:
The Copyright Notice Flood: What to Consider If You Receive a Copyright Infringement Notification
For the past few months, I’ve received daily emails from people who have been sent a copyright infringement notification as part of Canada’s notice-and-notice system. Most of the notifications come from CEG-TEK, a U.S.-based anti-piracy firm. Canadian Internet providers are now required by law to forward these notifications and CEG TEK has been taking advantage of a loophole in the system to include a settlement demand within the notification. Some of the recipients claim that the notification has been sent in error. Others say that they have received multiple notifications for a single download. In some cases, the recipient has clicked on the settlement demand link, while in others the person has called the company and revealed their identity. In virtually every case, they are looking for advice on what to do.
My typical response has been to point to my earlier posts on the issue that have explained Canada’s notice-and-notice system, the misuse of the system by rights holders in sending misleading information about Canadian copyright law, the government’s failure to stop the inclusion of settlement demands within the notices, and the massive expansion in the number of notices with the arrival of CEG TEK. I also point to Industry Canada’s page on the notice-and-notice system, which provides the government’s perspective on the issue. These resources can be helpful, but what most people really want to know is whether they should pay the settlement or ignore it. I don’t condone infringement but I believe that the misuse of the notice and notice system is extremely problematic. Moreover, I certainly think people that did not infringe copyright should not pay a settlement demand. I’m unable to provide specific legal advice, but I can provide more information that may assist in making a more informed decision about a system that was designed to discourage infringement, not create a loophole to facilitate settlement demands.
Defending Privacy Doesn’t Pay: Federal Court Issues Ruling in Voltage – TekSavvy Costs
The Federal Court has issued its ruling on the costs in the Voltage – TekSavvy case, a case involving the demand for the names and address of thousands of TekSavvy subscribers by Voltage on copyright infringement grounds. Last year, the court opened the door to TekSavvy disclosing the names and addresses, but also established new safeguards against copyright trolling in Canada. The decision required Voltage to pay TekSavvy’s costs and builds in court oversight over any demand letters sent by Voltage.
When is a Copy not a Copy?: Technological Neutrality at Stake at the Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments yesterday in the copyright case of CBC v. SODRAC. While the case was ultimately about whether CBC should be required to pay royalties for incidental copies necessary to use new broadcast technologies, at stake was something far bigger: the future of technological neutrality under Canadian copyright law.
CBC argued that technological neutrality means that it should not pay for incidental copies since it already pays for the use of music in broadcasts. The incidental copies – copies which are made to create the final broadcast version of a program (including copies from the master to a content management system or other internal copies to facilitate the broadcast) – do not generate revenue and are simply made to facilitate use of the music that is paid for through a licence. SODRAC, a Quebec-based copyright collective, countered that CBC had always paid for these copies and that the CBC argument was the reverse of technological neutrality, since it wanted to avoid payment in the digital world for copies that were being paid for with earlier, analog technologies.
The case emerged as an important one when the question of the meaning of technological neutrality took centre stage. That elicited interveners such as Music Canada, which argued for a narrow interpretation of the principle, claiming that it was just an “interpretative metaphor” (similar arguments about users’ rights being no more than a metaphor were rejected by the Supreme Court in 2012). The danger in the case from a technological neutrality perspective is that the Supreme Court could roll back its finding that technological neutrality is a foundational principle within the law. Moreover, if the court were to rule that all copies – no matter how incidental – are copies for the purposes of the Copyright Act, there would be the very real possibility of payment demands for the myriad of copies that occur through modern technologies.
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