EU Copyright Law and Jazz: February 2009

Welcome

Fortunately within the EU, the 50 year period of copyright on material issued in and upto the 1st half of the 20th century is expiring, moving this material into the public domain.
In combination with electronic distribution, it is possible to share this culturally valuable material where it would not be commercially viable.
- it is therefore primarily intended to promote the appreciation, the preservation and aid research.

The modest intention of this blog is to allow me to highlight some of this material, to perhaps encourage others to discover and enjoy.
If it creates a valid awareness of our rights to access this material, which has often long out of print or available only in very limited numbers, then all the better.

Background

There is a strong difference in the interpretation and enforcement in different countries, particularly with recent legal cases on each side of the Atlantic highlighting these differences.
Given the aggressive push by organisations and corporations within the United States, to enforce copyright laws (globally, often to their advantage and effectively erode our rights), it is particularly interesting given the attitude of the United States to others copyright during the 18th and early 19th Centuries.

I recommend the article over at wikipedia, to get an overview of the situation, perhaps quite different than you might have thought from impressions given by the Music Industry and their lobbying organs - History of Copyright Law

"In Great Britain's North American colonies, reprinting British copyright works without permission had long happened episodically, but only became a major feature of colonial life after 1760. It became more commonplace to reprint British works in the colonies (mostly in the 13 American colonies). The impetus for this shift came from Irish and Scottish master printers and booksellers who had moved to the North American colonies in the mid 18th century.

They were already familiar with the practice of reprinting and selling British copyright works, and continued the practice in North America, and it became a major part of the North American printing and publishing trade.

Robert Bell was an example. He was originally Scottish, and had spent almost a decade in Dublin before he moved to British North America in 1768. His operations, and those of many other colonial printers and booksellers, ensured that the practice of reprinting was well-established by the time of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. Weakened American ties to Britain coincided with the increase of reprinting outside British copyright controls.
The Irish also made a flourishing business of shipping reprints to North America in the 18th century. Ireland's ability to reprint freely ended in 1801 when Ireland's Parliament merged with Great Britain, and the Irish became subject to British copyright laws.
The printing of uncopyrighted English works for the English-language market also occurred in other European countries. The British government responded to this problem in two ways: 1) it amended its own copyright statutes in 1842, explicitly forbidding import of any foreign reprint of British copyrighted work into the UK or its colonies, and 2) it began the process of reciprocal agreements with other countries. The first reciprocal agreement was with Prussia in 1846. The US remained outside this arrangement for some decades. This was objected to by such authors as Dickens and Mark Twain."

I don't want to get into a fiery discussion regarding opinion on copyright, I'd like to discuss the actual legalities of copyright law and how they effect material now entering the public domain in some geographical areas and how this effects us, given our present communications inter-connected-ness.

Terms of Use

This space for intended to create a place for encouraging the enjoyment and awareness of older music, often long out of print or available in very limited numbers - it is therefore primarily intended to promote preservation and aid research.
Obviously depending upon your present country of residence, downloading and keeping material, in areas other than the EU may breach your country's laws regarding copyright infringement. As a specific illustration, the United States enforces copyright, some 90 years from the date of publishing, whereas copyright in the EU expires after 50 years of either performance or first publication.

I therefore ask you to exercise discretion, I must presume you are adults and part of that is exercising a little self-rule, where applicable
- do not download material if you know it is illegal to do so in your country.

This blog is based within the EU and is therefore entitled to discuss and publish material in order to further that discussion.

February 23, 2009

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 6 - mediafire

"You agree while using MediaFire Services, that you may not:
Use the Services for any illegal purpose;

.....

Promote an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work;"

There is a simple e-mail address to report suspected copyright abuse.

February 22, 2009

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 5 - fileden

"Illegal Usage
File Den servers may not be used for hosting any form of illegal content, File Den have the right to allow legal authorities / damaged 3rd parties to lead investigations into any illegal doing."

.........

"Infringement of Copyright, Intellectual Property Right, Trademark, Patent or Trade Secret
Uploading / distributing any files which break any of the above mentioned will result in instant termination of account and contact with the correct authorities will be made."

