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Livestream does “guilt by accusation”

04 March 2010 in Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

Streaming video service Livestream emailed their customers today about their zero tolerance on piracy policy. It’s yet another instance of Big Media being able to implement guilt by accusation.

I’ve just asked Livestream a few question:

Some questions about your “zero tolerance on piracy” policy. This is a media enquiry so please consider your response “on record”.

My questions concern due process.

I notice that you give “trusted rights holders” a tool to automatically shut down channels at their own instigation. I also notice that your example trusted rights holders are “Fox, Disney, NBA, MLB, NFL, UEFA, International Olympic Committee, WWE, UFC, Warner Bros, English Premiere League and British Sky Broadcasting”, i.e. the big end of the commercial media industry.

Most importantly, I notice that anyone who believes that the shutdown was in error must appeal the case afterwards.

Surely this process is “guilt by allegation” and puts the burden of proof onto a channel holder who is likely to have fewer legal resources than a big media player? Yet in most copyright regimes a channel holder may have legitimate “fair dealing” rights to rebroadcast material, such as for academic purposes, news reporting, review, or even satire.

When developing your policy, what input did you seek from people outside Big Media?

What processes do you have in place to perform follow-up “spot checks” of channel shutdowns? Do you actively contact channel holders for their side of the story? Do you inform channel holders of their legitimate “fair dealing” rights?

How long on average does it take you to process an appeal against a shutdown? What has been the longest time it has taken, and what was that case?

What assurances must “trusted rights holders” give to earn that trust? What training or other direction are they given in the legitimate rights of channel holders? What penalties do you impose on “trusted rights holders” who misuse the automatic shutdown tool?

Since it was introduced, how many times has the automatic shutdown tool been used? How many times have channel holders appealed against the shutdown? How many times has the shutdown been determined to have been in error? How many times have penalties been imposed on “trusted rights holders”?

You say:

Livestream’s mission is to provide the premiere interactive live streaming platform for every event owner, broadcaster and premium rights holder in the music, movie, newspaper, radio and television industries.

But what about the rest of your customers, those who are not “premium” rights holders? What assurances can you give them that their legitimate rights will be upheld?

I’ll let you know when Livestream responds.

Patch Monday: iiNet: The whys and what nows

09 February 2010 in Film, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

ZDNet Australia logo: click for Patch Monday episode 29

The iiNet decision was clearly the biggest IT news story last week, so this week’s Patch Monday podcast includes a comprehensive explanation.

My special guest is Peter Black, who teaches internet law at the Queensland University of Technology. But before you get to listen to him, you can endure my summary of Justice Dennis Cowdroy’s full decision.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please, let me know what you think. We now accept audio comments too. Either Skype to “stilgherrian” or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.

Crikey: iiNet’s win over the movie industry

09 February 2010 in Film, Internet, Media by Stilgherrian | No comments

Crikey logo

It’s almost old news now, but last Thursday the Federal Court ruled that internet service providers (ISPs) are not responsible for the copyright infringements done by their customers.

The full decision by Justice Dennis Cowdroy is almost 200 pages long, yet I found it relatively easy to read and learned a lot.

I’ve written three stories for Crikey so far:

  1. iiTrial: ISPs not responsible for users’ copyright infringement, which was published just a few hours after the decision was handed down. It’s the basic facts of the decision.
  2. iiNet decision a slapdown for AFACT, movie industry, which focuses on Justice Cowdroy’s comprehensive criticism of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) — not just the way they conducted themselves in court but their whole approach to dealing with copyright infringement.
  3. Conroy tells movie industry, ISPs to kiss and make up, published yesterday. AFACT looked like they expected the government to intervene, but communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy is instead asking the movie and ISP industries to negotiate a code of practice themselves, presumably via the Internet Industry Association.

I daresay I’ll be writing more soon. Meanwhile, if you have any questions…

Talking Mininova and BitTorrent on Radio National

03 December 2009 in Internet, Media, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

ABC logo

I know, I know… So many of my posts recently have been about me doing media stuff elsewhere. But maybe that’s a good thing.

This morning I was one of the people interviewed in a story on ABC Radio National Breakfast about the recent Dutch legal decision against Mininova, a BitTorrent tracker site.

The story was produced by Oscar McLaren, and you can listen to it online.

Tikatok to return copyright to creators

25 November 2009 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 1 comment

Following up yesterday’s post about Tikatok, where I pointed out what I considered to be their overly-greedy grab for intellectual property rights over their users’ content, it turns out they’re changing that User Agreement.

