The applications exist on Apple's servers (or servers under Apple's control) and, when you purchase the application, Apple's software makes a copy of the software and sends it to your computer.
That's not someone else distributing the goods. A better analogy is Best Buy selling counterfeit DVDs. The supplier of the DVD is guilty of copyright infringement, but Best Buy would be liable as well.
Um no. Apple, in regards to that iOS App Store, is a publisher and distributor. They aren't merely indexing the application. Apple sells the application (including the copyrighted work), collects money for it, and keeps a portion of the fee for the application. That's a completely different relationship to Google.
"PLUS, the added idea that this guy didn't have any copyrights on his recording when the app devel asked him in 2007"
The "guy" had a copyright on the recording the instant he made the recording. He may not have *registered* the copyright, but copyright is automatically applied to any fixed recording. He didn't decide to get a copyright. He may have decided to enforce it, but he already had it.
"there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie"
So, let's impose an "Intellectual Property Tax" to go along with the Property Tax on the house. And, lets allow governments to pass laws that dictate what you can do with your Movie the way they impose laws about changes to your house.
And, of course, in order to buy and sell a house, you have to register the transaction with the government. No more private copyright contracts. Now anytime your lawyers work out a cross-licensing deal, you've got to register it with the government.
A digital watermark is usually a unique identifier that is embedded in the actual content of a file such that it is hidden within the content of the file itself (in this case, the music) and cannot be easily removed.
In the case of iTunes Plus songs, neither of these are true. The e-mail address is not embedded within the music content. It is a standard mp4 tag. Any tag editor can be used to change or remove it.
Also, the tag is not "hidden". If you open iTunes and view the information about a track, iTunes itself shows you that the e-mail address is there.
Using the term "watermark" makes it sound much more nefarious than it actually is.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Mark Levitt.
Re: Re: Timing of filing
The applications exist on Apple's servers (or servers under Apple's control) and, when you purchase the application, Apple's software makes a copy of the software and sends it to your computer.
That's not someone else distributing the goods. A better analogy is Best Buy selling counterfeit DVDs. The supplier of the DVD is guilty of copyright infringement, but Best Buy would be liable as well.
Re: hey guys, wrong target
Um no. Apple, in regards to that iOS App Store, is a publisher and distributor. They aren't merely indexing the application. Apple sells the application (including the copyrighted work), collects money for it, and keeps a portion of the fee for the application. That's a completely different relationship to Google.
"PLUS, the added idea that this guy didn't have any copyrights on his recording when the app devel asked him in 2007"
The "guy" had a copyright on the recording the instant he made the recording. He may not have *registered* the copyright, but copyright is automatically applied to any fixed recording. He didn't decide to get a copyright. He may have decided to enforce it, but he already had it.
Timing of filing
"But he only filed an application to copyright the sounds in December of 2009, which may cause some difficulty for him"
You're confusing copyrights with patents. The sounds were copyrighted by him the moment he recorded them.
Also, as Apple is distributing the copyrighted works without a license, it seems perfectly reasonable to sue them for it.
Let's call his bluff
"there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie"
So, let's impose an "Intellectual Property Tax" to go along with the Property Tax on the house. And, lets allow governments to pass laws that dictate what you can do with your Movie the way they impose laws about changes to your house.
And, of course, in order to buy and sell a house, you have to register the transaction with the government. No more private copyright contracts. Now anytime your lawyers work out a cross-licensing deal, you've got to register it with the government.
British tabloids pay people all the time.
Papers like The Sun and the Daily Express are always shelling out cash to get "exclusive" stories from people.
It makes the students bad journalists, but I don't see how it makes them any more guilty of committing a crime.
Neither a watermark nor hidden
A digital watermark is usually a unique identifier that is embedded in the actual content of a file such that it is hidden within the content of the file itself (in this case, the music) and cannot be easily removed.
In the case of iTunes Plus songs, neither of these are true. The e-mail address is not embedded within the music content. It is a standard mp4 tag. Any tag editor can be used to change or remove it.
Also, the tag is not "hidden". If you open iTunes and view the information about a track, iTunes itself shows you that the e-mail address is there.
Using the term "watermark" makes it sound much more nefarious than it actually is.