Category: Law & Policy

Clinton equivocates so Masnick obfuscates.

Last week, Hillary Clinton released her Initiative on Technology and Innovation, brief, which reads a bit like a missive from the Internet Association and does very little to clarify her own views—possibly because she doesn’t have any—on the role of copyright in the digital age.  My general criticism of the whole brief is that it seems to view “technology” as an end rather than a means—still talking about access as its own reward, even in a time when Clinton’s opponent is as much proof as we should ever need that access alone does not necessarily foster a new enlightenment.

That Clinton’s statements are vague is the one criticism I share with Mike Masnick at Techdirt. Of course, what I hear in her rhetoric is that she’s been tippling at the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid, while Masnick seems to feel she hasn’t had quite enough. And that’s fine. We have divergent agendas.  But the substance of Masnick’s rebuttal on the subject of incentives does not accurately reflect the debate from either side, in my opinion.

Clinton’s statement contains the following:

The federal government should modernize the copyright system through reforms that facilitate access to out-of-print and orphan works, while protecting the innovation incentives in the system.  It should also promote open-licensing arrangements for copyrighted material supported by federal grant funding.

And Masnick rebuts …

What are the “innovation incentives in the system” right now? Well, on that, people totally disagree. Some people think that fair use, user rights and DMCA safe harbors are the innovation incentives in the system. Others, of course, argue it’s long copyright terms and insane statutory damages. These two groups disagree and the Clinton platform offers no further enlightenment. 

I’m sure his statement resonates inside Techdirt’s echo chamber, but portraying “long copyright terms and insane statutory damages” as core incentives for rights holders specifically oversimplifies both of these topics and it generally misrepresents creators and their motivations.

“…long copyright terms…”

Yes, the copyright term is part of the incentive rationale, but the actual duration of terms is influenced by various interrelated and dynamic factors—both philosophical and utilitarian—that consider market conditions and, yes, a discussion as to what seems appropriate to grant an author, which has generally extended to two generations of his/her heirs.  Presumably, there is an ideal threshold for terms—too short and incentive may be diminished for various types of works; too long and copyright’s purpose to promote progress may be defeated—but the sweet spot can only be theorized based on a holistic view of the contemporary, global market for the range of protectable works. To boil all that down to say that rights holders think long terms provide an incentive to create and distribute is no more nuanced than Hillary Clinton’s equivocal statement on the matter.

“…insane statutory damages…”

While it’s true that there is no reason to rely on a law that cannot be enforced, Masnick’s reference to “insane statutory damages” is stretching this tautology a bit thin in order suggest that rights holders view the prospect of litigation awards as an incentive to create in the first place. Statutory damages are set, in part, because the burden for a plaintiff to prove “actual damages” is quite steep. And because federal litigation is very expensive, hiring an attorney to represent a claim in which statutory damages may not be awarded can be extremely difficult for many rights holders.

Masnick also glosses over several details with regard to awards, including the fact that a lot of cases settle without awards anywhere near the statutory limits; that many copyright advocates currently support the creation of a copyright small claims court; and that statutory damages only apply in cases in which the works are registered with the Copyright Office. This last point is particularly relevant since Masnick seems eager to end the automatic copyright formalized in the 1976 act when he cites Clinton’s reference to “orphan works” and writes, “the only real solution to the orphan works problem is to go back to … requiring registration to get a copyright.”  But as a practical reality, when it comes to litigation and statutory damages, copyright registration is required, so the real pen-and-paper debate is not exactly defined by the lines Masnick is drawing with his oversized crayons.

“…fair use…”

As for the opposing view on incentives, it’s odd for Masnick to invoke fair use and DMCA safe harbors* when neither subject means anything without an enforceable regime of copyright in the first place. For example, to call fair use an incentive is preposterous absent an enforceably copyrighted work that is being used, so it cannot accurately sit on the opposite side of an imaginary line supposedly contrasting different incentives.  Fair use is a possible consideration, but most of the time, most creators don’t even think about copyright when they begin to author their own expressions.  This is because the idea/expression distinction in the law already has them well covered nearly all of the time—a principle codified into federal copyright law 136 years ago relative to the decade since Web 2.0 supposedly stirred up all this fair use controversy for all manner of creators.

