A Lesson In Copyright: It Does Not Give You Total Control

from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about American Airlines was suing Google for trademark infringement due to keyword ads on Google using the phrase "American Airlines" that pointed visitors to competing airline sites or sites that sold American Airlines tickets alongside those of competitors. The history of similar cases suggests that American Airlines is going to have a tough time making its case. First of all, it's not illegal to use the trademarked name of another company in an advertisement as long as there's no indication that the ad is for them (in other words there's no customer confusion). Second, if there is confusion in the ad, then the problem isn't between American Airlines and Google, but American Airlines and the advertiser.

It's not clear why, but a week and a half after this story appeared, someone dropped by to add a comment to the story insisting that American Airlines is in the right here, though they don't give any support reasons why. What was odd, though, was that the comment linked to the copyright page of the website of a credit card processing service, saying that you could download the PDF of AA's filings there. That seemed especially strange. It's not clear why it was linking to a credit card processing service (which originally made me wonder if the comment was merely spam) or why any company would put up the details of a totally unrelated lawsuit on its own copyright page. The lawsuit isn't even about copyright, but trademark. However, what struck me is that the copyright page itself is wrong. It claims:

"No portions of this website may be reproduced or copied without the express written permission of the owner."

And then goes on to selectively highlight or quote certain parts of copyright law. Of course, this is wrong. As I did above, you can absolutely reproduce or copy portions of this company's website without the express written permission of the owner. It's called fair use, and while many copyright holders want to pretend it doesn't exist -- it absolutely does. Quoting a small portion of a website, especially for the purpose of, say, educating people about fair use, is fair use at work. Of course, this reminds me of when law professor Wendy Seltzer got a DMCA notice for trying to point out that the NFL misapplies copyright law in its own copyright statements that make a similar claim as the site above does.

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FTC Asked To Stop Bogus Copyright Warnings In Sports Broadcasts

from the stop-the-copyright-abuse dept

You may recall earlier this year that law professor Wendy Seltzer received a DMCA takedown notice from the NFL for posting a short clip to YouTube of the part during the Super Bowl where the announcers state the famous warning that often reads something like "Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the pictures, accounts or descriptions of this game without the express written consent of Big Sports League, is prohibited." What got lost in the Seltzer story over whether or not posting that particular clip to YouTube was legal, was that her point in using it was to show how sports leagues were making claims to rights that copyright didn't actually give them. It appears that enough others have noticed this as well that a trade group, backed by various big name tech companies, is now asking the Federal Trade Commission to prevent broadcasters from making such "deceptive" copyright statements. The group is claiming that this incorrect statement that clearly reaches beyond the rights copyright provides, is harmful to consumers and technology companies. Of course, in the sports leagues' (and other content companies') defense, it appears that plenty of people ignore the bogus copyright warning anyway.

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Prisoners Figure Copyright Abuse Is A Way To Get Out Of Jail

from the a-sign-of-the-times dept

Well, we've seen all kinds of companies abuse copyright law for a variety of purposes, and it seemed only a matter of time until outright criminals caught on as well. A group of inmates apparently copyrighted their names and then demanded millions of dollars from the prison they were in for using their names without permission. The claims were sent to the warden of the prison and when he didn't pay up, the prisoners were able to file claims against his property -- and then hired someone to seize the warden's property and freeze his bank accounts. At this point they then demanded to be released from prison before they would return the property. Instead, they were charged with extortion and "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials." While the story is amusing, it does show how copyright law is being perceived these days. As intellectual property lawyers push more and more ridiculous positions concerning copyright law, people are beginning to realize that it can be used as a hammer for all kinds of ridiculous lawsuits that have absolutely nothing to do with creating incentives for the creation of new content.

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