This reminds me of aggressive technicians trying to convince me to install their bloatware on my computer in order to complete setting up internet connectivity 20+ years ago. One was completely baffled by my insistence that he was not going to be touching my computer, makes me laugh now.
I had the same question. The linked paper says they used gopher enclosures:
> In 1982, an individual pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides [Richardson]) from a nearby clearcut was placed in a 1m2 enclosure around a single L. lepidus individual for 24 hours
Right, plenty of the artists parodied by Weird Al are individuals. Any permission sought (or denials respected) are purely for goodwill, not legally required.
That said, Weird Al hasn't actually distributed unmodified trademarks of other entities, to my knowledge. Even if that would generally be problematic, the context of a "featured partners" list as in TFA probably falls below a threshold of likelihood of confusion which arises in other unauthorized uses of trademarks.
No, wrong. The approval of that target of the parody (Amish, McDonalds, CIA etc) are not legally required.
Case law suggests that he is required to (and he does), license artist's music.
He's not parodying Miley Cyrus in 'Party in the CIA'. He's parodying the CIA. Because the lyrics and track aren't the subject, licensing of the track is required.
Similarly, If Repaer used a licensed font on the site, they'd have to license it.
I'm not sure about that. The definition of parody hinges on imitating an author or work (sometimes a whole genre), rather than on satirizing/critiquing subject matter unrelated to the author/work being imitated. He could write a song satirizing/critiquing the CIA and if it happens to imitate a song/style of Miley, then it's a parody of the latter, not of the former. Or a parody of nothing at all, in the strictest definition, since he's not satirizing/critiquing that which he's imitating.
When it comes to music copyright, certain aspects are copyrightable (therefore requiring license to use) and other aspects are not. Words and melody are (so Weird Al would need to license Miley's melody if he doesn't modify it sufficiently), but rhythm/chords/timbre/style/etc. are not (so Weird Al wouldn't need to license anything if he is merely copying those things from Miley). I think Al makes some songs with a copied melody requiring licensing, and some songs without that in which case no permission of any kind is legally necessary.
Right. Protected uses are protected because they were necessary. The Weird Al track that comes to mind which could be protected (but does not need the protection because Al always secures permission for these works) is "Smells Like Nirvana" because that specifically needs to use Nirvana's track "Smells Like Teen Spirit" because it's a (well meant, like a comedy roast) critique of Nirvana and their song. "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss / With all these marbles in my mouth" is about Nirvana and about Smells Like Teen Spirit.
If you replace Smells Like Teen Spirit with Cliff Richards' "Saviours Day" it does not work, Cliff is not going to confuse and annoy your parents, his utterances aren't incomprehensible, and so on. The choice of song is necessary, which would justify protection.
Common misconception. As Philip points out, Al is only covered if he's making fun of the original song. "Smells like Nirvana" is a good example of a parody that didn't need approval (but Weird Al did anyway cuz he's a nice guy)
> Al is only covered if he's making fun of the original song
My only nitpick is to remove the word "only" because there is at least one other possibility where he's "covered" in the sense of not legally needing permission: whenever his work falls short of copying the words and/or melody of the original song. If he modifies the melody enough (there's no specific threshold, but let's say he avoids a run of 4+ notes with intervals identical to the original work) and also doesn't copy lyrics or any other copyrightable aspects, then he's covered. It's very possible to achieve a song that makes your audience know exactly what you're going for, without copying any of the copyrightable aspects: you can take the chords, rhythms, instrumentation, accent, etc.
In the case of Smells Like Nirvana, he takes the copyrighted melody, which would require permission but for the exception you pointed out.
If he is not including a SPAM logo or a Pentium logo on his products, then it's not trademark usage. These names are not themselves marks when spoken/written/etc. even if marks exist that contain these names.
If he is printing such marks on his products, then it comes down to the "likelihood of confusion" test: will a consumer be misled to believe that the SKU Al is selling contains the official meat or silicon? That would be trademark infringement. In TFA, the natural gas trademarks are merely listed as "featured partners" so there's not much likelihood of confusion where a consumer would be misled into thinking that they'll get genuine natural gas from this unauthorized merchant, in my estimation.
And specifically with respect to the law, breaking a law and claiming you didn't know you did anything wrong as an individual is not considered a valid defense in our justice system. This same type of standard should apply even more to trained law enforcement, not less, otherwise it becomes a double standard.
