Copyright discussion

September 2, 2007 6:46 AM

jessamyn has invited us to have a discussion about copyright issues in MetaTalk. So here it is.
posted by grouse to MetaFilter-related at 6:46 AM (62 comments total)

I'll start with this, from the original thread:

That said, many of the actions you describe are perfectly legitimate (making personal backups of copyrighted material) and covered under the terms of the license you agree to when you buy or rent copyrighted material.

So when I buy a copy of Gigli in Best Buy, where is this license? When did I agree to it?
posted by grouse at 6:48 AM on September 2, 2007

Thanks for moving this here. I felt that the question, as phrased, seemed more like a "shot over the bow" type of thing than a "help me name my goldfish" and even though he's getting some great answers (TiMIBI is my fave) it was getting a little far afield.
posted by jessamyn at 6:49 AM on September 2, 2007

I wonder whether the ALA has not already coined a term for this. Knowing them, there is a probably a working group sitting on a list threading comments about this very AskMe and the ensuing discussion.

As Jessamyn is a librarian, I would think that would inform her knowledge of specialist fair use practice for the common good. I mean: the reproduction of materials that are not otherwise or any longer available to the general public in consumer-oriented fashions that remains in the possession of a public or at least socialized institution such as a library. It raises interesting questions, such as the use of photographs from the Smithsonian versus use of photographs from the Library of Congress. Both of these organizations, despite being public entities, have radically different ethics and ideologies regarding copyright.

Part of what Cory Doctorow is doing, when he publicized the BACN term, is culturally branding the term of copyright theft to mean otherwise. But I think the continuous re-naming of the function of copyright theft is actually far more reactionary than it is a form of cultural activism. Cultural knowledge focuses on the major social changes impacting the nation, rather than on clusters of individuals. Doctorow is the reactionary feeder, in this case. He is a cultural parasite who uses the new BACN brand for fashion, status, and community by feeding off the customers at the nucleus of the brand. For Doctorow, BACN will only be in fashion until he feels it has reached a status zenith, which might happen today, when Mark Frauenlander hops onto Metatalk and sees this thread and e-mails him about it. Then, Cory will go through his stack of old comics and come up with something else...something again vague and idiosyncratic that only again feeds the hipster fetish I have come to recognize in his character.
posted by parmanparman at 7:26 AM on September 2, 2007

So when I buy a copy of Gigli in Best Buy, where is this license? When did I agree to it?

It's the same contract you break when you go pee during a commercial.

I wish I was joking.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:26 AM on September 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

and when i pee on Cory Doctorow, what contract am i breaking?
posted by quonsar at 7:30 AM on September 2, 2007 [4 favorites]

I wonder whether the ALA has not already coined a term for this. Knowing them, there is a probably a working group sitting on a list threading comments about this very AskMe and the ensuing discussion.

Knowing them, they're probably still trying to figure out what a . in an obit thread means if they even know this site exists.

I personally feel that I have a good handle on fair use BUT -- like the Americans with Disabilities Act -- it's the sort of thing that is really truly understood through the lawsuits that define it legally.
posted by jessamyn at 7:53 AM on September 2, 2007

I suspect Doctorow would contract something, q.
posted by flabdablet at 7:57 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

"BACN" is such a Cory Doctorow-sounding thing to coin.

Yeah, that'll show them! Let's come up with funny acronyms! Damn the man!

Fair use is fair use. Copying something without the right to copy it is a violation of (surprise) copyright. I also commonly jaywalk and I have in the past partaken of and enjoyed illicit substances. Such is life.

Why give things stupid names? I violate copyright when the enforcement of said copyright is draconian and stupid, and I'm not going to dilute my action by calling it something else. I support artists whose work I appreciate. No one gets hurt, and life goes on.
posted by blacklite at 7:59 AM on September 2, 2007

Why BACN anyways? Why not "bacon"? That would make the analogy to "spam" a lot clearer.
posted by smackfu at 8:04 AM on September 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Web 2.0 caps the number of VOWLs you can use.
posted by Wolfdog at 8:12 AM on September 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

If you purchased Gigli, copyright law is the least of your issues.
posted by The Deej at 8:14 AM on September 2, 2007 [10 favorites]

I read the question as something along the lines of "yeah, I know that copyright is black and white in terms of the law, but aren't there a lot of legit-seeming things we should be able to break it on? What would a term be for those interesting uses near the edges of what's legal and not?"

