Fair Use

As software industries continue to grow and become multi-billion dollar companies, some of the unethical entrepreneurs take it upon themselves to distribute pirated software to  make money.  According to Operation Fast Link, which is the largest program to take action against pirates, it has confiscated more than $50 million worth of pirated media from these "entrepreneurs" from 2004-2006.  It is against the law to copy copyrighted software without the permission of the copyholder, even if you aren't making profit off of it.  The only exception is if copies are made for educational purposes, which falls under the United States fair use laws.

Under current U.S. law, fair use allows for the reproduction of a particular work for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.  There are four factors specified in the copyright act that must be met when claiming fair use:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work.

3. Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

It is of course not applicable to the illegal production and selling of copyrighted software.  The problem is determining whether or not it is fair use or not, of course it's not if it is being sold for profit but what about when it isn't?  For instance, is Pinterest violating copyright laws by allowing users to pin images to their page?  It seems to some people that they are in violation of copyright laws.  In their terms of service, Pinterest points copyright violations to the users.  Although fair use laws allow for low resolution thumbnail photos to be used for education and satire but a lot of users use high resolution images for their boards.  If Pinterest is challenged, they could avoid liability by pointing lawyers to the user who posted the content.

Source: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/copyright101


Check out this video...Fair Use and a whole lot more......

Next time:  Can piracy be stopped?

Aaron Schwartz

The recent suicide of internet prodigy Aaron Schwartz has opened the door for re-valuation of everything he has fought for and created, as well as, the question of stealing, a common theme in piracy.

For those who are unaware, Schwartz was the co-founder of Reddit, assisted with the college goes to site Wikipedia and towards the end of his short life co founded Demand Progress, an activist group against online censorship.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/12/us/new-york-reddit-founder-suicide

 “In 2011, he was arrested in Boston for alleged computer fraud and illegally obtaining documents from protected computers. He was later indicted in an incident in which he allegedly stole millions of online documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” (Martinez)

His arrest was one of the biggest examples of government verse pirates. It raised the question- what is stealing and how do we define it.  For Schwartz, this was his second major “run in” with the government. Prior he was released from charges for hacking a US government website and releasing documents because technically the documents were public property and therefore free.

The issue in question was Schwartz motive with the documents. It is believed they were to be placed on a p2p sharing website. So where is the line drawn? Where does it stop from sharing amongst users to stealing? Would we consider his actions stealing?

In essence yes- they are owned by  MIT and therefore his actions could be considered stealing. But this opens the door to “private” in the Internet.  This is what is being puzzled over since his death.  Many argue that the death of Schwartz was due to the prosecutors trying to set an example through Swartz. Even if this is true, a true internet prodigy and anti censorship activist has created a stain on the control of the internet. Many are opposed and those who were unaware , now know about the many actions the government is trying to take. His death has everyone talking and the control of the internet is going to be a hot topic for many years.  

Next time:  Fair use and royalties

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/12/us/new-york-reddit-founder-suicide

OPEN and CISPA

If you've read through some of our posts, you now know what SOPA and PIPA stand for and what their intentions are.  I now want to explain to you the OPEN act.  It is formally known as the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act.  It was introduced in the Senate on December 17, 2011 and introduced in the House on January 18, 2012.

The OPEN Act was introduced as an alternative to the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  The OPEN Act seeks to stop transfers of money to foreign websites whose primary purpose is piracy or counterfeiting, whereas SOPA and PIPA also seek to require Internet providers and search engines to redirect users away from viewing the sites.  PIPA proposed to do this by blocking the domain name resolution.  SOPA requires network providers to prevent access by it's subscribers located in the United States by blocking the IP address.

Source:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/248525/sopa_pipa_stalled_meet_the_open_act.html

 

According to Darrell Issa, who is the GOP's chief watchdog, “If the ITC investigation finds that a foreign registered website is ‘primarily’ and ‘willfully’ infringing on the IP rights of a U.S. rights holder, the commission would issue a cease and desist order that would compel payment processors, such as Paypal, and online advertising providers to cease doing business with the foreign site in question. This would cut off financial incentives for this illegal activity and deter these unfair imports from reaching the U.S. market.”

 

I would also like to touch on CISPA which stands for the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.  CISPA is a proposed law that would allow for the sharing of internet traffic information between the US government and certain technology and manufacturing companies.  The purpose of CISPA is to help the U.S. government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyber attacks. 

 

The need for greater cyber security is important to both national security and the economy. We’re already at the point where an enormous amount of government and private business is transacted online and there are parts of our physical infrastructure, including power plants and transportation systems, that are vulnerable to cyber attacks.  CISPA was reintroduced on February 13, 2013 with a better infrastructure  to respond the cyber intrusions.

What do you guys think about all these cyber protection acts?  Is it too much or not enough?  I believe people will find loopholes or other ways to pirate.  I believe it is almost impossible to stop 100% of online piracy.  I do believe these are steps in the right direction and that this has been long overdue. 

 

Next time:  Aaron Swartz

 

 

 





SHUT DOWN THE INTERNET!

"Wikipedia, Reddit and about 10,000 other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday with messages warning of the dangers of the legislation and urging people to contact their congressional representatives."

 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/sopa-blackout-sopa-and-pipa-lose-three-co-sponsors-in-congress.html

 As we mentioned in a previous article, the webs reaction to SOPA/PIPA was quite negative and became quite animated. On January 18, 2012 Wikipedia, Google, Firefox and others protested the bills by shutting down parts of their respective websites. This is the story of that day............

Earlier, Doug told us what SOPA/PIPA was, two bills in Congress aimed at stopping internet piracy. The tech world regarded the language of the legislation to broad and gave the DOJ (Department of Justice)  to far reaching a power to shut down sites and would lead to censorship of the free internet.

