Great Moments In AP Protectionism: Demands Takedown Of Videos It Purposely Shared With Affiliate

from the brilliant-work dept

A bunch of folks are submitting the latest and greatest in the Associated Press’s attempt to become the RIAA of news. The AP, smartly, has a YouTube channel, where it puts up a bunch of AP videos, with the embed code enabled. An AP affiliate in Tennessee reasonably embedded some of those videos… and were promptly accused of “stealing” the AP’s licensed content and ordered to take it down. There are so many things wrong with this situation it’s difficult to know where to start:

• It’s the AP’s own YouTube channel.
• This radio station is an AP affiliate.
• The AP turned on the embedding function
• When told all of this, the AP exec demanding the takedown had no idea it had a YouTube channel.

This is clearly part the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing… but it’s also a sign of how out of touch the AP remains. When it purposely offers up content for sharing, it did something smart. Demanding that anyone take down content that was specifically designed to be shared in this manner is just amazing.

Filed Under: copyright, embedding, protectionism, takedowns, videos
Companies: associated press

And, Just Like That, France Rejects Three Strikes

from the pendulum-swinging dept

The situation in France just gets stranger and stranger when it comes to the proposed “three strikes” law for kicking music and movie fans off the internet. You probably know that just last week it was approved by legislators in a surprise vote, where just a small number of elected officials waited until most others (who believed the vote would be held later) had left before holding the vote. This resulted in cheers from Hollywood and others in the legacy entertainment business. However, now it appears that The National Assembly has surprised everyone back by rejecting the measure, but with a similarly small group of officials voting. The law was rejected 21 – 15 in what’s described as “a near-empty National Assembly.” I’m sure more will come out about how this happened, but perhaps politicians who were upset about how it passed in the first place, just played the same trick back. Either way, I’m sure this is not the end of this issue in France (or elsewhere).

Filed Under: france, three strikes

Facebook Overreacts: Decides All Of The Pirate Bay Is Illegal

from the oh-really? dept

I didn’t bother writing up the story from a couple weeks back about a The Pirate Bay feature to easily share links to torrents on Facebook, because it wasn’t particularly interesting. But, you knew that someone would overreact negatively. The question was whether it would be the entertainment industry or Facebook first. It looks like Facebook may have won. Rather than dealing with it intelligently, it overreacted and has blocked any and all links to The Pirate Bay, noting that due to the ongoing lawsuit and “controversy” it’s basically decided to assume all links to The Pirate Bay are infringing and a violation of Facebook’s terms of service. Now, it may very well be true that the majority of content shared via The Pirate Bay is unauthorized and infringing. But, even so, this seems to go too far. There are plenty of legitimate uses for The Pirate Bay, and there is a significant number of legitimate offerings on the site. Furthermore a link should not be considered infringing by itself. No copyright is infringed by a link alone. There were plenty of more reasonable ways that Facebook could have handled this, and it chose the sledge hammer approach. And, as David Title points out, the likely end result is merely that an arms race has begun, where The Pirate Bay will create a workaround, and Facebook will have to block yet again…

Filed Under: copyright, infringement, links, terms of service
Companies: facebook, the pirate bay

15 Years Of Anti-Piracy Commercials…

from the and-how's-that-worked-for-you... dept

John was the first of a few to send in a collection of 15 years worth of “anti-piracy commercials” that run at the beginning of films, put in place by the movie industry, who has only just realized that perhaps they should offer up a more positive message to customers who just paid good money to watch a movie, rather than accusing them all of being criminals. Most of these commercials are so over the top as to be hilarious. “The pirates are out to get you. Don’t let them brand you with their mark. Piracy funds organized crime… piracy funds terrorism… and will destroy… your future enjoyment.”

It makes you wonder if the folks making these commercials actually thought they’d be effective.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, commercials

Thank The Economy For More Traffic Cameras

from the they're-coming... dept

We just wrote about Maryland ramping up its traffic camera program, pointing out that it seemed more motivated by revenue than safety (despite what officials claimed). And, now we’re seeing that New York is also ramping up its traffic cameras. Once again, though, the issue is about revenue more than safety. Paul Kedrosky points us to a study that notes that traffic tickets always increase when the economy goes down because municipalities are motivated much more by revenue than safety.

Filed Under: economy, traffic cameras

Andrew Lloyd Weber Trashes The Internet As 'Somalia Of Theft And Piracy'

from the stick-to-the-music dept

Nathan was the first of a few folks to send in the news of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s quotes complaining about how the internet is the “Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy.” Funny. I thought Somalia was the “Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy.” Lloyd Weber seems to make the same basic false economic assumption that many other folks have made: believing that the only way to make money is through the direct sale of recorded music. So he bemoans the fact that sales are down, and immediately blames piracy and (of course) ISPs for enabling it. He doesn’t take into account things like how internet connectivity has actually made the market more efficient (which should lower prices) and the overall competition for entertainment dollars has increased greatly (while the music industry has done little to give people more reasons to buy). But, most importantly, he seems totally unaware of the fact that there are other business models beyond just selling recorded music. His claim that the music industry in the UK will be dead in 10 years is silly. Does he think that no one will pay him to write music for plays anymore? Oh… whoops, right there is a perfect example of a different way to pay for the creation of music.

Filed Under: andrew lloyd weber, piracy