Let me start out by saying I am liberal, progressive even, and I am appalled by all the wrongs done by the current administration. However, I'm actually not all that surprised that two liberal justices seem to be favoring the copyright maximalist interpretation of the DMCA. After all, the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote some problematic opinions when it came to copyright law while she was alive. And while I tend to hold very liberal and progressive views, I will admit that a lot of arguments against copyright maximalism (including some I agree with) tend to read from an originalist, conservative lens.
While not at issue in this case, consider the duration of copyright protection. How can the ever-lengthening duration of copyright and even bringing public domain works back under copyright protection square with how the original founders' intent of the phrase "limited times" that exclusive rights can be secured for? How does enforcing the copyright of a dead man incentivize that man to create more works? How does longer and longer copyright durations still "promote the progress of science" if it's so long that the culture you grew up with will almost certainly never enter the public domain while you're alive?
That's not to say there aren't liberal ways to argue against copyright maximalism, but I'd argue, by contrast, that copyright maximalism can only be constitutionally understood from a liberal lens. If the US Constitution is a living document that can be interpreted through a modern lens, then suddenly, "limited times" means that as long as copyright doesn't last forever, it's constitutional. All the other questions don't matter. Congress can even bring public domain works back under copyright protection as long as the duration of that new copyright still lasts for a "limited time". If Congress wants to retroactively extend copyright for 300+ years, who are we to tell them they can't? Such ideas would make originalists shudder at how this could not violate the copyright clause, but liberals are more willing to give the interpretation enough breathing room to defer to Congress to make such decisions.
People keep thinking this administration is pulling the US into a dystopia a la 1984. While that's very much true, it's also true from stories like this that we're also being pulled into the world of Idiocracy!
I miss the days when the biggest issues of censorship were whether Universal broke the law in taking down a dancing baby video for copyright reasons. Now, it's cancelling late-night shows because (checks notes) the President doesn't like what they say about him and using the FCC to threaten broadcasters' licenses if they don't comply...
This is one more reason we need AI training to either be considered a non-copyright-related event or a fair use of copyrighted material. Declaring training as infringing and setting up a licensing regime will only further centralize and entrench big tech, which can afford exorbitant licensing fees. Some AI opponents will say this is proof that AI is 100% bad, no matter how you slice it. But banning AI is not a good idea, either, nor is it practical at this point. AI technology is here to stay, and we need it to be more decentralized. That means not treating AI training as "piracy", even if publishers and the MAFIAA disagree.
I found another blog post that has slightly more details about what happened. On the day of the cancelled performance, the principal claimed it was due to parental complaints about the show being too "demonic". It was only when they were pressed for more details by the public that the copyright explanation came out. The blogger also opined as to what was so problematic that it turned the performance infringing:
Three students stated that no words of the text had been changed in any way. The only possible material in the production that might have given the licensor pause was that the production began with a wordless scene of the young women of Salem dancing in the woods at night, enacting what is described by dialogue in the text, an interpretive choice that was unlikely to have been in violation of the license since it altered not the text, the spirit nor the intention of the show.
Furthermore, it sounds like parents even called the licensing company responsible for granting licenses for The Crucible, and every rep pretty much claimed that it not only didn't sound like copyright infringement, but that they wouldn't even shut down infringing performances on such short notice.
And let me take this moment to remind you that the US's first copyright law had the preamble, "An Act for the encouragement of learning", and that the Constitutional underpinnings for such a law say the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". School theater programs are the very place where children learn about theater and the arts (even if the "arts" mentioned in the Constitution is not referring to that kind of art). And as a former theater kid myself (who now is active in a local theater group), if this supposed copyright violation was what shut down the performance, it seems antithetical to everything copyright law supposedly stands for, and the only lesson kids will likely take away from this is certainly not one that will engrain a respect for copyright laws. And when the author is dead and the work is only a few decades away from being public domain, tell me how this benefits anyone? The playwright isn't going to be motivated to make more works because it was shut down, because he's dead. It makes me think the playwright is rolling over in his grave over this, but not due to the supposed unauthorized alteration of his work!
This is the same state government that decried ethically reporting teachers’ SSNs being hidden in the HTML source code of a state-run website as “hacking” and made a laughably bad ad doubling down on that nonsense. If right clicking on a website and clicking view source is a multi-step hacking process, then regulating content moderation online is permissible under the SCOTUS ruling that says the exact opposite. Up is down. Left is right. The sky is pink. Presidents are kings. All perfectly correct facts under Missouri’s state government logic!
The fact I figured it was second amendment-related before even reading the full article is not only sad, but it goes to show how predictable the right is these days.
Dismissing an ICE enforcement action that saw a Maryland man with protected legal status deported to El Salvador as an "administrative error"? No rights violations to speak of; nothing to see here... California taking its time to properly process concealed carry permit applications instead of granting them willy-nilly? Now THAT has gone too far! We must stop this infringement on people's constitutional rights!! 🙄
[I]t’s an active attempt to sweep serious actual violations under the rug.