That's not a thread on help me pirate warez or justify my breaking of the law. It's "help me come up with a term for the middle ground between the philosophies behind stuff like 'totally legal, feel free to keep doing it' and 'you will be jailed for 6 months and fined $500,000 for your first offense'"

I didn't see the deleted comments, but I assume there was a derail telling everyone to stop talking about legitimizing piracy?

The question is about nuances and sometimes they don't scale across a community that might have a few copyright lawyers, but it's a legit question and I don't see the harm in asking it (and not offering a term in your answer would not be an answer).
posted by mathowie at 8:16 AM on September 2, 2007

and not offering a term in your answer would not be an answer

I have brainstormed the word: Shoesmith
posted by parmanparman at 8:18 AM on September 2, 2007

I assume there was a derail telling everyone to stop talking about legitimizing piracy?

Not really, it was more arguments over what is and is not fair use. But I'm not complaining about the deletions, I'm just continuing the discussion over here.
posted by grouse at 8:19 AM on September 2, 2007

or, web2.0: SCHZMTH
posted by parmanparman at 8:20 AM on September 2, 2007

schitzmouth?
posted by flabdablet at 8:22 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

BACN is web 2.0 Like Flckr etc. He didn't come up with it. He just publicized it. It came from Bar Camp and has nothing to do with copying/fair use.

It's the term for annoying email that you sorta want (from myspace, twitter, etc.)
posted by filmgeek at 8:33 AM on September 2, 2007

this is BLSHT.
posted by phaedon at 8:33 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

parmanparman writes "Part of what Cory Doctorow is doing, when he publicized the BACN term, is culturally branding the term of copyright theft to mean otherwise."

??

By publicizing a word for "email you want, but you don't want to read right now", he's culturally branding the term of copyright theft to mean otherwise?
posted by Bugbread at 8:39 AM on September 2, 2007

I never said he invented, look at the first sentence of the third paragraph of my first post in this thread.
posted by parmanparman at 8:41 AM on September 2, 2007

And since when is "copyright theft" a term? Copyright infringement, I'm aware of. But copyright theft? Is that where I write something and copyright it, and then someone else copyrights what I wrote?
posted by Bugbread at 8:41 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Parmanparman, there seems to be some confusion here. What do you think "BACN" means?
posted by Bugbread at 8:42 AM on September 2, 2007

By publicizing a word for "email you want, but you don't want to read right now", he's culturally branding the term of copyright theft to mean otherwise?

Effectively, it doesn't matter what the word is or what it is applied to, or even if he just publicized it. I am referring in the thread to the reactionary forces that feed to a core audience for this behavior. Those who constantly need to reinforce the action by creating a buzz for why it is in the common good for themselves to act in ways that are illegal.
posted by parmanparman at 8:45 AM on September 2, 2007

Now over fair use....ugh. Almost everything mentioned in the question, is not copyright infringement.

From the EFF (I trust their interpretation of law over my own.)
"A use which is considered "fair" does not infringe copyright, even if it involves one of the exclusive rights of copyright holders. Fair use allows consumers to make a copy of part or all of a copyrighted work, even where the copyright holder has not given permission or objects to your use of the work."

Please also note the Stanford university libraries deeper FAQ about fair use.

One of the hardest things to keep in mind are the four factors involved in whether or not something is fair use. The RIAA and the MPAA would like you to not know about these.

From Copyright.gov


Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.


Every instance that the poster asked about, was Fair Use. Now, whether or not those were violating the DCMA, is another story.

I highly recommend looking at the American Library Association
page on Internet resources.
posted by filmgeek at 8:47 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

parmanparman writes "Effectively, it doesn't matter what the word is or what it is applied to, or even if he just publicized it. I am referring in the thread to the reactionary forces that feed to a core audience for this behavior. Those who constantly need to reinforce the action by creating a buzz for why it is in the common good for themselves to act in ways that are illegal."

And how is coming up with a word for "email you want to read but not right now" related to a constant need to reinforce an action by creating a buzz for why it is in the common good for themselves to act in ways that are illegal?

I mean, when I lose at Mahjongg, I use the term "he ronned me". That's making up a new word to describe something. Is that a reactionary force that feeds a core audience thereby reinforcing the action by creating a buzz for why it is in the common good for themselves in ways that are illegal? Am I somehow supporting the desire to murder people who have their cell-phones on too loud because I use the word "ron" to mean "beat me in Mah-jongg"?

