A pair of interesting cases about bail bond reform.
Tossing this here because it will likely be relevant at some point.
Yes. That’s how the law is supposed to work.
Probably shouldn’t have been able to be sheriff without knowing that.
IANAL, and I may not fully grasp this, but I haven’t seen anything to indicate that this makes any difference for anybody.
The main problem with youtube isn’t whether or not reaction / criticis videos are fair use (they clearly are, and the judge’s ruling was pretty unambiguous). The main problem is that youtube’s policies allow takedowns or disable ad revenue based on DMCA claims. There’s nothing about the ruling (full ruling available linked from here) that indicates any damages to youtube, or anything that would make them change their policies.
Fair use is still an affirmative defense, and it still requires enormous financial resources to challenge copyright infringement claims. The only potentially applicable thing here is the discussion of “good-faith belief” w/r/t DMCA claims (and thus liability for the defendant’s legal fees?), but that only applies to the charge of DMCA misrepresentation. The lawsuit establishes that the defendants had good faith belief that it was NOT infringing, but AFAICT doesn’t address whether the original takedown claim was a misrepresentation (i.e. it doesn’t address if there was a good-faith belief behind the original takedown claim:
In other words, a copyright holder is not liable for misrepresentation under the DMCA if they subjectively believe the identified material infringes their copyright, even if that belief is ultimately mistaken.
It’s possible that this lawsuit could be cited to establish that future DMCA takedown claims were not made in good-faith? But that seems like something that’s at least one degree removed from this ruling. It seems like a claimant can just say “yes, but I thought this case was different because X, Y, Z”, and be covered. And that’s not even considering the enormous up-front costs of the defendant pursuing the lawsuit in the first place, even if those fees are eventually re-couped. Such a precedent might stop small guys from harassing other small guys, but I doubt it has much impact on the big copyright holders (game publishers, etc).
I haven’t heard any actual lawyers weigh in on this, just tech reporters and youtube types, so I’d appreciate actual experts telling me if this matters or not.
The EFF, which is normally all over DMCA cases, hasn’t put anything out that I can see.
I spoke to my wife about the case (a lawyer, but not a copyright lawyer), and she noted that it’s possible that this is relevant in the general case if this is the first time such a fair use case involving youtube has been litigated (i.e. not settled).
Looking up some EFF resources, it looks like there’s a previous ruling (from the 9th circuit court, which is a higher court than the Klein case) from June 2015 in Lenz v. Universal, which asserts that (emphasis mine):
Because 17 U.S.C. § 107 created a type of non-infringing use, fair use is ‘authorized by the law’ and a copyright holder must consider the existence of fair use before sending a takedown notification under § 512 (c)."
So, w/r/t DMCA misrepresentation, there was already a standard that fair use needs to be considered before sending a takedown notice. Since this ruling didn’t actually rule that misrepresentation occurred in the Klein case, it hasn’t changed the standard there.
The Klein’s are claiming that this may be the first such ruling on a “reaction” video. The court’s ruling is that the reaction video format is unambiguously fair use (with some quality judicial shade: “Irrespective of whether one finds it necessary, accurate, or well-executed, the Klein video is nonetheless criticism and commentary on the Hoss video.”). It’s possible that this makes some of the standards of Lenz v. Universal apply to a new class of video, and may make suprious takedown notifications somewhat less likely, but AFAIK the Lenz ruling hasn’t lead to any change in Youtube’s policies around Content ID or monetization, and this certainly won’t either.
Interesting lawyerly scam run on Amazon (presumably to disrupt a competitor):
Shortly before Amazon Prime Day in July, the owner of the Brushes4Less store on Amazon’s marketplace received a suspension notice for his best-selling product, a toothbrush head replacement.
The email that landed in his inbox said the product was being delisted from the site because of an intellectual property violation. In order to resolve the matter and get the product reinstated, the owner would have to contact the law firm that filed the complaint.
But there was one problem: the firm didn’t exist.
I’m putting Free Speech stuff here because fuck a new thread.
Angela Merkel‘s German government has decided to crush digital freedom of speech to silence opposing voices ahead of an election. The measures taken by the German government have chilling consequences for digital freedom worldwide – and Vladimir Putin‘s regime has already began to copy them.
But you know, that European Freedom of Speech is just as good, if not better than what the US has. No way having the government in charge of what you can legally say could turn out bad. No sir.
Also:
https://twitter.com/serokepyd/status/899191064518701056
https://twitter.com/thefnorder/status/910866884383227904
As a German … This popehat post is unbelievable. I agree that the law in question is super shitty and should be repealed. But the supposed motive I can’t agree with. This is not about political dissent but a serious problem with right wing fake news. The solution they went with, as usual in the country where politicians just don’t get how the internet works, does not address the problem and creates far to many loopholes and possible misuse. It is not the first time they signed a law that will be cancelled later because it is not agreeable with European law or the German Constitution.
Stick with passwords.
This is just insane
I’m somewhat convinced by the argument that it’s no different than requiring someone to provide a key to a safe, with a warrant of course.
How will FaceID change things? You could close your eyes when the cops hold the phone up to your face and that would prevent it from unlocking. Can the police force you to open your eyes?
“Patriot Clamps”
If I could even anymore, well… this would’ve ended that. Thankfully I lost that ability a couple months ago.
Edit:
Seriously though, is this real life?