TSOP: Chapter 2: What is Copyright Infringement?
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Transcript of TSOP: Chapter 2: What is Copyright Infringement?
P a g e | 22
CHAPTER 2
PART 1: COPYRIGHTS MATTER!
The extreme reason to care about
copyright infringement is because, as an
American, life as you know it is potentially in
jeopardy.
Yes, I just said that. Let me say it again.
Copyright infringement may put “life as you
know it” in jeopardy.
P a g e | 23
Don’t be a Pirate!
Are you an Internet Pirate?
There are many misconceptions about
copyright law. One of the most frightening
misconceptions is embodied in one simple
question:
P a g e | 24
Who cares?
Many will say, “it’s not really my issue;
why should I care?” The answer to this
fundamental question is both simple and
complex. Here is my answer to that question.
Let’s try to set the copyright on Mickey
Mouse (and even that of Copyright Cow) aside
for a moment, let’s talk about Anderson Cooper
and Human Rights atrocities.
Then let’s talk about economics, taxes
and social services. We can get back to the
mouse and cow later.
In a modern Democracy we value
information. Information feeds our stock market,
it feeds what we buy as consumers (even what
we think we want in some cases) and who we
P a g e | 25
vote for. The traditional media is part of the
dissemination of that information.
Blogs and other social media are also
growing in popularity for the same reason. I am
going to throw a wrench into the gears of
Democracy – into the economic incentives that
facilitate creating news reports and stories.
Basically, I am going to take Anderson
Cooper’s paycheck and shred it! The wrench is
copyright infringement. News reporters like
Anderson Cooper sometimes risk their lives to
bring us news from foreign lands – they report
on wars, human rights atrocities and good things
too.
This reporting can be used to help stop
crime, catch criminals and even shape social
justice. News reporters don’t work for free. Of
P a g e | 26
course, news events can’t be owned. The pictures
documenting the news events, however, are
owned. The text of the reporter’s copy is
similarly owned.
It can be published and re-published. In essence,
the news story and the pictures (at least the
reporting of the story and the capturing of the
action) become the intellectual property of the
reporter and / or photographer (or the company
they work for).
Common FBI Warning
“may constitute a felony”
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Domestic Federal Law Enforcement
Government Anti-Piracy Seal
In today’s world, a news story without a
picture is almost not a news story. The pictures
of news events get sold. This is what helps pay
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for a freelance reporter’s airfare, travel expense,
child support, student loan payments and taxes.
Intellectual property is a property right in
some intangible like a copyright, a trademark, a
patent or a trade secret. In this case, the
intangible rights are “copyrights” which protect,
for example, texts, photographs, graphics,
computer source code, movies and music.
Since most reporters need to make a
living, they can’t be gallivanting about the world
with no hope of making money. In fact, you take
away the money, you take away the professional
reporter.
With that, you start to break down the
quality and flow of information at all levels.
Without freedom of information Democracy
stops working. The free markets even stop
P a g e | 29
working. If you really think about it, life as we
know it is premised on the free flow of
information. When that information stops
flowing or is controlled by a government that
goes unchecked, you end up with unwanted wars
and in some cases human rights atrocities.
Germany’s Nazi regime illustrates what
can happen when the government controls
information and uses propaganda (unchecked
false information) to control and influence public
opinion.
There are dictators and oligarchies all
over the world, even today doing (or trying to
do) the same thing. While it is true that the
“citizen reporter” or blogger provides a new
source of possible reporting around the world,
without professional news reporters, to challenge
government propaganda and dig for “truth” the
P a g e | 30
very foundations of life as we know it, begin to
crack!
How did this all start? Copyright infringe
-ment. Yes, the mouse and the cow count too.
When we don’t protect the labor of our
reporters, our artists, and even our doctors and
our lawyers, we erode the foundations of our
society. Even the “Founding Fathers” knew that
copyrights were important – they wrote into the
Constitution itself, the authority for Congress to
pass copyright and patent laws. We have
copyright laws.
Yet, it is almost ubiquitous that we break
them. When I speak at the University of
Washington, for example, I often informally poll
the students. Who has downloaded music
P a g e | 31
without paying for it? Out of a classroom of fifty
students, only 5 don’t raise their hands.
The same is true of businesses that
download and use professional photographs and
images on their websites without paying for
them.
As a lawyer in Seattle, I deal with that
issue a lot. It is amazing how many companies
do this!
What is even more amazing is how many
think its no big deal. Many are not even
apologetic or ashamed. If you back your car into
the side of your neighbor’s minivan, you make
good on the damage.
You apologize and offer to cover the
repair or have your insurance cover the damage.
P a g e | 32
Why is the same not true for copyright
infringement? Is it because you can touch the
damaged car but you can’t touch the damaged
copyright?
Yet, the photographer who didn’t get
their licensing fee for the use of the image goes
without food while the company that stole the
image laughs all the way to the bank.
This is not right or fair. In one recent
case, the Security Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of
Homeland Security began cracking down on
some of the mass-infringing websites that
facilitate widespread copyright infringement of
everything from music to photographs to comic
books.
P a g e | 33
Based on an Order from a United States
District Court ICE seized the domain names and
posted the following:
ICE- Homeland Security Investigations
P a g e | 34
The reported response of one of the
domain name owners was, “My domain has been
seized without any previous complaint or notice
from any court!”
My response to the owner’s comment is,
it’s about time! How dare this industrial pirate
ask for anything! He broke the law. A judge
issued an order after a lawful investigation.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the law. It protects
all of us but this industrial pirate’s reaction goes
too far.
What it comes down to is this: Don’t
steal my stuff. If you do steal my stuff, be
prepared to pay the consequences, whether that
be monetary damages or jail.
This mass infringer threatens society as
we know it. He ought to be ashamed of his
P a g e | 35
actions not outraged by the collective efforts of
our law and government to curb crime.
As a society, if we continue to condone
intellectual property theft, at all levels, how long
will it be before we can no longer repair the
cracks in our fragile Democracy?
Before we have no insulation against
government propaganda and power that will
corrupt so absolutely that not even business can
function? Not long, people. Not long.
P a g e | 36
ON-LINE REFERENCES
Trade Secrets Video
(What is Copyright
Infringement?)
Seattle PI
(Copyright Infringement
& Free Press)
***
http://thetradesecretsofintellectualproperty.com/