PCFormat Forum Archive

wired wrote:A federal judge has dismissed the music industry contention that when a cellphone’s ringtone begins playing, copyright infringement starts happening since others can hear the song, essentially arguing that a mobile phone is a portable concert hall.
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ASCAP was suing AT&T and Verizon in a New York federal court, seeking more revenue for its members.

But U.S. District Judge Denise Cote wrote Wednesday that “ASCAP has not shown any infringement of its members’ rights by the playing of ringtones in the public from Verizon’s customer’s telephones.”

d0d0 wrote:True, I have a lot of pirated songs on my phone. :\

d0d0 wrote:What did I do?

The Star wrote:Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals.
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His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year.

The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $60 billion. If the dollars don't shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

ADT wrote:Sooo i browsed the interwebs the other day and came across this site called, piratebay.org...kamma the place where all the pirates hang-out

ADT wrote:Sooo i browsed the interwebs the other day and came across this site called, piratebay.org.
kamma the place where all the pirates hang-out

lancelot wrote:

ADT wrote:Sooo i browsed the interwebs the other day and came across this site called, piratebay.org.
kamma the place where all the pirates hang-out

You are slipping into a dangerous area, we do not like any advertising nor piracy promotion in any form.

cworld wrote:Copyright holders have given up legal efforts to force Norwegian ISP Telenor to block filesharing site The Pirate Bay, one of the parties to the case said.
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Telenor has throughout this process maintained that there is no legal basis for any ISP to act in the interests of digital intellectual property rights holders by blocking individual websites. ISPs blocking sites doesn't solve the problem of illegal file sharing, it just moves the problem elsewhere, according to Telenor.

Tom's Hardware wrote:Speaking at a recent press conference, Agnete Haaland, the president of the International Actors' Federation, said that the word 'piracy' is too adventurous and reminds people of Johnny Depp.

"We should change the word piracy," Haaland said. "To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we're talking about a criminal act. We're talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do."

Under South African law there is no such thing as "fair use," so when is it legal to make copies of copyrighted work?

The concept of fair use doesn't exist in South African law, says the legal lead of Creative Commons South Africa, Dr Tobias Schonwetter.

What we do have in South Africa is fair dealing. Schonwetter describes it as "a similar, yet considerably narrower concept that allows certain dealings with copyright materials without the permission of the rights holder."

Schonwetter explained that fair dealing allows the use of a literary, musical and artistic work, as well as broadcasts and published editions for the purposes of research and private study, personal and private use, criticism and reviews, as well as reporting of current events.

When it comes to movies, sound recordings and computer programs, however, the private use exception doesn't apply.

"Another provision in [the Copyright Act of 1978] states that back-up copies of computer programs may usually be made for personal and private purposes as long as one lawfully possesses the original of the program," added Schonwetter.

The big question is what constitutes fair dealing, and what constitutes copyright infringement?

"There is no simple answer to this question," says Schonwetter. "If it comes to the amount that is copied, I always suggest that the person copying the work asks him/herself whether it is really necessary for the purposes described previously to copy that much," he added.

South African courts have not yet decided on the issue of what counts as fair dealing for personal and private use, explained Schonwetter. He suggested that it may be helpful to look at what courts in other jurisdictions that operate under similar fair dealing legislation have done.

Schonwetter went on to list the six factors Australian courts have used to detemine whether a "dealing" is fair:

The purpose of the dealing;
The character of the dealing;
The amount of the dealing;
Alternatives to the dealing;
The nature of the work; and
The effect of the dealing on the work.
"So the scope of fair dealing is to be decided on a case by case basis,” Schonwetter summarised. “In most cases, copying an entire work is unnecessary and therefore illegal. But there are instances where copying an entire work can be legitimate."

Referring to previous discussions regarding the copyright on sound recordings, Schonwetter prefixes everything with a final warning: "Please be extra careful when it comes to music."

Lance Michalson from Michalsons Attorneys puts it succinctly: "While copying music may not infringe the copyright of the artists, it will always infringe the copyright of the recording studio." According to both Schonwetter and Michalson this is because recorded music is protected in two ways: As musical works and as sound recordings.

Michalson goes on to explain that this is the default (and most common) position of artists and recording studios, but that they can easily change the terms of the licence. "This is why it is important to know what your licence for the music contains," he said.

Both the Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA) and Michalson say that people shouldn't be too worried about making personal copies for private use of music they already own licenses to. "It is our understanding that the relevant authorities are more concerned with those who sell pirated music to the public," said Michalson.

RiSA has previously stated that it's not interested in pursuing consumers who find themselves on the wrong side of the law for format shifting.

arstechnica wrote:Switzerland, a longtime haven for all kinds of financial shenanigans, has just expanded its reputation for "discretion" to cover file-sharing as well. That's the conclusion of Logistep AG, anyway, as a Swiss court has just gutted its P2P surveillance business with a ruling that says gathering even publicly available information is illegal.