Or is it different because Doctorow has a specific bent regarding copyright infringement? And thus if he creates a word for "email you want but not right now", that contributes to supporting copyright-infringement-is-ok attitudes? If that's the case, what about the other stuff he does? Is he contributing to supporting copyright-infringement-is-ok attitudes by eating breakfast, or saying "bless you" when people sneeze?
posted by Bugbread at 8:52 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Web 2.0 caps the number of VOWLs you can use.

Yeah, it's in the spec.
posted by cortex at 8:54 AM on September 2, 2007

Need a good FAQ on the DMCA? (oops above)...Chillingeffects.org
posted by filmgeek at 8:55 AM on September 2, 2007

Can we have a flag for willful ignorance now?
posted by majick at 8:57 AM on September 2, 2007

Web 2.0 Name Generator.
posted by ericb at 8:59 AM on September 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Discussion on copyright: barring widespread social collapse, in much of the developed world, by the time I am dead (2061 by the flash animation, ~2075 by my estimate,) the current concept of copyright will be too. If corporations were not stupid and evil they could probably successfully take it back down to the original 14 years or something and have it around in some form, but in reality Disney is going to keep buying 20 year extensions and the RIAA will keep up its protection racket. This is simply because making copies is now free and hopefully people are still taught to share in kindergarten, making much of the copyright concept an anachronism. It will be looked upon as a weird thing they did for a few hundred years back there, not as bad as slavery, but definitely something from the past, like dowries in Western culture or something.

The noble idea of compensation to an author for their work won't keep it going. It is clear that the corporate holders of copyright are out to screw everyone, so no one cares about them. So the commercials saying "Don't pirate movies or the best boy grip will starve!" sound like "Don't buy an electric refrigerator or the iceman will starve!" The individual or band holders of copyright will themselves be engaged in all sorts of downloading because of the ease and corporate abuse, so already you hear indie bands saying things along the line of "We have LPs on sale at the merch table, or you can just download it from BitTorrent."

I think, if actual people are able to get a law passed at some point in future history, you might see some sort of anti-plagiarism law go into effect, and maybe something like a limited form of copyright where you can stop people from blatantly monetarizing your work or creating derivative works without consent.

This process actually gives me a glimmer of hope for a semi-utopian future, eventually: the current situation with anything digital shows that if you can technologically remove all scarcity, everything will pretty much work out.

Anyway, seeing if I'm right about this is something to keep me interested while I grow old.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:09 AM on September 2, 2007

Shoesmith
SCHZMTH
schitzmouth?

Ne supra crepidam sutor judicaret.
posted by carsonb at 9:17 AM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

I read the question as something along the lines of "yeah, I know that copyright is black and white in terms of the law, but aren't there a lot of legit-seeming things we should be able to break it on? What would a term be for those interesting uses near the edges of what's legal and not?"

The problem is many of those "legit seeming" things are actually legit. There is nothing illegal about making backup copies of things, in fact it's explicitly protected under law (IIRC, IANAL, of course). So what's frustrating in that question is the basic acceptance of bogus, maximialist view of copyright that groups like the RIAA are trying to promote. So even though the poster disagrees with the maximalist view of copyright, they are propagating it.

Irritating.
posted by delmoi at 12:03 PM on September 2, 2007

Why BACN anyways? Why not "bacon"? That would make the analogy to "spam" a lot clearer.

But by eliminating the last vowel, you're making the term Google-able. If you referred to it as "bacon," you'd get two billion search results that were discussing breakfast food.
posted by jayder at 12:26 PM on September 2, 2007

Don't forget the ownership questions and elements--if i buy a book or magazine or anything, it's my property to do with as i please. If i buy a record or tape or cd or dvd it should be the same.
posted by amberglow at 12:31 PM on September 2, 2007

delmoi writes "The problem is many of those 'legit seeming' things are actually legit."

