Concerned About Fair Use in Copyright Law? Then Say What You Mean

According to a new report released today by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), it is misleading to complain about "fair use" obstructions in copyright without specifying what type of fair use is being abused.

"Those claiming that 'fair use is hurt' by legislation, litigation or technology need to say what they mean when they talk about fair use, identifying the types of use that will be affected and justifying why that use is fair," says Lee A. Hollaar, author of the IPI report "What's Fair?" and professor of computer science at the University of Utah.

"Without doing so, it is impossible for those proposing legislation to try to meaningfully consider fair use."

Too often, fair use discussions stop at the "fair use" reference and do not identify a "particular use," a "transformative fair use," an "economic fair use," or a "fair use of necessity."

Take the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), for example. Critics often rail about the bill's supposed "fair use restrictions" like preventing film critics from copying movie scenes into a review, or inhibiting instructors from creating a compilation disk of movie scenes for students.

Measured against a specific type of fair use abuse, these DMCA complaints have no grounding. These criticisms are more restrictions on convenience rather than a particular fair use concern, and "Convenience is not a part of the fair use analysis," reminds Hollaar.

Hollaar concludes: "Without knowing the nature of the fair use allegedly being hurt, it is impossible to assess valid arguments, or whether there are alternatives to lessen the impact of the restrictions."

The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) is a national, free-market think-tank based in Dallas, TX. Copies of the report, "What's Fair," are available online at http://www.ipi.org

Two Defendants Plead Guilty In Internet Music Piracy Crackdown

Two defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully reproduce and distribute copyrighted music over the Internet.

Arthur Gomez, 25, of La Habra, Calif., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema. His sentencing has been scheduled for July 13, 2007, at 9:00 a.m. Sergey Ribiakost, 21, of Bardonia, N.Y., pleaded guilty on April 17, 2007, before U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris. His sentencing is scheduled for July 10, 2007, at 1:00 p.m. Both defendants pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and face up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.

Gomez and Ribiakost were leading members in the illegal software, game, movie and music trade online, commonly referred to as the warez scene. The defendants were active members of the pre-release music group Apocalypse Crew (APC), one of a handful of organized online criminal groups that acted as "first-providers" of much of the pirated music available on the Internet.

Ribiakost and Gomez represent the 46th and 47th convictions resulting from Operation FastLink, an ongoing federal crackdown against the organized piracy groups responsible for most of the first stage of illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music on the Internet.

Operation FastLink has resulted, to date, in more than 120 search warrants executed in 12 countries; the confiscation of hundreds of computers and illegal online distribution hubs; and the removal of more than 50 million dollars worth of illegally copied software, games, movies and music from illicit distribution channels. Operation FastLink is the culmination of multiple FBI undercover investigations, including an investigation into online pre-release music groups led by FBI agents from the Washington field office.

Reports of Spider-Man 3 Piracy

Statement from Sony Pictures Entertainment Regarding Reports of Spider-Man 3 Piracy:

Contrary to news reports about stolen copies of Spider-Man 3 being sold illegally on the streets in China, our investigation in China has revealed no case of the film being pirated to date.
Similar hoaxes and false alarms have occurred prior to the release of other major films. We have uncovered examples of Spider-Man 2 being sold in Spider-Man 3 boxes in China. But thus far we can find no instance where Spider-Man 3 has appeared on DVD.

In addition, after an initial investigation of online sites worldwide, we have so far found no pirated copies of Spider-Man 3 on the Internet.

This incident underscores one of the problems with piracy -- people who buy illegal movies often get ripped off themselves.

Operator of For-Profit Software Piracy Web Site Sentenced to 24 Months in Prison

The owner of a massive for-profit software piracy Web site was sentenced in federal court to 24 months in prison.

Ronnie A. Knott, 36, of Salt Lake City, was convicted of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee to serve 24 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release.

Beginning in at least early 2005 and continuing until its shutdown by the FBI in May 2006, Knott operated a business called both "Smart PC" and "CDBackups," which provided paid "subscribers" access to infringing copies of software products that were copyrighted by companies such as Adobe Systems Inc., Apple Computer Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and Symantec Corporation. Subscribers paid as much as $125 per month in order to gain unlimited access to all the software on the site, which they could download freely. Knott admitted that he received approximately $20,000 in "subscription fees" for providing this access.

