Techdirt. Stories filed under "imagine" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "imagine"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 4 Jan 2013 06:31:08 PST Camming Group Leader Sentenced To 5 Years; Barred From Owning 'Any Device' That Can Infringe Copyrights After Release Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130103/17345921575/camming-group-leader-sentenced-to-5-years-barred-owning-any-device-that-can-infringe-copyrights-after-release.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130103/17345921575/camming-group-leader-sentenced-to-5-years-barred-owning-any-device-that-can-infringe-copyrights-after-release.shtml announced the five year sentence handed down to Jeremiah Perkins, who was named as the "leader" of IMAGiNE, a group that coordinated the recording of movies in theaters for upload to the internet. The DOJ and ICE arrested many of those involved in the group last year, and was able to convince them to do plea deals over "conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement." It's a bit of a stretch to claim their actions met the requirements of "criminal" copyright infringement, but they did get some money for their actions, and that tripped the wire. I don't have an issue with them getting in trouble for their actions, which were pretty blatant infringement, though I'll say that the punishment of five years in jail seems ridiculously excessive when this one group's actual impact on movie piracy was non-notable. So many leaks are internal leaks, rather than cams -- and even if they take down this one group, it's not like it stopped any movies from showing up online quickly. And, of course, none of this does anything to make people buy. So I fail to see the value in spending taxpayer money going after these people, and then paying for their prison sentence at a time when our prisons are overcrowded.

But the issue that gets me about this is this bit, highlighted by TorrentFreak:
After his imprisonment ends Perkins will be subjected to a further three years of supervised release and will be banned from possessing “any electronic device with the capability or reproducing and distributing copies of copyrighted materials.”
That's basically pretty much any electronic device these days. Computer, phone, camera, tablet. Anything that can record audio or video or take a picture has that capability. Five years from now, it's likely to include many more commonly used devices as well. That seems ridiculously excessive. Especially given that devices that can infringe on copyrights also do a ton of legitimate and important things, to say that he can't possess any such device seems ridiculously limiting. The MPAA, who pushed this prosecution (which, again, was led by Neil MacBride -- the former industry anti-piracy enforcer -- who now does the same job for the government and rarely misses an opportunity to support his former colleagues), don't see any problem with completely taking away all devices that can infringe on copyright from someone, but that's because they still don't realize how central to culture and society such devices have become these days.

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]]> how's-that-going-to-work http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130103/17345921575 Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:21:51 PDT EMI Loses Lawsuit To Prevent John Lennon's Imagine From Appearing In Expelled Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080814/0312181976.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080814/0312181976.shtml Larry Lessig points us to news of another good court decision, tossing out EMI's attempt to stop Ben Stein's movie Expelled from using John Lennon's song Imagine. If this sounds somewhat familiar, it's because Yoko Ono had filed a similar lawsuit -- which she lost. In both cases, the courts have recognized that Stein's use of the song is pretty clearly fair use. As the link above points out, this is important for a variety of reasons -- including a terrible ruling a few years back that said effectively that there was no fair use for music samples. It's good to see courts recognizing that fair use applies to music as well as other types of content.

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]]> good-decision http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080814/0312181976 Mon, 2 Jun 2008 14:48:54 PDT Judge Sides With Ben Stein Over Yoko Ono In Fair Use Dispute Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080602/1224441292.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080602/1224441292.shtml dispute between Yoko Ono and the controversial Ben Stein movie Expelled. Ono was upset that the movie used a snippet of John Lennon's Imagine for criticism purposes. While the movie has many problems, and given the controversial nature of the subject matter, one can understand why Ono doesn't want the song used in the movie -- that doesn't mean she had a legal leg to stand on. As we noted, it seemed pretty clear that the movie makers were very much on the right side of the law, and now a judge has agreed. In turning down Ono's request for an injunction against the movie, the judge noted that the defendants were likely to prevail using a "fair use" defense.

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]]> imagine-copyright-made-sense http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080602/1224441292 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:38:34 PDT Yoko Ono vs. Ben Stein: Imagine There's No Expelled... Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080424/192027941.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080424/192027941.shtml Yoko Ono is suing the makers of the anti-evolution documentary Expelled. The movie has received a ton of bad press, and there have been widespread dissections with the many problems in the movie which seems to have difficulty understanding what the scientific method is actually about. Apparently, in one part of the movie, the famous John Lennon song "Imagine" is used, and some of the people complaining about the movie got angry at Ono, thinking she had licensed the song to be in such a controversial movie. The clip was not licensed -- but the filmmakers claim that it's protected fair use, saying that they're using a short clip of the song for commentary purposes. I haven't seen the film, nor can I find that particular clip online, but, as awful as Expelled sounds, I have a hard time siding with Yoko Ono on this. Media companies have, for too long, been overly aggressive in claiming that any use of music in a movie must be licensed. That seems to go against the concept of fair use entirely, and it would be good to change that. I just wish it wasn't with a movie such as this one.

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