I agree with what you're saying, in principle, but I don't think that the problem is that people believe things which are legal are illegal, but people are under the wrong impression about how they're illegal. That is, a whole bunch of those examples are illegal in the US, but not for copyright infringement reasons, but for DMCA reasons. The whole situation is so confusing (after all, making a backup of a CD is legal, but making a backup of a DVD is illegal?) that people end up erring on the side of caution and assuming all that stuff is illegal, and assuming it's because they somehow violate copyright law.
posted by Bugbread at 12:38 PM on September 2, 2007

making copies of cassettes and taping off the radio actually were illegal, no? weren't there court cases about it all as new tech was invented?
posted by amberglow at 12:48 PM on September 2, 2007

Making a backup of a DVD is not illegal even under the DMCA. You don't have to circumvent the copy-protection to copy the DVD. You could copy the CSS-encoded bits to a new DVD and it would play exactly the same. To do anything else (i.e. re-encode at a lower bitrate so you can fit it on a single-layer disc) you do have to "break" the "protection," such as it is.
posted by kindall at 12:51 PM on September 2, 2007

and weren't Xerox machines legislated against too? It's still illegal to copy certain things on them.
posted by amberglow at 12:57 PM on September 2, 2007

Ah, ok, good point, kindall.
posted by Bugbread at 1:26 PM on September 2, 2007

amberglow writes "It's still illegal to copy certain things on them."

Money, for one. But I think that's a slightly different field of the law than copyright law ^_^
posted by Bugbread at 1:27 PM on September 2, 2007

amberglow writes "making copies of cassettes and taping off the radio actually were illegal, no?"

Dunno about the radio, but the cassette issue is one where the answer is "in some cases, yes, and in others, no". Ditto with photocopies. There's a big difference between copying something you yourself own and copying something someone else owns. So if you're making a backup tape, that's probably legal. If you're copying pages of a book so you can take notes without marking up the original, again, probably legal. If you're copying a friend's tape, then that's probably illegal. If you're copying a friend's book, again, probably illegal.

(I say "probably", because it also makes a difference how much of it you copy. If you copy a page from someone else's book, that may be legal because the length is not considered legally significant. If you copy every page except the index and page 57, that would probably be illegal, even though it isn't the whole book, because it's a significant portion thereof. Likewise, the reason for your copying is a factor as well.)
posted by Bugbread at 1:41 PM on September 2, 2007

Ignoring "All posts are © their original authors", I am strongly tempted to cut and paste this thread. Is there an audio version?
posted by Cranberry at 1:42 PM on September 2, 2007

The discussion on fair use on that thread and in this one comes from an American perspective. AmbroseChapel is in Australia, where there is NO SUCH THING as "Fair Use". Most (if not all) things Americans consider "fair use" is illegal here.
posted by divabat at 1:45 PM on September 2, 2007

I agree with Cranberry, and I would add this thread to the next podcast, especially if mat/jess decide to have readers call in again.
posted by misha at 2:07 PM on September 2, 2007

divabat writes "The discussion on fair use on that thread and in this one comes from an American perspective. AmbroseChapel is in Australia, where there is NO SUCH THING as 'Fair Use'. Most (if not all) things Americans consider 'fair use' is illegal here."

True, and a fair point, but (and apologies if this sounds Americentric), that doesn't really matter. By which I mean, the reason this thread exists is because a lot of people want to discuss American copyright law instead of answering AmbroseChapel's question. That's all a derail, so this thread was established. The fact that it was a derail based on a misinterpretation of the basics of the question (i.e. what country AmbroseChapel is in) makes it a double-derail, but from what I can tell, once a MeTa has been established to allow people a better place to carry on with their derail, it doesn't really matter if it's a single derail or a double-derail.

Now, if this were a more conventional MeTa, discussing the validity of AmbroseChapel's question, instead of just to allow people to vent on a topic, AmbroseChapel's jurisdiction would be extremely important. But this is a bit of an odd duck of a MeTa, more concerned about isolating a derail rather than critiquing the question itself, so in this case, I'd say pretty much anything copyright/DMCA related fits fine.

Now, if we started discussing elephant urology, that would be a derail too far.