In protest and perhaps to illustrate what a censored web would look like, on January 18, 2012 over 10,000 websites across the world wide web conducted some kind of self-censorship. Some sites restricted access and directed the user to a link to contact their congressmen. Others went black and shut down with a fixed message screen.

The protest gained worldwide media attention and some sites actually saw record hits. I remember this day as I was doing some study for an auditing class and needed information on Sarbanes-Oxley. Imagine my surprise when I went to Wikipedia and got a black screen and a request for my zip code.

 Many other websites, although in agreement with the protest, decided not to inconvenience their users. Sites such as Facebook and twitter posted links to congress and displayed support for the blacked out internet, but went short of shutting down themselves

 As a result of the blackouts, 3 co-sponsors of the bill withdrew their support. The internet community hailed the protest as a resounding success and shortly thereafter SOPA/PIPA was shelved and slated for future revision.

Screenshots and numbers courtesy of  http://sopastrike.com/numbers/

Next time: OPEN Act and other Legislation 

Online Pirates

What was the reaction to Online Pirates? 

The term online pirates makes one imagine Pirates of the Caribbean sailing the online web offering black market downloads. So who are these tough online pirates? Well look around you- it’s probably someone even only feet away.

According to a poll by Christian Student Monitor, in 2006, two thirds of college students reported that their music was downloaded illegally. (Mcgovern) It doesn’t just stop at college students. A large amount of the world illegally downloads music, books videos- everything. There is no specific market of people that are considered “pirates”.

Since there is such a large amount of “pirates”, the government over the past few years has been implementing a heavy crackdown on illegal downloading. Unfortunately , the more regulation the smarter the “pirates” are becoming. According to the New York Times,

“The way people download unauthorized content is changing. In the early days of music piracy, people transferred songs to their home or work computers. Now, with cloud-based sites, like Wuala, uTorrent and Tribler, people stream movies and music from third-party storage facilities, often to mobile devices and TV’s.” (Bilton)

This is just creating an easier environment for more people to join the ranks of online piracy and avoid getting caught. So does this mean that the world should cave in and find a way to market the online downloading for profit- is this the new trend and the new world?

Surprisingly the numbers are reducing, partly due to free legal downloading. According to CNET, “ the number of illegally downloaded songs from P2P services dropped by 26 percent in 2012 from 2011.” (Whitney) There are people in the online world that are weighing the costs and looking for easier and more legal alternatives.

So who are online pirates? That is a tough question. We feel comfortable saying that probably anyone who has access to the world wide web potentially illegally downloaded at some point in their life and future generations will too. So there are no Jack Sparrow type pirates in the online world- just your normal everyday civilians saving a few bucks.

 

Next time: Wikipedia and Google Shutdown

What was the reaction to SOPA/PIPA?



blogworld.com

Needless to say, private individuals and some companies
were not happy with the proposed bills and in late 2011
small protest began to pop up.





On November 16, 2011, also named "National Censorship Day", the first hearing in congress for the bills was held. This sparked the online protest by 115,000 companies , such as Google, Reddit, Mozilla, and many others, that closed or restricted some of their content for the day. The following picture is what people found when they went to the Wikipedia site.

en.wikipedia.org

Physical protest were also held throughout the country to help drive their point home that SOPA/PIPA were infringing on every one's rights. GO DADDY, who was a supporter of SOPA/PIPA were also boycotted during the month of December 2011.

Attention was brought back to SOPA/PIPA in January 2012 when Congress was to reconvene and continue discussions on them. This also brought attention to the continued online protest that was to be scheduled at the same time. Over 8 million people looked up their Congress representative on Wikipedia on January 18th and over 3 million emails were sent to Congress to display the public's dissatisfaction with the proposed bills.
By January 20th the bills had lost so much support that they were removed from any further voting.

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-the-internet-killed-the-stop-online-piracy-act/#image-16

Next time: Who are the Pirates?

What are SOPA / PIPA?

SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act - (Bill full Title) -To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes - It is a US bill introduced into the House of Repersentaives on October 26, 2011. It was drafted so that US law enforcement would have more flexibility in fighting online piracy in the form of copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.

PIPA - Protected IP Act - (Bill full Title) - Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 - It is a US bill introduced to the Senate on May 12, 2011. This bill was rewritten, from the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) in 2010 that did not pass, so that the US Government would have more tools to prevent websites that sell counterfeit goods, primarily foreign registered sites.

  

Both Acts were to pursue this by way of courts order advertising agencies, payment facilities, search engines, and Internet Service Providers block links and access to sites that offer such illegal material or services.

As you would expect there were supporters and Opponents of these Acts. Among the many supporters of these Acts were :

www.Viacom.com

• National Cable & Telecommunications Association
• Independent Film & Television Alliance
• American Federation of Musicians
• Nashville Songwriters Association International
• Viacom
• NBCUniversal
• Pharmaceutical Companies
• and many others

                                                                                           

The supporters stated the following PRO's to these Acts:

• Protect
• Intellectual-Property Market and corresponding Industries
• Jobs and Revenue
• Conterfeit Drugs
• Bolster the enforcement of Copyright laws



www.americanexpress.com



 Among the Opponents of these Acts were:

• Facebook
• Ebay
• American Express
• English Wikipedia
• Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIn)
• and many others

The Opponents stated the following CON's to these Acts:

• Freedom of Speech
• Innovation
• Internet Integrity

Even though Both Bills have never been passed due to the outrage from the opponents on the grounds of Censorship, the government continues to try to come up with some kind of control that would assist with the prevention of Online Piracy.

Next time: Reaction to SOPA / PIPA