It amazes me how many people do not even comprehend copyright law in the U.S. Copyright was established to strike a balance between the interests of the public to gain access to artistic works while encouraging creators to continue to create artistic works as commodities for public consumption.
All of the analogies here are completely ridiculous. Breaking into someone's house? Photographing people's wares? Looking at people naked?!
A far better analogy is that somebody creates a lounge for people to come listen to music for free. Then the Yellow Pages stops in and besides merely adding the venue information to its phone book, encloses a free DVD with a reproduction of the recordings being played at the lounge in their entirety -- unless the venue owners explicitly post on its front door "unauthorized recording is prohibited."
Well last I checked, copyright law is not a voluntary right. It is a guaranteed right with the only conditional exemption being fair use -- which primarily applies to personal, non-commercial uses. So the venue owners shouldn't have to post anything to secure the protections of copyright against willful infringement.
To say that Google is NOT violating copyright law, is setting the legal precedent that "it is okay to make reproductions of publicly performed copyrighted works available in their entirety so long as you claim they are a cached copy from a search engine".
Thus pirates can now freely exchange music and movies by simply creating a "search engine" that records radio shows and TV programs (in which the public performance was provided free of charge) and makes those "cached copies" available without charge to the public while generating revenue from ancillary advertising on the search results pages.
Heck, I see some interesting business prospects here.
If Tynt would simply include their name somewhere in the output of the pasted text, then at least it would be more reassuring. But as it stands, most users have no idea how to opt out of this "feature", so it is hard to believe that no wrongdoing is taking place. When you change basic functionality of the user interface, you need to hold yourself accountable.
This is hardly a "recording industry" only phenomenon.
The ASCAP Experimental License Agreement for Webcasters also contains a clause that specifically prohibits licensed services from transmitting music programming outside of the United States and its territories.
While ASCAP doesn't enforce its license agreements to the same degree as say, Phonographic Performance Limited, that does not give services permission to violate the terms.
Due diligence is the backbone of a legitimate business.
What's interesting is that Webcasters were forewarned about the possibility of a rate surge months in advance on KurtHanson's site, David Oxenford's legal blog even the SHOUTcast forum and the SpacialAudio forum. Yet most people didn't heed those warnings. It was just "business as usual".
Now suddenly the music community is up in arms about the issue -- acting as if nobody could even fathom such an outcome. Err, right.
BestNetTech has not posted any stories submitted by Randall.
Copyright is a guaranteed right, not a voluntary right
It amazes me how many people do not even comprehend copyright law in the U.S. Copyright was established to strike a balance between the interests of the public to gain access to artistic works while encouraging creators to continue to create artistic works as commodities for public consumption.
All of the analogies here are completely ridiculous. Breaking into someone's house? Photographing people's wares? Looking at people naked?!
A far better analogy is that somebody creates a lounge for people to come listen to music for free. Then the Yellow Pages stops in and besides merely adding the venue information to its phone book, encloses a free DVD with a reproduction of the recordings being played at the lounge in their entirety -- unless the venue owners explicitly post on its front door "unauthorized recording is prohibited."
Well last I checked, copyright law is not a voluntary right. It is a guaranteed right with the only conditional exemption being fair use -- which primarily applies to personal, non-commercial uses. So the venue owners shouldn't have to post anything to secure the protections of copyright against willful infringement.
To say that Google is NOT violating copyright law, is setting the legal precedent that "it is okay to make reproductions of publicly performed copyrighted works available in their entirety so long as you claim they are a cached copy from a search engine".
Thus pirates can now freely exchange music and movies by simply creating a "search engine" that records radio shows and TV programs (in which the public performance was provided free of charge) and makes those "cached copies" available without charge to the public while generating revenue from ancillary advertising on the search results pages.
Heck, I see some interesting business prospects here.
--Randall
YouTube?
Why aren't the YouTube attorneys going after XTube for trademark infringement? Seems like a strong case of dilution to me.
What Tynt should have done
If Tynt would simply include their name somewhere in the output of the pasted text, then at least it would be more reassuring. But as it stands, most users have no idea how to opt out of this "feature", so it is hard to believe that no wrongdoing is taking place. When you change basic functionality of the user interface, you need to hold yourself accountable.
This is hardly a "recording industry" only phenomenon.
The ASCAP Experimental License Agreement for Webcasters also contains a clause that specifically prohibits licensed services from transmitting music programming outside of the United States and its territories.
While ASCAP doesn't enforce its license agreements to the same degree as say, Phonographic Performance Limited, that does not give services permission to violate the terms.
Due diligence is the backbone of a legitimate business.
The warning signs were ignored
What's interesting is that Webcasters were forewarned about the possibility of a rate surge months in advance on KurtHanson's site, David Oxenford's legal blog even the SHOUTcast forum and the SpacialAudio forum. Yet most people didn't heed those warnings. It was just "business as usual".
Now suddenly the music community is up in arms about the issue -- acting as if nobody could even fathom such an outcome. Err, right.