copyright: September 2007 Archives
CNN have an interview with the plaintiff's attorney here.
News.com.au reports that Virgin Mobile is being sued in the United States for invasion of privacy, because they used a Creative Commons-licensed photograph in their advertising, without permission from the subject of the photograph. Photographs of a young woman were captioned with "dump your pen friend" and "free virgin to virgin", which have allegedly caused grief and humiliation to Alison Chang and her church-going family.
This is an example of the advertisements in issue:
This is an example of the advertisements in issue:
This dispute has been brewing for a while now. Looks like it has well and truly hit the proverbial fan, and the results could be quite damaging to the Creative Commons movement. News reports indicate that Creative Commons are also named as defendants.
A few months ago, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor blogged as follows:
At a live concert in Sydney on 16 September, Reznor had this to say (I've sanitised the not-safe-for-work language):
A bootleg video from the concert, posted on youtube, is available below. To the extent that me embedding it constitutes "stealing", Trent Reznor told me to do it.
As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:This got a lot of media attention, including from Rolling Stone Magazine.
The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne's record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).
By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: "It's because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out - you know, true fans. It's the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy."
So... I guess as a reward for being a "true fan" you get ripped off.
At a live concert in Sydney on 16 September, Reznor had this to say (I've sanitised the not-safe-for-work language):
Last time I was here, I was doing a lot of complaining about the ridiculous prices of CDs down here. And that story got picked up and got carried all around the world and now my record label all around the world hates me, because I yelled at them, I called them out for being greedy [verb]ing [noun]holes.Another nail in the coffin of "we're protecting the artists" / "we're acting in the artist's best interests"? Authorisation of infringement? Yes on both counts.
I didn't get a chance to check, has the price come down at all?
[Chorus of "no!"'s from the crowd]
I see a no, a no, a no... Has anyone seen the price come down?
[Another chorus of "no!"'s from the crowd]
Okay, well, you know what that means - STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing. Because one way or another these [noun]s will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that that's not right.
[Cheers from the crowd]
I probably didn't make any friends by saying that...
A bootleg video from the concert, posted on youtube, is available below. To the extent that me embedding it constitutes "stealing", Trent Reznor told me to do it.
Groklaw reports that SCO (i.e. "we own linux! you pay now!") has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, ahead of an inevitable crushing defeat in their ill-fated litigation against Novell. The trial, which was due to continue on Monday, is now suspended. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Time will tell.
For your viewing pleasure, I present to you three utterly hilarious parodies of those insanely annoying "you wouldn't steal a car"-type "piracy" warnings that invariably appear on DVDs and in cinemas. The parodies were produced by /for the University of Sydney law revue 2007, and a big hat-tip to Abi Paramaguru from the UNSW Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre for bringing them to my notice on their House of Commons blog.
[Update: I originally misidentified the clips as being from the University of NSW law review, instead of University of Sydney. Apologies to the people at University of Sydney who put them together, and props for their fantastic work.]
Parody 1: You wouldn't deprecate your friend's chose in action
Parody 2: Over-the-top examples -- they're a crime
Parody 3: Finally, some real pirates.
[Update: I originally misidentified the clips as being from the University of NSW law review, instead of University of Sydney. Apologies to the people at University of Sydney who put them together, and props for their fantastic work.]
Parody 1: You wouldn't deprecate your friend's chose in action
Parody 2: Over-the-top examples -- they're a crime
Parody 3: Finally, some real pirates.