So this administration is trying to cover up an already reported news story that's public knowledge? Man, the Streisand Effect is getting more and more selective!
I don't know what I found more surprising: Seeing BestNetTech featured in a Last Week Tonight story, or reading the phrase (even if it was meant sarcastically) "Amy Coney Barrett is too woke". I never expected to see either, but here we are!
If Comcast and Charter were to merge, the combined company would actually be a monopoly. We have Spectrum (Charter) in my city, and the neighboring city has Comcast. They can pretend to be "not a monopoly" because technically, they're two competing companies (even though the neighboring city can't get Spectrum and my town can't get Comcast). But after this merger? Insert the Toy Story meme of Buzz Lightyear saying, "Monopolies, monopolies everywhere!"
I can’t believe a reputable nonprofit like the Electronic Frontier Foundation would be so brazen as to quote Mike Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem without seeking permission from him or paying BestNetTech a dime in royalties! /s
Great job, US government. You went so overboard with your “TikTok is an evil Chinese app” and deciding to ban it that you’re pushing kids to go even deeper into the Chinese app ecosystem.
I'm not Chinese, but I learned an old Chinese term for what happens when attempting to censor something seems to backfire:
史翠珊效應
(Use Google Translate if you must...)
I’m surprised BestNetTech isn’t insisting that Carr pays you a fee every time someone views his misleading Tweet… By not directly linking, he’s also circumventing your royalties from the link tax for displaying your copyrighted headline without permission! /s
But I’m also trying to picture the Nazarene incorrectly wielding something like copyright law to combat the messaging of the Pharisees and, well, somehow I just can’t seem to conjure the image, no matter how hard I try.
The reason why you can’t picture it is because that’s not how it would have gone down. If the Roman Empire had copyright law, it would have been the Pharisees who went after Jesus for infringing their copyright by contrasting their teachings to his for the Kingdom of God. And it would have been Jesus who would have to mount a fair use defense.
Sadly, due to their undying support of Trump, the Billy Graham Association (and other Evangelicals) are acting more like the Pharisees in this case and others than actual followers of Jesus. They’re blind to their idolatry and hypocrisy, and I’m saying that as a Christian!
As someone who resides within the 7th circuit, I have to wonder how their decision 10 years ago (Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation LLC) operates under the new-ish fair use regime as created by the problematic Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith SCOTUS ruling, especially since the former was cited in part in the latter by the 2nd Circuit in their initial ruling for Goldsmith.
This is spray-and-pray litigation Hovde apparently hopes will silence one of his critics, either by forcing the PAC to pull the ad or intimidating TV stations into refusing to do business with WinState.
And this is why we need an Anti-SLAPP law, if not nationally, then at least in my home state of Wisconsin!
Louis Rossmann made a video on the subject that brought up a good point: Disney's initial decision to enforce its forced arbitration clause was the biggest justification for piracy. Had the plaintiff sailed the high seas instead of being a law-abiding person by doing the right thing through streaming, there wouldn't be a forced arbitration clause they agreed to, making the claim have to go through the courts on the merits.
Put another way, if Disney thought it could get away with killing its customers with impunity just for doing the right thing, the MAFIAA is a lot closer to the actual mafia than I think anyone wanted.
Let me start out by saying I am liberal, progressive even, and I am appalled by all the wrongs done by the current administration. However, I'm actually not all that surprised that two liberal justices seem to be favoring the copyright maximalist interpretation of the DMCA. After all, the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote some problematic opinions when it came to copyright law while she was alive. And while I tend to hold very liberal and progressive views, I will admit that a lot of arguments against copyright maximalism (including some I agree with) tend to read from an originalist, conservative lens. While not at issue in this case, consider the duration of copyright protection. How can the ever-lengthening duration of copyright and even bringing public domain works back under copyright protection square with how the original founders' intent of the phrase "limited times" that exclusive rights can be secured for? How does enforcing the copyright of a dead man incentivize that man to create more works? How does longer and longer copyright durations still "promote the progress of science" if it's so long that the culture you grew up with will almost certainly never enter the public domain while you're alive? That's not to say there aren't liberal ways to argue against copyright maximalism, but I'd argue, by contrast, that copyright maximalism can only be constitutionally understood from a liberal lens. If the US Constitution is a living document that can be interpreted through a modern lens, then suddenly, "limited times" means that as long as copyright doesn't last forever, it's constitutional. All the other questions don't matter. Congress can even bring public domain works back under copyright protection as long as the duration of that new copyright still lasts for a "limited time". If Congress wants to retroactively extend copyright for 300+ years, who are we to tell them they can't? Such ideas would make originalists shudder at how this could not violate the copyright clause, but liberals are more willing to give the interpretation enough breathing room to defer to Congress to make such decisions.
People keep thinking this administration is pulling the US into a dystopia a la 1984. While that's very much true, it's also true from stories like this that we're also being pulled into the world of Idiocracy!
I miss the days when the biggest issues of censorship were whether Universal broke the law in taking down a dancing baby video for copyright reasons. Now, it's cancelling late-night shows because (checks notes) the President doesn't like what they say about him and using the FCC to threaten broadcasters' licenses if they don't comply...