No this is breaking the law by saying this looked like one of the situations where I already know the law doesn't apply. If Google had looked at the actual image and said it was child porn instead of just saying it was similar to some image that is child porn this would be 100% legal as the courts have already said. That difference is subtle enough that I can see how someone would get it wrong (and in fact I would expect other courts to rule differently)
> Based on the data collected, the staff report said many companies assert that there are no children on their platforms because their services were not directed to children or did not allow children to create accounts.
Funny how they have advertising cohorts drilled into every niche interest or happening, but they just can't perfect the technology to determine if someone is a child. Very elusive tech they've definitely been working day and night to implement for years.
Almost like they benefit from acting blissfully ignorant.
>they just can't perfect the technology to determine if someone is a child
Oh they do. It's a very valuable demo and doubtlessly they worked day and night for years to perfect it. They want to shape the malleable minds of lifetime consumers. They have, with great success, for nearly a century.
Yes, this is a great idea. I grew up with a similar pattern where streets are mostly east-west and avenues are mostly north-south. But whenever I have explored new cities there always seems to be hidden patterns unique to that place, or at least new to me. And figuring out what they are sometimes takes more time than a short visit.
An example that bit me once, before smartphones and widespread gps, is that numbered streets and avenues in Phoenix both run north-south. The numbering gets higher in both directions as you move away from Central Ave, so the smaller numbered streets/aves are relatively close to one another. Very simple pattern indeed, but it was very surprising the first time I encountered it, didn't match my expectations I guess.
All of this sounds nice, but also ignores the details of the lost court case. When I learned more about the actual case details it really seemed like a strange hill to die on for the IA, and it was nearly inevitable they would lose. I think there was a very sensible middle ground the IA could have chosen to avoid it all while still sticking to their core mission.
I will claim that IA is an overly-sensible org because they fought this in court. That about show a healthy respect to the law, middlemen and authors to argue in the presence of a judge. For Publishers and middlemen, this is a hollow victory. Murky water.
Say for instance, I buy a book. I make a scanned copy and lend out the original. The person who borrowed the book, makes a copy and sends it back. I do this for 1 million times. I wasn't distributing copies, no one was distributing copies.
This is what we did in Uni. The class would contribute some small amount to the purchase of an original book. Then the person who bought the original with the classes money, made a copy, passing the original along. Within the week, every student had borrowed that book. And everyone had a copy. Do you see the murky water?
For a legal activist, government, or large company, the decision about whether to go to court is different than for individuals.
For an actor like that, you want to take cases that you can win to court, to establish precedent step by step. You want to settle cases you might lose out of court to avoid establishing precedent to your disadvantage. In this way, you can slowly change the interpretation of the law.
Taking this to court is seen as a mistake because it was a predictable loss and established a harsh precedent.
Internet Archive had lent books on a 1 reader for 1 physical copy basis for a long time, and the publishers didn't want to take it to court because the judge would need to weigh the rights of a person purchasing a physical good against copyright. They might no like the decision. It suited them to leave it untested.
Internet Archive chose to lend unlimited copies and pursue the matter to its conclusion in court rather than settling out of court.
Assuming Internet Archive were well advised, knew they would lose, and still chose to create this situation and go to court, you have to wonder why.
Are they trying to create an unacceptable legal precedent so that they can get the law changed? Some other reason I am not seeing?
Copying some parts of the book for educational purposes is allowed within fair use. Copying entire works isn't considered fair use.
A teacher buys a book which is a collection of worksheets. The teacher photocopies some worksheets out of the book to use in a non-profit educational environment. This is entirely fair use.
A teacher buys a copy of a textbook, photocopies the entire textbook, and hands it out to the class, that is not fair use because it is the entirety of the work.
Being the entirety of not is not always relevant to fair use. Of course a judge may take amount into account, especially when arguing damages, but fair use is a guideline to a judge not a set of well-defined rules (though collection societies love to print their own policies as being the rules...)
> fair use is a guideline to a judge not a set of well-defined rules
There are four factors of fair use. Factor three is the amount or substantiality is being copied. You're somewhat right there isn't an entirely objective standard to measure things, but there isn't exactly an objective measure to creativity.
You can't put something on a scale and get units of creativity a work has. You can't get a graduated stick and measure the creativity of a work.
If we're going to stretch the meaning of "stealing" to include situations where no one is being deprived of their property we might just as easily say that text book publishers have been "stealing" from the pockets of students for decades with the insane prices they charge.