“…DMCA safe harbors…”

I assume Masnick is not saying that the DMCA liability shield (safe harbor) for OSPs directly incentivizes creators.  Presumably, he’s saying that the safe harbor is necessary to provide a foundation to incentivize the blogger or YouTuber to create new works via these platforms, but that’s a pretty big logical leap.  As with the fair use fallacy, this view assumes that infringement is integral to expression and the incentive to express.  Additionally, the safe harbor shield doesn’t technically protect the user/creator at all. As noted in my recent post about Lewis Bond, this conflating of the OSP’s interests with the user’s interests is part of what I think gets some creators into legal hot water.  While, it is true that platforms like YouTube foster new forms of expression (e.g. mashups) that ask new questions about copyright’s boundaries and exceptions, it is misleading to highlight safe harbor as an incentive for those who make these expressions, especially when the liability shield clearly provides an incentive for OSPs to turn a blind eye to obvious infringements.

In my experience the most consistent incentive I’ve encountered among creators I’ve known, or known about, is that copyright inextricably links a given expression to its author.  This is not only a significant motivation for creators—one that often transcends money—but it is also a distinction that benefits society most by preserving the relevance of context—a value Web 2.0 seems well-suited to destroy with alarming frequency.

As for candidate Clinton, Masnick and I clearly want to hear different specifics from her as she progresses toward the White House (I hope).  Based on the choice of rhetoric in the brief, though, I do suspect the internet industry had a hand in its writing.  In particular, the arbitrary reference to “orphan works” is bizarre—as though this arcane bit of copyright flotsam represents some untapped cultural or economic potential for America.  Overall, between the brief and Masnick’s comments, it seems we’re in stuck in the meta-debate about what the debate is about.

*I’m ignoring user rights because it’s too vague and too broad.

Looking for Censorship in All the Wrong Places

Last week, I stumbled on a tweet by a staff member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation warning California citizens to “take action” in protest against the passage of Assembly Bill 2880.  The linked article on the EFF website written by Ernesto Falcon begins by asserting in its headline, subhead, and first paragraph that California will be venturing into brand new territory with regard to registering or enforcing state-owned intellectual property and that this will have the usual litany of ill effects—“chill speech, stifle open government, and harm the public domain.” Falcon’s first sentence reads, “The California Assembly Committee on Judiciary recently approved a bill (AB 2880) to grant local and state governments’ copyright authority along with other intellectual property rights.”  (Emphasis added.)

It is standard procedure for the EFF to make scary declarations while avoiding specifics. They have a habit of telling people that a proposal will be really bad while shirking the effort of quite explaining how. The organization also tends to focus almost entirely on copyrights when a broader view of IP might be relevant in a given circumstance, as it is with a state, which may have at least as much interest in patents and trademarks as in copyrights.  What Falcon wants the reader to conclude is that AB 2880 will grant new authority to the State of California to copyright works like public records, which would then give elected officials a means of stifling speech by misusing copyright law.  You might recognize this theme as one of the EFF’s Greatest Hits, but of course, this bill does nothing of the sort.

AB 2880 does not establish new IP rights for the State of California.  California and other states have owned intellectual property for a very long time.  A  FY2000 California audit of IP states, “In total, 125 state agencies own more than 113,000 identified items of intellectual property.” What this proposed bill does do is to clarify California’s position on its IP and then requires procedures (e.g. developing guidlines for contractors) to be overseen by the Department of Governmental Services for better management of state-owned intellectual property. A need for clarification in the law is noted in the comments from the State Assembly floor, which cites lessons learned from the widely publicized, 2015 dispute between the National Park Service and the Yosemite National Park concessioner Delaware North.  The floor comments include the following:

”…the lack of a robust intellectual property framework has led to confusion among state agencies, loose and informal practices, and possibly confusion among state and federal courts. Several recent court decisions have held that state agencies need legislative authority to hold intellectual property rights. In light of the recent Yosemite trademark issue and the recent court decisions, this bill builds on the framework established by AB 744 in order to assist state agencies manage and protect the state’s intellectual property rights, particularly in state contracts where state-owned intellectual property is at stake.” 

That’s not exactly spellbinding, but neither the character nor the language in this bill gets anywhere near the EFF’s implication that California agencies will have “new powers” to use copyright law in order to stifle speech or limit access to public records after passage of 2880.  Nevertheless,  Falcon writes, “As things stand today, works created by California state and local governments (like reports, video, maps, and so on) aren’t subject to copyright except in a few special cases. That ensures that Californians who funded the creation of those works through their tax dollars can use those works freely.”

