A lot of my blogging thus far has been about the intellectual property side of online freedoms. I decided that this week I would focus more on freedom of speech, and censorship, on the internet. It turns out that online censorship has been making international headlines recently due to the suit bought against Yahoo! for aiding in the imprisonment and torture of Chinese bloggers. The USA branch of The World Organization for Human Rights claims that Yahoo! assisted in human rights violations by giving up the information of a dissident Chinese journalist (one of many over the past few years) which resulted in his arrest and torture.
Yahoo! says that it had no choice in the matter because its Chinese subsidiary is obligated to follow Chinese information laws, however, the World Organization for Human Rights argues that the company should also consider international ethical and legal standards.
Despite pressure from international organizations and lawsuits such as the aforementioned example, it seems unlikely that things are going to change anytime soon. Internet censorship in China is deeply entrenched and strongly enforced. The Golden Shield Project, also known as the Great Firewall of China, has provided an infrastructure for an internet police task force, who work as censors and monitors. IP blocking, DNS filtering and redirection and URL filtering also suppress freedom of speech on the internet in mainland China. Through these channels of oppression, various comments and content are removed everyday, especially those which are critical of the government or which are related to taboo subjects (such as democracy, outlawed groups and the International Tibet Independence Movement).
As bloggers in a country which allows for freedom of expression, South African journalists need to be aware of journalists elsewhere who don’t have the same freedoms, and who risk imprisonment or torture for fulfilling their journalistic duties.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
YouTube in court again
In light of how many bloggers embed YouTube videos in their blogs, I decided to focus this week on YouTube’s current legal troubles.
Once again YouTube is under fire – this time from the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA). The NMPA claims that songwriters (signed up with them) haven’t been receiving proper compensation for music which has appeared in YouTube videos. The biggest plaintiff, Viacom Inc, owns Paramount and MTV. Viacom will be suing YouTube for over 1 billion dollars, for allegedly posting over 160,000 of their videos without permission.
However, YouTube claims that it is complying by the law by “immediately taking down any clips found to be violating copyrights after receiving notification”. Their use of antipiracy software (such as audio-signature technology, that can detect a copy of licensed video) has helped a fair amount, but thousands of illegal videos are still available on the site.
Where all this is relevant to bloggers (and in fact to anyone who likes to incorporate YouTube videos into their site), is that content owners are not only targeting YouTube for copyright infringements, but are also after third party websites that link to infringing YouTube content. So you could be held responsible for even linking to a video which infringes on copyright. Although the chance is quite minimal that the content owners would really bother about suing someone for embedding a video on their blog, one has to remember that its not just about getting caught – linking to a video that is clearly infringing on copyright just looks bad as well.
These are things you should look out for when embedding a YouTube video on your site:
- don’t use anything that has a soundtrack which has clearly been used without permission (for example, a mash-up with a Madonna song in the background)
- same goes for movies – don’t link to videos where more than 10 seconds of a copyrighted movie appears – anymore than 10 seconds and its not fair use. See my post last week for more information on fair use.
- check out if there is a copyright notice or disclaimer at the end of the video – this can indicate whether or not the creators got permission for the owners of the work
All in all, one should be very careful about what you link to, especially if it’s from YouTube.
Once again YouTube is under fire – this time from the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA). The NMPA claims that songwriters (signed up with them) haven’t been receiving proper compensation for music which has appeared in YouTube videos. The biggest plaintiff, Viacom Inc, owns Paramount and MTV. Viacom will be suing YouTube for over 1 billion dollars, for allegedly posting over 160,000 of their videos without permission.
However, YouTube claims that it is complying by the law by “immediately taking down any clips found to be violating copyrights after receiving notification”. Their use of antipiracy software (such as audio-signature technology, that can detect a copy of licensed video) has helped a fair amount, but thousands of illegal videos are still available on the site.
Where all this is relevant to bloggers (and in fact to anyone who likes to incorporate YouTube videos into their site), is that content owners are not only targeting YouTube for copyright infringements, but are also after third party websites that link to infringing YouTube content. So you could be held responsible for even linking to a video which infringes on copyright. Although the chance is quite minimal that the content owners would really bother about suing someone for embedding a video on their blog, one has to remember that its not just about getting caught – linking to a video that is clearly infringing on copyright just looks bad as well.