(For the record, I'm an American, but have lived for the last decade in another country with no fair use laws either)
posted by Bugbread at 2:22 PM on September 2, 2007

I can't be bothered to read all the comments here but we all agree that Cory Doctorow should be punched in the nuts, yes?
posted by jonson at 2:53 PM on September 2, 2007

I always answer questions by asking myself, "What would Lee Marvin do?" He wouldn't give a shit about copyright, but I am certain he would be up for a Doctorow cock punching.
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:59 PM on September 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

"What would Robert Conrad^© do?" He wouldn't give a shit about copyright, but I am certain he would be up for punching more than an Eveready^® battery off of Doctorow's shoulder.
posted by ericb at 5:07 PM on September 2, 2007

Metafilter: MTFLTR
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:38 PM on September 2, 2007

Metafilter: MTFLTR: MeatFilter: Kevin Bacon

Hm, 4. Not bad.
posted by carsonb at 7:13 PM on September 2, 2007

But by eliminating the last vowel, you're making the term Google-able.

"bacn" takes me to "battlefield airborne communications node" and "bay area crisis nursery" and my favorite, the "British Association of Cognitive Neuroscience". The Web 2.0 johnny-come-lately "bacn" is rising fast in the search results, but I expect it will fall again once the current flurry of blogginess about it subsides.
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:52 PM on September 2, 2007

Metafilter: MTFLTR: MeatFilter: Kevin Bacon: KVN BCN: K5N B100N: 1000.5N B100N: 1000.101N B100N: 1000.TheoryOfPhilosophy N.B. 100N: PhilosophyAndPsychology0.TheoryOfPhilosophy N.B. PhilosophyAndPsychologyN: TheoPhil0.PhiloPsych N.B. PhiloPsychN: ThPhl0.PhlPsch N.B. PhlPschN: TPL0.PlPs N.B. PlPsN: TripleZERO Pips NOTA BENE PipsNOTA: 000 ... N.B. ...N: 000...NBDY...N: 000...[]...N

Hm, 17. Not bad at all.
posted by nobody at 7:52 PM on September 2, 2007

(Oops. I made an error on item 11. I'm not sure an elegant solution exists after all)
posted by nobody at 7:55 PM on September 2, 2007

Just to note that "there is no such thing as 'Fair Use' in Australia" is a bit of an over-statement. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing.

The kinds of laws I wanted to talk about apply in most countries and I didn't consider it a derail to talk about US copyright law or any other country's copyright law.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 9:32 PM on September 2, 2007

Making a backup of a DVD is not illegal even under the DMCA. You don't have to circumvent the copy-protection to copy the DVD. You could copy the CSS-encoded bits to a new DVD and it would play exactly the same.

Isn't this supposed to be impossible, like blank DVDs do not have a CSS region, burners are not supposed to try to burn to that region, etc?
posted by delmoi at 9:59 PM on September 2, 2007

(For the record, I'm an American, but have lived for the last decade in another country with no fair use laws either)

bugbread, if you mean Japan, although the term 'Fair Use' doesn't seem to be in use here, there _are_ plenty of what they call 'Limitations on Copyright'.

Here's the entry page to the English translation of the Japanese Copyright Law.
posted by woodblock100 at 11:24 PM on September 2, 2007

Isn't this supposed to be impossible, like blank DVDs do not have a CSS region, burners are not supposed to try to burn to that region, etc?

There's nothing in the DVD+-/R/RW specs about any of that (a fact I'm sure the studios regret). Region is set in both the .IFOs and disc header, CSS is part of the bitstream / VOB structure, etc, - so copying a disc's existing region & CSS is as easy as copying an image of 1 disc to another.

Authoring with CSS - well, that's another story. You need to fork out for the encrypting tools, ongoing licence fees, per-master setup fees, and a per-disc usage fee. Or, you just hand a master to your replicator and say "10,000 with CSS, please".

(Hang on, the background's the wrong colour... ;-)
posted by Pinback at 11:38 PM on September 2, 2007

For everyone who's ever boggled at that language after a sports broadcast to the effect that even descriptions of a game are copyright NFL or Major League Baseball, it looks like the clue-bat is finally coming out:

FTC complaint flags NFL, MLB, studios for overstating copyright claims.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:11 AM on September 3, 2007

This is what I get for taking a day off.
posted by IronLizard at 1:14 AM on September 3, 2007

We need a term for NSFW stuff that is good, like YAYBOOBIES, when compared with NSFW stuff that is not good like images of violence or goatse.cx.
posted by Eideteker at 8:59 AM on September 3, 2007

Eideteker: I've heard the latter referred to as NSFA (not safe for anyone).
posted by grouse at 9:08 AM on September 3, 2007

But I thought NSFW stood for Not Safe For Wendell...
posted by wendell at 10:17 PM on September 3, 2007