Not quite.  Falcon is purposely being vague in order to have the reader assume that public records will be treated the same as expressive works or other IP that is funded by California taxpayers, especially where third-party contractors are involved.  At the same time, he’s sowing a bit of confusion about the difference between public property and the public domain—as if all works funded by taxpayers are automatically in the public domain, which is not the case.

A work, invention, or process that is in the public domain is no longer property of any kind.  It is entirely fair game for anyone anywhere to use for any purpose.  Public property, on the other hand, is just that; and state agencies have a responsibility to protect the investment of the constituency who paid for the development of the property.  For instance, it is common that public property, whether physical or intellectual, may not be used by a for-profit entity without that entity paying a license fee that goes back to the public fund.  And this is as it should be; the taxpayer isn’t typically expected to fund free resources to be used by for-profit entities without getting something in return.   To manage this, states need an intellectual property regime, and AB 2880 is a rather mundane update to that regime.

On the subject of censorship, Falcon draws our attention to the case in which the City of Inglewood wrongly filed a lawsuit against Joseph Teixeira, who posted city council videos (which are public records) on YouTube in remixes that were critical of the city’s Mayor James Butts.  The lawsuit was, to put it mildly, an act of rank stupidity on the part of city officials, which is pretty much what Federal Court Judge Fitzgerald said when he not only tossed out the case as “meritless,” but also ordered the City of Inglewood to pay the full fees of bringing the case in the first place.

And although Falcon is following the EFF playbook by riling up readers with a reference to this attempted abuse of copyright law, there is nothing in AB 2880 that would newly empower a future state public official to get any further with a federal court than Mayor Butts did.  It should also be noted that nothing in AB 2880—or any other statute for that matter—can fully prevent people from attempting to misuse the law, which is one reason why a judge determines whether or not a case has any standing before it can proceed. If anything, the Teixeria story ought to chasten city and state officials against future temptation to use copyright to stifle speech.

In addition to conflating public property with the public domain, Falcon is purposely mixing public records with other types of works that are copyrightable and is also confusing federal policy with state policy.  It goes without saying that federal public property belongs to all American citizens while state public property belongs to the citizens of that state, but it is not true that all public property in either case is the same thing as the public domain.   Still, Falcon declares that AB 2880 will impose new restrictions on California’s taxpayer-funded works, as if the proposed bill will move these works from the public domain into the protection of copyright. He writes, “… a vast majority of state created works are free to the public with only five exceptions. All other audio, visual, and written work of state and local govenment employees is in the public domain upon creation and free for the public to use however they see fit.”

Again, not quite. The legal precedent to which Falcon’s link refers states that the California Public Records Act “prohibits copyright in state government records unless there is specific statutory authority to do so.”  And this precedent is not overturned by the new language proposed in 2880, which reads as follows:

A public entity may own, license, and, if it deems it appropriate, formally register intellectual property it creates or otherwise acquires. A public entity’s intellectual property right shall not preclude the public entity from disclosing any information otherwise accessible under the California Public Records Act. A disclosure under the California Public Records Act shall not be construed as waiving any rights afforded under the federal Copyright Act of 1976.

All that says is that state agencies may own intellectual property (which was already true), that copyrigths may not preclude public access to public records, and that disclosure of public information does not inherently void the state’s copyrights. Not only does this language not override existing law, it seeks to clarify the law in light of some of the lessons learned from various court cases, as described in the floor comments cited above. Of course it is entirely possible that this clarification is exactly what the EFF doesn’t like about this bill. Clearer copyright laws are the opposite of no copyright laws, and it seems as though that organization is only ever interested in the latter.

A Strange Anecdote of DMCA Abuse?

I was told by a colleague who attended the Section 512 round tables in San Francisco that a consistent response from representatives of the OSPs was that anecdotes about harm to rights holders from piracy or YouTube-style infringement are not sufficient.  “We need data,” was apparently an oft-repeated imperative.  This is funny because that same crowd loves anecdotes about abuse of DMCA, and well they should because the anecdotes are likely to be more compelling than the data on that matter. But sometimes, the anecdotes are downright bizarre, as with this story reported yesterday in The Guardian by Alex Hern.  It is in fact the story of the DMCA abuse that wasn’t there.