These are things you should look out for when embedding a YouTube video on your site:
- don’t use anything that has a soundtrack which has clearly been used without permission (for example, a mash-up with a Madonna song in the background)
- same goes for movies – don’t link to videos where more than 10 seconds of a copyrighted movie appears – anymore than 10 seconds and its not fair use. See my post last week for more information on fair use.
- check out if there is a copyright notice or disclaimer at the end of the video – this can indicate whether or not the creators got permission for the owners of the work
All in all, one should be very careful about what you link to, especially if it’s from YouTube.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Fair use in SA
I recently discovered a really great media law podcast called Legally Content, a must for anyone interested in intellectual property issues. Last week's topic was fair use. I suggest that you click on the above link to listen to the latest episode of Legally Content, before reading my discussion of fair dealing in SA.
Fair use, like Creative Commons, is another way to get around the totalitarian extremism of copyright. Fair use allows for the limited use of copyrighted materials (without the permission of the authors/owners), as long as four conditions are met:
- the derived work must be a “transformative use” of the original. In other words, something new must be made of the original work. This is why parodies (such as Weird Al Yankovich’s Madonna rip-off “Like a Surgeon”) fall under fair use.
- The nature of the copied work must be taken into account: autobiographies, documentaries etc are more likely to be legally copied (under fair use) than fictions, films etc.
- The effect on the monetary/market value of the copied work: the copying of the work must not diminish the market value of the work.
- No more than 10 percent of the original may be copied, and the heart of the work is off limits (the heart of a work is its main theme, eg: the twist at the end of a movie, the conclusion of a book)
If all these factors are met, then one may argue fair use.
In South Africa, our fair use policies are less clear and much less effective than those in America. In the South African Copyright Act of 1978, fair dealing (the South African derivative of fair use) is described in section 12(1) of Act 98. I quote:
“ Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work
(a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the work;
(b) for the purposes of criticism or review of that work or of another work; or
(c) for the purpose of reporting current events
(i) in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical; or
(ii) by means of broadcasting or in a cinematograph film;
Provided that, in the case of paragraphs (b) and (c)(i), the source shall be mentioned, as well as the name of the author if it appears on the work. “
Notably, the above passage does not account for the use of film or radio snippets. Its pivotal for new media journalists to keep this in mind when creating multimedia packages for the internet. One may not legally use any film snippets, and permission must be gained to use music or snippets from literature.
Fair use, like Creative Commons, is another way to get around the totalitarian extremism of copyright. Fair use allows for the limited use of copyrighted materials (without the permission of the authors/owners), as long as four conditions are met:
- the derived work must be a “transformative use” of the original. In other words, something new must be made of the original work. This is why parodies (such as Weird Al Yankovich’s Madonna rip-off “Like a Surgeon”) fall under fair use.
- The nature of the copied work must be taken into account: autobiographies, documentaries etc are more likely to be legally copied (under fair use) than fictions, films etc.
- The effect on the monetary/market value of the copied work: the copying of the work must not diminish the market value of the work.
- No more than 10 percent of the original may be copied, and the heart of the work is off limits (the heart of a work is its main theme, eg: the twist at the end of a movie, the conclusion of a book)
If all these factors are met, then one may argue fair use.
In South Africa, our fair use policies are less clear and much less effective than those in America. In the South African Copyright Act of 1978, fair dealing (the South African derivative of fair use) is described in section 12(1) of Act 98. I quote:
“ Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work
(a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the work;
(b) for the purposes of criticism or review of that work or of another work; or
(c) for the purpose of reporting current events
(i) in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical; or
(ii) by means of broadcasting or in a cinematograph film;
Provided that, in the case of paragraphs (b) and (c)(i), the source shall be mentioned, as well as the name of the author if it appears on the work. “
Notably, the above passage does not account for the use of film or radio snippets. Its pivotal for new media journalists to keep this in mind when creating multimedia packages for the internet. One may not legally use any film snippets, and permission must be gained to use music or snippets from literature.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
