Gawker: valleywag, copyright

Viacom Fraudulently Claims Ownership Of Indie Filmmakers' YouTube Clips

Ben Popken — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:18:15 EDT

Viacom is sending bogus copyright ownership claims and illegal posting notices to independent filmmakers posting their own movies on YouTube. These films contain not one iota of Viacom content. Take, for instance, this lovely short animation, "Juxtaposer," made by Joanna Davidovich for her senior project. It's completely her original creation. She has copyrighted it and says that she "only entered into distribution agreements that were nonexclusive." Yet, the media corporation saw fit to have YouTube tell Joanna, "Viacom has claimed some or all audio and visual content in your video."

Joanna is, of course, disputing the claim.

The video is still up, but now Viacom gets access to her video statistics. The worst part is the fear Joanna has that something she slaved and sweat over could be taken away from her. "I'm just a scared that my little film will be lost in the shadow of the hulking monolith...," she wrote on her blog. Also on her blog is a comment by another filmmaker indicating Joanna isn't the only filmmaker Viacom has fraudulently targeted in this manner.

YouTube used to be cool but the site allowing actions like this show how much it's become just another co-opted drek-hole... all because they're too cheap to hire enough people to vet either the uploads or the corporate takedowns.

Below, a screenshot of the creepy and baseless stake-claiming.

Viacom Wants To Steal My Film [Channel Federator Raw]
Juxtaposer [YouTube]

Open source blogger takes on Google

Owen Thomas — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:38:22 EDT

CNET blogger and supposed open-source expert Matt Asay tragically misreads Google's terms of service for Google Apps. An admittedly scary patch of legalese suggests, to Asay, that Google will take all of your private data, take over its copyright, and make it public. But in fact, it just says that if you use Google to host, say, a word-processing document or spreadsheet, and you want said document to be publicly available on the Web, you must agree to let Google, you know, make it public. Why Asay is resorting to scare tactics over this is beyond me. Is he pursuing an anti-Google agenda? Or is he just sloppy? I'm voting for just sloppy.

Google, Yahoo join children's copyright crusade

Mary Jane Irwin — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:01:42 EDT

Backed by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group, is targeting everyone from Hollywood to book publishers in its Defend Fair Use crusade. The CCIA is trying to drum up popular support for its allegations, submitted to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month, that corporations are misleading consumers about copyright law. Copyright holders may not condone certain uses of its material, but that doesn't necessarily mean those uses are illegal. Fair use, an abstruse area of copyright law meant to encourage scholarship and journalism, is widely misunderstood. It's certainly a curious standard for CCIA's supporters to bear, since Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all implement fair-use-defying digital-rights-management software, and comply with "takedown" requests from copyright holders without considering fair use.

Google seeks to squelch comment on its site

Mary Jane Irwin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:50:46 EDT

Google wants to make you aware of its corporate trademark policy: Don't use it unless we tell you to — never mind the details of the actual law. Blogoscoped reader Frank Fuchs created a simple Web-based guide to getting businesses listed on search engines. For spot images, he pulled company logos. For his trouble, Google's ill-informed lawyers sent a legally questionable cease-and-desist notice, quoted after the jump.

Here's part of the letter Fuchs received:

It has come to our attention that you are using the GOOGLE logo on your website (www.locallytype.com/pages/submit.htm) without our express written permission... It misleads consumers into believing that some association exists between you and Google; and it weakens the ability of the GOOGLE mark and name to identify a single source, namely, Google.

But as Wikipedia's policy page on the use of logos explains, there's a substantial body of law protecting the use of logos in connection with criticism and commentary, and Fuchs page, which details how to edit information listed about a business by various search engines, would seem to qualify. Ironic that Google, which so often tests the boundaries of copyright law itself, would make such a hamfisted attempt to police an apparently legitimate use of its logo.

Burning Man's copyright Nazis

Paul Boutin — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:36:06 EST

PAUL BOUTIN — Burning Man, the Bay Area's annual alt.credibility event for geeks, has gone from "radical self-expression" to self-litigation. Founders Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel each want sole ownership of the name. Third founder John Law, who split a decade ago, has sued both to free the Burning Man name into the public domain. Law wants to "keep anyone from having an exclusive right to capitalize on these brands."

Burning Man fans are split. In theory, Burning Man belongs to everybody, even me. In practice, setting the name free would allow Starbucks, Nike and Hummer to legally use it in products and promos. The dirty secret is that old-school hippie Harvey and his team have kept Burning Man's name clean for twenty years through diligent, ruthless enforcement of their corporate trademark. Test it yourself: Post an item on eBay with "PERFECT FOR BURNING MAN" and get out your stopwatch.

John Law Sues His Former Burning Man Partners [Laughing Squid]

Burning Man Founders Mired in Dispute [SF Examiner]

Times captures Stern, Stewart moments before prison camp internment

Nick Douglas — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:04:30 EST

Anyone can report that YouTube deleted loads of clips from Comedy Central, including South Park and the Daily Show.

But only the New York Times can capture the moment when Howard Stern and Jon Stewart are accosted by the police and forcibly dragged off the site — Jon cackling in disbelief, Stern already submissive to his captors.

YouTube Is Purging Copyrighted Clips [NY Times]

Google Doodle Watch: Where'd Miró go?

ndouglas — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:18:34 EDT

Google this morning:

Google this afternoon:

Google buckled under pressure from the firm representing Joan Miró's family, who threatened a copyright suit over the holiday logo. Google just wanted to celebrate the surrealist artist's birthday with a tribute — and one would guess they have enough lawyers to defend an obviously non-infringing work. But hey, no problem — someone else can go defend creative rights.

Artist's family asks Google to take down Thursday's `painted' logo [Mercury News]
Earlier: Google Miro: Brilliant or toddler? [Valleywag]