This is one more reason we need AI training to either be considered a non-copyright-related event or a fair use of copyrighted material. Declaring training as infringing and setting up a licensing regime will only further centralize and entrench big tech, which can afford exorbitant licensing fees. Some AI opponents will say this is proof that AI is 100% bad, no matter how you slice it. But banning AI is not a good idea, either, nor is it practical at this point. AI technology is here to stay, and we need it to be more decentralized. That means not treating AI training as "piracy", even if publishers and the MAFIAA disagree.
Stopping theater kids really promotes progress!
I found another blog post that has slightly more details about what happened. On the day of the cancelled performance, the principal claimed it was due to parental complaints about the show being too "demonic". It was only when they were pressed for more details by the public that the copyright explanation came out. The blogger also opined as to what was so problematic that it turned the performance infringing:
Furthermore, it sounds like parents even called the licensing company responsible for granting licenses for The Crucible, and every rep pretty much claimed that it not only didn't sound like copyright infringement, but that they wouldn't even shut down infringing performances on such short notice. And let me take this moment to remind you that the US's first copyright law had the preamble, "An Act for the encouragement of learning", and that the Constitutional underpinnings for such a law say the purpose of copyright is "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". School theater programs are the very place where children learn about theater and the arts (even if the "arts" mentioned in the Constitution is not referring to that kind of art). And as a former theater kid myself (who now is active in a local theater group), if this supposed copyright violation was what shut down the performance, it seems antithetical to everything copyright law supposedly stands for, and the only lesson kids will likely take away from this is certainly not one that will engrain a respect for copyright laws. And when the author is dead and the work is only a few decades away from being public domain, tell me how this benefits anyone? The playwright isn't going to be motivated to make more works because it was shut down, because he's dead. It makes me think the playwright is rolling over in his grave over this, but not due to the supposed unauthorized alteration of his work!I’m not surprised…
This is the same state government that decried ethically reporting teachers’ SSNs being hidden in the HTML source code of a state-run website as “hacking” and made a laughably bad ad doubling down on that nonsense. If right clicking on a website and clicking view source is a multi-step hacking process, then regulating content moderation online is permissible under the SCOTUS ruling that says the exact opposite. Up is down. Left is right. The sky is pink. Presidents are kings. All perfectly correct facts under Missouri’s state government logic!
I’m somewhat of an Apple fan, and even I must admit…
”Think different” was meant to be an ad slogan about Apple’s technological ethos, not a confession of how they choose to “comply” with court orders!
The fact I figured it was second amendment-related before even reading the full article is not only sad, but it goes to show how predictable the right is these days. Dismissing an ICE enforcement action that saw a Maryland man with protected legal status deported to El Salvador as an "administrative error"? No rights violations to speak of; nothing to see here... California taking its time to properly process concealed carry permit applications instead of granting them willy-nilly? Now THAT has gone too far! We must stop this infringement on people's constitutional rights!! 🙄
I don't know what I found more surprising: Seeing BestNetTech featured in a Last Week Tonight story, or reading the phrase (even if it was meant sarcastically) "Amy Coney Barrett is too woke". I never expected to see either, but here we are!
They're not even pretending anymore...
If Comcast and Charter were to merge, the combined company would actually be a monopoly. We have Spectrum (Charter) in my city, and the neighboring city has Comcast. They can pretend to be "not a monopoly" because technically, they're two competing companies (even though the neighboring city can't get Spectrum and my town can't get Comcast). But after this merger? Insert the Toy Story meme of Buzz Lightyear saying, "Monopolies, monopolies everywhere!"
I can’t believe a reputable nonprofit like the Electronic Frontier Foundation would be so brazen as to quote Mike Masnick’s Impossibility Theorem without seeking permission from him or paying BestNetTech a dime in royalties! /s
I’m surprised BestNetTech isn’t insisting that Carr pays you a fee every time someone views his misleading Tweet… By not directly linking, he’s also circumventing your royalties from the link tax for displaying your copyrighted headline without permission! /s
Copying does not break the 8th commandment
As someone who resides within the 7th circuit, I have to wonder how their decision 10 years ago (Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation LLC) operates under the new-ish fair use regime as created by the problematic Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith SCOTUS ruling, especially since the former was cited in part in the latter by the 2nd Circuit in their initial ruling for Goldsmith.
MYSTERY SOLVED: Here's BestNetTech's 2 millionth comment!
We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty...
Louis Rossmann made a video on the subject that brought up a good point: Disney's initial decision to enforce its forced arbitration clause was the biggest justification for piracy. Had the plaintiff sailed the high seas instead of being a law-abiding person by doing the right thing through streaming, there wouldn't be a forced arbitration clause they agreed to, making the claim have to go through the courts on the merits. Put another way, if Disney thought it could get away with killing its customers with impunity just for doing the right thing, the MAFIAA is a lot closer to the actual mafia than I think anyone wanted.