The investigation, which was conducted by agents of the FBI's Washington Field Office, involved an undercover agent who became a subscriber to Knott's service and was able to download more than $30,000 worth of pirated software. Using evidence of the FBI's undercover purchases as probable cause, Knott's operation was taken down in May 2006. Further investigation established that Knott had illegally reproduced copyrighted software with a retail value of nearly $2.5 million.

Extradited Software Piracy Ringleader Pleads Guilty

The leader of one of the oldest and most renowned Internet software piracy groups has pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement charges, in one of the first ever extraditions for an intellectual property offense.

Hew Raymond Griffiths, 44, a British national living in Bateau Bay, Australia, was extradited from Australia in February 2007 to face criminal charges in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. He pleaded guilty today before U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement. If convicted on both counts, Griffiths could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. Prior to his arrival in the United States, he had spent nearly three years incarcerated at a detention center in Australia while fighting his extradition in Australian court. Judge Hilton set a sentencing date for June 22, 2007 at 9:00 a.m.

Griffiths was the leader of an organized criminal group known as DrinkOrDie, which had a reputation as one of the oldest security-conscious piracy groups on the Internet. DrinkOrDie was founded in Russia in 1993 and expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. The group was dismantled by the Justice Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of Operation Buccaneer in December 2001, with more than 70 raids conducted in the U.S. and five foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Australia. To date, Operation Buccaneer has resulted in more than 30 felony convictions in the United States and 11 convictions of foreign nationals overseas. Prior to its dismantling, DrinkOrDie was estimated to have caused the illegal reproduction and distribution of more than $50 million worth of pirated software, movies, games and music.

Griffiths, known by the screen nickname "Bandido," was a longtime leader of DrinkOrDie and an elder in the highest echelons of the underground Internet piracy community, also known as the warez scene. He held leadership roles in several other well-known warez groups, including Razor1911 and RiSC. In an interview published in December 1999 by an online news source, he boasted that he ran all of DrinkOrDie's day-to-day operations and controlled access to more than 20 of the top warez servers worldwide. In fact, Griffiths claimed to reporters that he would never be caught.

Griffiths admitted that he oversaw all the illegal operations of DrinkOrDie, which specialized in cracking software and distributing the cracked versions over the Internet. Once cracked, these software versions could be copied and used without limitation. Members stockpiled the illegal software on huge Internet computer storage sites that were filled with tens of thousands of individual software, game, movie and music titles worth millions of dollars. The group used encryption and an array of other sophisticated technological security measures to hide their activities from law enforcement.

This case was investigated by the Washington field office of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) in conjunction with the Customs Cybercenter in Fairfax, Va.

This case is being prosecuted by Deputy Chief Michael DuBose and trial attorney Jay Prabhu of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Wiechering of the Eastern District of Virginia.

Copyright Infringement Detection for Online Video

Autonomy Corporation plc has released Virage Automatic Copyright Infringement Detection (ACID). Virage ACID enables copyright owners such as broadcasters, production houses and publishers to maintain control of their Intellectual Property by automating the detection of illegal distribution of copyrighted material on the Internet.

ACID offers a fast, accurate and scalable method of detecting breaches of copyright, wherever they are located and whatever format they are in. By automatically detecting any rich media that infringes an organization's copyright, Virage ACID eliminates the need for content owners to spend hours trawling through video sharing websites, or manually scanning p2p file contents.

Unlike many Digital Rights Management solutions, the system does not rely on watermarking and so is not undermined by random noise or format and codec changes.

Fifth Guilty Plea in P2P Piracy Crackdown

A fifth defendant has pleaded guilty in connection with Operation D-Elite, the first criminal enforcement action targeting individuals committing copyright infringement on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network using BitTorrent technology, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Eric F. Melgren for the District of Kansas announced today.

Sam Kuonen, 24, of Columbus, Ga., pleaded guilty to a two-count felony information charging him with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement in violation of the Family Entertainment Copyright Act. The plea was entered before Judge Carlos Murguia, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Kansas. Mr. Kuonen faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 16, 2007 at 10:30 a.m.

On May 25, 2005, federal agents shut down the Elite Torrents network by taking control of its main server. After seizing the server, authorities replaced the existing Web page with a law enforcement message announcing that "This Site Has Been Permanently Shut Down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." Within only one week, the law enforcement message was viewed over half a million times.