The creators put in labour with the intention that their efforts would be recouped in the form of remuneration. You stole their labour simply because you could in do it in a way that is not easily visible/detectable. Theft of labour is still theft to me, be it Amazon or parasites on creative works that are the results of the cumulations of years of an individuals learning and mental effort to create something. There is a reason copyright was created. We wanted a mechanism where these people could be rewarded for their labour because having professional fiction writers/historians/philosophers benefits society.
When a creator's labor is recuperated yet they still seek payment via copyright due to the unreasonable length of time that is assigned, does the charging for further copies beyond manufacturing costs then count as theft?
Whatever you may think of what OP's buddies were doing, there is no way to apply any reasonable meaning of the word "stealing" to it.
There is indeed plenty murky here, and it is mostly coming from you in an attempt to incorrectly use an emotionally-loaded word in order to deceive people into supporting your position.
> emotionally-loaded word in order to deceive people into supporting your position
That's an entirely colourful way of phrasing it, considering I merely just said what I thought and have experienced, nor do I think I have the capacity to deceive at such a level. That is your opinion, and I accept it.
If we are going to use ridiculous definitions of stealing, I will have to point out that private, non-personal property - anything that you don't have direct personal possession and control over - is theft.
It's copyright infringement. It's not theft. Theft deprives an owner of use of an item.
When Bob puts in labour in order to make financial gain, and Tom takes the fruit of Bob's labour without paying what Bob has set the work of his labour as being worth.
Adding a parameter X to your definition expands it as follows:
> When Bob invests labor into X to generate financial gain, and Tom utilizes the results of Bob's labor on X without compensating Bob at his requested rate.
However, this definition becomes problematic for many values of X. Consider cases such as:
* Fashion styles
* Business models or store layouts
* Factory or house designs
* Cake decorating techniques
* Cooking methods
* Agricultural practices
In these examples and many others, the concept of "owning" the fruits of one's labor becomes murky. *Intellectual property laws were originally conceived to benefit society as a whole, not just individuals.* As our understanding of innovation and creativity evolves, we may find that some communities flourish better with more flexible approaches to intellectual property.
But Bob was paid. That's the point. Also most of 'intellectual' property is owned by corporations, not the creators.
If Bob prints a book and you take it without paying for it, that's stealing. If Bob prints a book and you buy it from Bob and you make copies of it and give it to your friends, that isn't stealing. And it shouldn't be classified as stealing, morally or legally.
The only reason it is considered illegal is because greedy corporate interests decided to make it so. Historically, people bought books and copied it and spread it around. That was the norm until fairly recently.
'Intellectual property' is theft. It is a fiction invented by the parasite class. Just think about it.
Bob's pay rate was agreed upon based on getting X number of sales, not one book.
You are promoting the parasiting off Bobs labor. You can try to justify it, but Bob worked expecting to get paid from those transactions, and they were taken away away because it was technologically easy to do. Bob/society expected payment to occur.
This is just moral pedantry. The law doesn't really mean anything if its not enforceable. Students pirate books all the time and face no legal consequences. Meanwhile, the good faith actors are punished with completely unreasonable book costs. At a certain point, you should point your finger towards an unfair system that leads to bad incentives, not students simply trying to learn.
The free flow of information is slowly being eroded by rights holders. If people don't find a way to stop being influenced by narratives that really only service this establishment, we will find ourselves, renting and not owning works of art. When rights to own and enjoy a creation on your terms gets taken away from you, the control over your life does as well.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, losing an appeal at this level sets precedent that does damage to the free flow of information. The best thing that the IA could have done to advance freedom would have been to bail as soon as it was apparent they had no chance to win (which was before the lawsuit was even filed).
That's not just a narrative that serves the establishment, it's a fact of life. We don't get anywhere towards change by ignoring the reality of the present situation—we have to work within reality in order to change reality.
Maybe. But this situation points to much larger problem, in my view. That people are starting to become accustom to common people rights erosion. Rights holders should not being wielding this kind of power against the public, at the end of the day they are still accountable to the public good, end of story.
I also order from Zenni and have never had to provide my doctor's info. They happily create lenses with whatever prescription I type in, and for me personally it usually takes a couple years for it to change enough to warrant new glasses. (I still get an exam annually)
Mozilla deletes promise to never sell Firefox data
Microsoft begins turning off uBlock Origin and other extensions in Edge
Looks like it will be an alternate browser kinda day in the top stories...