Wanna bet you're not infringing someone's copyright this very minute?

[thatcrazycajun]

So says a study reported on at BoingBoing.com by way of TechDirt.com here. The gist of it is that current copyright law in the USA and elsewhere, even with the enactment of the now-notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act (fill in your own derisive alternate acronym for "DMCA" here), has still not kept up with current understanding and practice of the concept of intellectual property. Thus even seemingly innocuous actions all or most of us commit on a daily basis—including right here in LJ-land, with things like that userpic I have up there—could open us up to literally billions of dollars in liability each year, were the letter of the law to be completely, strictly and uniformly enforced:

"Replying to an email with quoted text? Infringement! Reply to 20 emails? You're looking at $3 million in statutory damages. Doodle a sketch of a building? Unauthorized derivative work. Read a poem out loud? Unauthorized performance. Forward a photograph that a friend took? Infringement! Take a short film of a birthday dinner with some friends and catch some artwork on the wall in the background? Infringement!"

You get the idea. So watch it, bub...
♫ "Next time they sing you a song with your birthday cake,
Hope they remembered to pay B-M-I!" ♪

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

BMI and ASCAP can kiss my furry little butt. I don't pay fatcat middlemen who charge outrageous royalties and throw the writers crumbs and the performers less. When I can, I buy directly from the performer/writer; when I can't, I use places like CD Baby (in Canada) who have reasonable deals with their artists. (Unless I know a given artist has a good deal, like say, Big and Rich or Jimmy Buffett, the latter of which owns his own label (Mail Boat)...) I do talk up acts I like, and encourage folks to do as I do... buy direct, don't pay middlemen.

Besides, the copyright has long since lapsed on the tune to the Volga Boatmen, and the lyrics have lost their attribution and become PD, AFAIK. Any other birthday song is for WIMPS!

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

There are a number of attorneys who would dispute whether several of those cases infringe. IANAL, but here's how I understand them:

The doctrine of fair use likely covers the casein which you are quoting an email. The line between fair use and infringement is unclear, although it's fairly certain that the case for infringement is stronger if you quote the entire email, rather than just a portion that's necessary to convey the sense you need.

Doodling a sketch of a building as infringement is crap. Unless you are specifically doing commercial work -- that is, planning to SELL your sketch, of course. In which case I'd consult an attorney regarding artistic freedoms and expression.

Reading a poem depends greatly on the venue, the copyright status of the work (and if the poem had fallen into public domain, I would guess that a publisher's claim that because you selected THEIR version you've violated their copyright is more fertilizer), and of course, the purpose of the reading.

Forwarding a photograph? It helps to get permission; if it's a photo of YOU, there's also your interest in your own image. Questionable at best.

Copyright attorneys and the holders of copyrights have gotten WAY out of hand, and a couple of good spanks in the wallet where they try to pursue some of these nonsense suits would be good for the public understanding.