You Know You're Getting Legally Old When....

I'm teaching a class on computer law and the night's lecture is on cyberspace and copyrights.

I begin with a general overview of copyrights and then start talking about the Sony safe-harbor decision.

The Sony Safe Harbor rule, which sprang out of the case of Sony v Universal Studios, essentially summarized, is that if a technological device is capable of mainly non-copyright-infringing uses, then it is not banned as a technology just because it might have infringing uses as well. This decision has had a profound effect on computer and home entertainment technology. In fact, the decision, so bitterly opposed by the MPAA, has resulted in their making massive revenues off the sale first of movies on Betamax and VHS tapes, and then on laser disc and DVDs.

Sadly, None of the law students in the class knew what the namesake of the safe harbor rule, the Sony Betamax even was.

None of them currently own a VCR.

At least all of them knew what Napster was, so we could analyze how the courts ruled that it didn't fit the Sony safe harbor.

Ah, a bunch of kids and Baby Sharks, the lot of them.

DRM Frustration and Fail

DRM being Digital Rights Management. The various methods for content providers pissing their end-users off to all heck and gone.

So my local library, in addition to books, DVDs, CD, MP3 on CD and such is also offering e-books and e-audio books.

Makes sense right? Good for the library as no worries about shelf space, damaged discs or vandalized books. In the case of audio CDs, considering as how they get scratched as fast as being looked at, it makes sens to keep it electronic.

In addition, this kind of content is cheap as hell for a content provider - no repeat production, printing or stamping costs as each item is a digital file and if it gets corrupt you can upload another one. Nice, convenient and accessible with no worries about someone else checking it out - what's not to like?

Should be easy right, for them maybe, for a user not so much.

To listen to an audio book, as I planned to do on my iPhone and plug it into my car and listen to it to and from work would have been great.

Not so fast.

First I had to download Overdrive Media Console, which then wanted Windows Media player to be upgraded with some sort of DRM update.

The problem being, it would not update.

After multiple tries with the online help, it wouldn't work. After 2 hours of messing around with it, I finally figured out that it will not update if you try it through Firefox - you must do it through Internet Explorer - note that the help files do not mention this in any way, shape or form.

So I finally get the fisking thing downloaded and it issues the audio book files in protected WMA format - I try to load it up in iTunes to transfer to the iPhone and nope, it doesn't work with an error message that its protected. Of course.

Nor can I get the Overdrive to transfer it to the iPhone as per the Overdrive site: "OverDrive Download Station is not able to transfer to iPhones." Wonderful. So it looks like I've got the capability of sitting in front of my computer and listening to an eAudioBook - wow, that's really handy and useful.

However all is not lost: The program allows you to burn then to a CD and transfer the files in CD Audio format.

Good grief.

After all the fisking time wasted to comply with their stupid DRM model, the end result is a file that has no DRM protection whatsoever and once on the CD could be transferred, ripped back into mp3 and loaded on an iPhone, or given away to the entire universe I suppose.

You are supposed to destroy your CDs when the loan period is up. How many people do that, I have no idea.

I'm personally toying with the idea of mailing them, postage collect, to the publisher with a cover letter detailing how messed up their whole DRM concept is.

Epic Failure from a security standpoint and from a usability standpoint.

All that nonsense to protect content that ends up unprotected once you waste hours making the software behave and then about a half hour burning a few discs.

No, You Can't Trademark Michigan's Highway Signs

In Attorney General Opinion 7265 just emailed out today, Attorney General Bill Schuette states in his opinion that State Highway markers, being part of the public domain cannot be trademarked by companies or individuals to prevent their use by others to identify goods or services.

Because the State of Michigan, the creator of the design, placed the Michigan highway route marker design in the public domain, no entity can lawfully obtain intellectual property protection of the design under trademark or copyright law
.....
The corporations may continue to utilize the Michigan highway route marker design alone or incorporate it within another design. But they must “disclaim” any right or interest in intellectual property that does not belong to them. 15 USC 1056(a) (“The Director may require the applicant to disclaim an unregistrable component of a mark otherwise registrable. An applicant may voluntarily disclaim a component of a mark sought to be registered”). Any other individual or company is also free to use the design to promote commercial goods and services. In other words, the corporations may not exclude other persons and businesses from using the Michigan highway route marker design on the basis of trademark law because a design in the public domain generally cannot be made the subject of a trademark or other protection.

As such, cease and desist letters from companies claiming exclusive rights in Michigan highway signs can be safely ignored, and everyone is free to use the signs provided they do not claim ownership of the sign elements in their works.

This was a very thorough and well-written opinion (12 page with 10 pages of attachments), as we've come to expect from AG Schuette and his staff, and a needed corrective to the overreaching on the part of some companies.

Neither Wilful Blindness Nor Obtuseness Are Defenses To Copyright or Trademark Infringement

I have a client that came in with a complaint that both its copyrights and trademarks are being infringed on by a competitor. Adding to the fun, the competitor is a former sales manger that broke off and is now selling a similar line of products.

So I investigate and yep, the copyright and trademark infringement is pretty blatant, including taking photos from my client's website and then using the photos, many with the product trademark logos intact, on their site to claim the products are coming from them.

So I write a gentle yet firm nasty-gram to request they remove the infringing images from their website and sales brochures.

They write back claiming they're very concerned about such claims but they investigated and can find no infringing photos on their website and could we please point out the issues?

This should be fun.

So I go ahead and list their various trademark and copyright infringements evident on their site and even helpfully print out pages of their website to include with the reply showing the numerous infringements. Most of these photos are straight off my clients website and they even kept the same html tags in their code

Hilariously enough, one set of photos on their website is not only directly from my client's website, but depicts one of my clients current employees operating the product.

Kind of hard to claim a complete lack of knowledge considering the sheer volume of material taken. It's not a one-off oopsy, nor a use that could be considered fair use, but a wholesale ripoff that's going on and that is going to be stopped.

Their response to this current letter should be interesting.