February 20, 2009

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 4 - filefactory

FileFactory.com is an Online Service Provider under Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 512 ("DMCA"). FileFactory.com respects the legitimate rights of copyright owners, and has adopted an efficient notice and takedown procedure as required by the DMCA and described herein. This policy is intended to guide copyright owners in utilizing that procedure, and also to guide webmasters in restoring access to websites that are disabled due to mistake.

Notice to Owners of Copyrighted Works

The DMCA provides a legal procedure by which you can request any Online Service Provider to disable access to a website where your copyrighted work(s) are appearing without your permission. There are two parts to the legal procedure: (1) Writing a Proper DMCA Notice, and (2) Sending the Proper DMCA Notice to FileFactory.com's Designated Agent.

How to Write a Proper DMCA Notice

A Proper DMCA Notice will notify FileFactory.com of particular facts in a document signed under penalty of perjury. We refer to this as a "Proper DMCA Notice." To Write a Proper DMCA notice, please provide the following information:

1. Identify yourself as either:

a. The owner of a copyrighted work(s), or

b. A person "authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

2. State your contact information, including your TRUE NAME, street address, telephone number, and email address.

3. Identify the copyrighted work that you believe is being infringed, or if a large number of works are appearing at a single website, a representative list of the works.

4. Identify the material that you claim is infringing your copyrighted work, to which you are requesting that FileFactory.com disable access over the World Wide Web.

5. Identify the location of the material on the World Wide Web by providing "information reasonably sufficient to permit FileFactory.com to locate the material."

6. State that you have "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agents, or the law."

7. State that the information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury.

Sign the notice with either a physical or electronic signature.

Sending The Proper DMCA Notice to the Designated Agent

To exercise your DMCA rights, you must send your Proper DMCA Notice to the following agent designated by FileFactory.com (the "Designated Agent".) The contact information for FileFactory.com's Designated Agent is:

Email: dmca@filefactory.com

What We Do When We Receive A Proper DMCA Notice

FileFactory.com will follow the procedures provided in the DCMA, which prescribed a notice and takedown procedure, subject to the webmaster's right to submit a Counter-notification claiming lawful use of the disabled works.

Notice and Takedown Procedure

It is expected that all users of any part of the FileFactory.com system will comply with applicable copyright laws. However, if FileFactory.com is notified of claimed copyright infringement, or otherwise becomes aware of facts and circumstances from which infringement is apparent, it will respond expeditiously by removing, or disabling access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity. FileFactory.com will comply with the appropriate provisions of the DMCA in the event a counter notification is received by its Designated Agent.

Notice to Users of FileFactory.com Systems

Pursuant to the Terms of Service Agreement you agreed to when you were permitted to become a System User, you are required to use only lawfully-acquired creative works as website content, and your website may be disabled upon receipt of notice that infringing material is appearing there. FileFactory.com also respects the legitimate interests of webmasters in utilizing media content lawfully, being permitted to present a response to claims of infringement, and obtaining timely restoration of access to a website that has been disabled due to a copyright complaint.

Your System Use privileges will also be suspended. You may protest a DMCA notice by submitting a Counter-notification as described below.

Writing and Submitting a Counter-notification

If access to your website is disabled due to operation of the FileFactory.com notice and takedown procedure described above, and you believe the takedown was improper, you must submit a Counter-notification.

Writing a Counter-notification

To Write a Proper Counter-notification, please provide the following information:

1. State that access to your website was disabled due to operation of the notice and takedown procedure.

2. Identify the material that has been removed and designate its URL prior to removal.

3. State, under penalty of perjury:

Your name, address, and telephone number,
That you "have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as result of mistake or misidentification of the material,"
That you "consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located."
Sending the Counter-notification

To exercise your DMCA rights, you must send your Counter-notification to the "Designated Agent" for FileFactory.com, whose contact information is:

Email: dmca@filefactory.com

Repeat Infringers

If a customer is violating the Company's DMCA Policy or any of the Terms & Conditions, they will be subject to immediate termination. Furthermore, repeat infringers will not be tolerated.

Accommodation of Standard Technical Measures

It is FileFactory.com's policy to accommodate and not interfere with standard technical measures it determines are reasonable under the circumstances, i.e., technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works.

Policy With Regard To Non-Compliant Communications

FileFactory.com has discretion to handle non-compliant notices in whatever manner appears to be reasonable given the circumstances presented.