At first reading, one assumes that this is a typical story about some non-copyright holding entity misusing the DMCA in order to attempt to censor criticism of its business.  In a nutshell, a UK citizen named Annabelle Narey had a bad experience with a UK building company called BuildTeam, and she consequently posted a negative review on a parents’ news and comment site called Mumsnet.  Her initial post prompted a thread of other users sharing their own bad experiences with the same company, which apparently prompted BuildTeam to try to have the negative reviews removed, even initimating possible defamation.  But then, Hern writes this:

“Mumsnet received a warning from Google: a takedown request had been made under the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), alleging that copyrighted material was posted without a licence on the thread.

As soon as the DMCA takedown request had been filed, Google de-listed the entire thread. All 126 posts are now not discoverable when a user searches Google for BuildTeam – or any other terms. The search company told Mumsnet it could make a counterclaim, if it was certain no infringement had taken place, but since the site couldn’t verify that its users weren’t actually posting copyrighted material, it would have opened it up to further legal pressure.”*

Initially, this description sounded odd to me for several reasons, not the least of which is that it would take about 30 mintues or less for Mumsnet to review 126 posts of this nature, which are usually quite short.  More than that, though, under the DMCA, a properly filed notice has to identify the Allegedly Infringed Work (AIW) and state under penalty of perjury that the filer is the owner, or agent of the owner, of that work. As such, what work was the filer alleging had been infringed in a thread of comments?  Because if the notice just said something as generic as “contains infrininging material,” then the notice should have been rejected by Google.  More confusing still, as Hern goes on to describe, the filer of the take down request wasn’t even BuildTeam.  Who it was is not quite clear.

Hern describes a strange sequence of events in which a guy named Douglas Bush plagiarized Narey’s original post, published it on a “spammy website,” and also pre-dated the post to a day three months prior to the day Narey had originally published it.  Then, it appears that the registered owner of said spammy website, a Mr. Ashraf of Pakistan, may have been the one to send the DMCA takedown notice pertaining to the original thread.  It sounds a bit like a ham-handed attempt at a copyright scam; but suffice to say, there is nothing legit about the take down request, and Google should not have processed it at all. Moreover, under these circumstances, Mumsnet should not have had any fear of restoring the material via counter notice, as Hern suggests they might.  He writes the following:

“Whoever sent the takedown request, Mumsnet was forced to make a choice: either leave the post up, and accept being delisted; fight the delisting and open themselves up to the same legal threats made against Google; or delete the post themselves, and ask the post to be relisted on the search engine.”  

What?? There is no such thing as “whoever sent the request.”  This DMCA filing clearly fails to meet statutory requirements, and the apparent sender is apparently in Pakistan! Mumsnet should have had no concern regarding litigation from anyone as a result of restoring this material. But then, Hern reports this:

Mumsnet deleted the post, and asked Google to reinstate the thread, but a month later, they received final word from the search firm: “‘Google has decided not to take action based on our policies concerning content removal and reinstatement’ which (it turned out) meant that they had delisted the entire thread”. 

Again, what in blazes is going on in this story?  Because it looks an awful lot like Google just plain messed up. Yet, for all its muddy details, Hern is presenting this tale as a prime example of how copyright becomes censorship on the internet, blaming the law itself for his own conclusion that “ … sites like YouTube, Twitter and Google … are forced to develop a hair-trigger over claims of copyright infringement, assuming guilt and asking the accused to prove their innocence.”

That’s a familiar refrain that rings hollow with legitimate rights holders who make proper use of DMCA.  Meanwhile, Google has often fought tooth, nail, and elbow against delisting search results, asserting past refusals to do so as a matter of principle. And that’s in cases involving clearly infringing links.  Why is the search giant, as Hern states, suddenly on a “hair trigger” to delist this little thread of consumer comments about a building service, where a copyright infringement is highly unlikely to exist?  And why should rights holders who have an interest in legitimate take down requests continue to have those interests denigrated by the general characterization that DMCA is so often used as a tool for censorship?

The potentially compelling part of this story is the matter of what Mr. Ashraf was actually intending. If he was the one to publish someone else’s post as his own and then use DMCA to attempt to assert an infringement claim against the original, what did he hope to achieve?  Is this a new kind of scam, general mischief, or a third-party exercise in censorship? It seems to me all the parties involved, including Google, should want an answer to this question, rather than settle on the familiar but misguided conclusion that copyright itself is the villain.

*It should be noted that Mumsnet does not use an internal search tool for its comment threads, but in fact uses Google Search. This would appear to be a factor in this story.