Submission of Misleading Information

The submission of misleading information of any sort in a notification or counter-notification submitted to FileFactory.com voids any claim of right made by the submitting party.

February 19, 2009

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 3 - Megaupload

Part 3 - megaupload

We take abuse of our service very seriously. If you wish to report a copyright infringement, we need you to send us a proper notification. A proper notification MUST have at least the following information, or it may be IGNORED:

1: Identify yourself as either:
a: The owner of a copyrighted work(s), or
b: A person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

2: State your contact information, including your TRUE NAME, street address, telephone number, and email address.

3: Identify the copyrighted work that you believe is being infringed, or if a large number of works are appearing at a single website, a representative list of the works.

4: Identify the material that you claim is infringing your copyrighted work, to which you are requesting that Megaupload disable access over the World Wide Web.

5: Identify the material by its URL(s).

6: State that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agents, or the law.

7: State that the information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury.

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 2 - Rapidshare

Part 2 - Rapidshare

If you have reason to believe that one of our users is violating your copyrights or is using RapidShare to publish illegal contents, please send an e-mail to

Required information

Please note that we only follow up messages that meet the following requirements: abuse@rapidshare.com.

Please provide us with your name, address and telephone number.
Explain which copyrighted material is affected.
If it a case of files with illegal contents, please describe the contents briefly in two or three points.
Please provide the exact and complete RapidShare download link of the file
Give details of the address of the webpage that published the link.
If there are several RapidShare links, please include all links with complete details in your message. Please do not send any attachments. Simply insert the details in text format into the message.
(Example: http://rapidshare.com/files/123456/beispiel.jpg).
Please ensure that you can receive further enquiries from us at the e-mail address you are writing from.
Please only write to us in English or German.
Notice

Anonymous or incomplete messages will not be dealt with.
Thank you for your understanding.

Different Kinds of Copyright | Creative Commons

Creative Commons was founded in 2001

In December 2002, Creative Commons released its first set of copyright licenses for free to the public. Creative Commons developed its licenses — inspired in part by the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) — alongside a Web application platform to help you license your works freely for certain uses, on certain conditions; or dedicate your works to the public domain.

In the years following the initial release, Creative Commons and its licenses have grown at an exponential rate around the world. The licenses have been further improved, and ported to over 45 international jurisdictions.

Attitudes to Copyright | Part 1 - youtube

With the recent discussion about Youtube introducing an algorithim to detect copyrighted material - it was interesting to came across a "homemade video", which was basically just a splicing of different music videos interspersed with maybe 5% genuine self-made footage - with a pop song soundtracked on top, Erik Pryde's "Call on me".

It set me thinking about how different sites deal with such blatant copyright infringement, so taking; youtube, rapidshare and megaupload as examples.

I'll post their varying procedures with regard to dealing with policing the content on their sites.

Part 1 - youtube

This is a screenshot of how youtube deals with copyright infringement. I'm going to post the different approaches and then present an overview - to try and deduce a pseudo barometer with regard to copyright support and compliance amongst content host'ers and providers.

With the following text;

Copyright Infringement Notification
To file a copyright infringement notification with us, you will need to send a written communication that includes substantially the following (please consult your legal advisor or see Section 512(c)(3) of the US Copyright Act to confirm these requirements):

A physical or electronic signature of a person authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.
Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material. Providing URLs in the body of an email is the best way to help us locate content quickly.
Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Such written notice should be sent to our designated agent as follows:

DMCA Complaints
YouTube, Inc.
901 Cherry Ave.
Second Floor
San Bruno, CA 94066
Fax: 650.872.8513
Email: copyright@youtube.com

To expedite our ability to process your request, complaints may now also be submitted online at http://www.youtube.com/copyright_complaint_form. You will need a YouTube account to use this tool.

Please note that, under Section 512(f), any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity is infringing may be subject to liability for damages.

Please also note that the information provided in this legal notice may be forwarded to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content.

Claimant information will be published on the YouTube site in place of disabled content.

If there are many videos to be removed, or you expect to have an ongoing need to remove potentially infringing content from YouTube, we suggest that you sign up for our Content Verification Program, which electronically notifies us, removing any room for error, and significantly increases the speed at which we are able to remove any infringing content.

EU Copyright Law and Jazz