Tikatok community manager Neal Grigsby writes:

I am Neal Grigsby, the community manager for Tikatok. I wanted to thank you and your readers for your comments about Tikatok’s User Agreement, and to let you know that we are in the process of updating the User Agreement to reflect that authors will own all original materials that they submit to Tikatok. Tikatok will own any underlying Tikatok templates that are used by the author while on www.tikatok.com, as well as any other content that is licensed from third parties by Tikatok.

That sounds more like an appropriate balance to me. I’ll post a link to the new policy when it appears.

Tikatok profts from your child’s unpaid labour

24 November 2009 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 21 comments

[Update 25 November 2009: Tikatok is in the process of revising its User Agreement to reflect that authors will own all original materials that they submit. See the comment from Tikatok's Neal Grigsby.]

Screenshot of Tikatok website: click to visit website

“Always read the fine print,” we’re told. Too bloody right when it comes to scummy websites like Titatok. Watch out, kids, they’re stealing your creativity!

On the surface it looks pleasant enough. Smiling kiddies, pastel colours and the chance to share your child’s creativity with friends and family. But read the terms and conditions and you’ll soon see that the slogan “Capture your child’s creativity” is literally true.

Your child’s creativity will be captured. By Tikatok. They’ll profit by using your children for unpaid child labour.

Check out this section of their User Agreement with my emphasis added:

V. Ownership of Submissions

Certain areas of the Site will permit you to send materials to Tikatok such as stories and drawings. Upon submission, all creations, ideas, concepts, notes, drafts, stories, artwork, drawings, photographs or other information of any nature (collectively, the “Submissions”), submitted by an author to the Site shall be deemed to be, and shall remain, the property of Tikatok, and the author will be deemed for all purposes to have assigned all of his or her worldwide right, title and interest in and to such Submissions to Tikatok and waived any “moral” or author’s rights therein. None of the Submissions shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of Tikatok, and Tikatok shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of all or part of the Submissions. Without limiting the foregoing, Tikatok shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the Submissions of every kind and nature throughout the world, and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Submissions for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to the provider of the Submissions.

The book or on-line display of the book on the Site will contain a notice substantially in the following form: “Copyright © 2009 by Tikatok LLC. All rights reserved.”

Yes, that’s right. Anything you give to Tikatok they claim as theirs. Upload a family photo or your child’s stories and drawings, and Tikatok will be able to do whatever they like with it, including sell it for profit, without any payment to you or even any acknowledgement.

Don’t you think that’s just a little bit disgusting?

I think this is appalling. Especially when Tikatok is focussed on the creative output of children. And specially when they’ve got the gall to say, further down in their User Agreement:

You may not use the Site for commercial purposes.

Now it’s common enough when you enter a competition, say, for your submissions to be licensed to promote that competition or the sponsor. That’s the exchange — in return for your chance of winning the prize. But this is naked theft. From children. I spit upon them.

As I say, always read the fine print!

[Hat-tip to Stephen Loosley for spotting this outrage.]

Links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009

01 November 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | 2 comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 22 October 2009 through 27 October 2009, published after far too long a break. I really, really do need to work out a better way of doing this…

Links for 15 October 2009 through 19 October 2009

20 October 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 15 October 2009 through 19 October 2009, gathered with bile and soaked in vinegar:

  • 50 Years of Space Exploration | Flickr: A brilliant infographic summarising interplanetary exploration. In an excellent demonstration of Chaos, the landing on asteroid 443 Eros is accidentally tagged as “443 Eris”. All hail Discordia!
  • They Shoot Porn Stars Don’t They: Susannah Breslin’s fascinating and somewhat challenging feature article on the recession-hit US porn industry.
  • ISP in file-sharing wi-fi theft | BBC News: UK ISP TalkTalk staged a wireless stunt, illustrating why it thinks Lord Mandelson’s plans to disconnect illegal file sharers is “naive”. It’s easy to blame others just by hacking WiFi connections.
  • Prince Philip tussles with technology | ABC News: This story is a few days old, however I found it curious that a perfectly good story about the design of technology was tagged as “offbeat” and the teaser written to make Prince Phillip look like a silly old man.
  • NPR News Staff Social Media Policy: Another example of a good corporate social media policy. There’s plenty of these policies around now, so there’s no excuse for any big organisation not to have caught up.
  • Federal Court of Australia Judgements: Some judgements have been recorded on video. “The Court is keen to continue to improve public access with the use of live streaming video/audio. Further live and archived broadcasts of judgement summaries are posted on this page as they become available.”
  • Televised Patel trial an Australian first | ABC News: The trial of Dr Jayent Patel for manslaughter to be held in a Brisbane court will be shown in Bundaberg, where the deaths happened, via closed-circuit TV. Given this “local interest”, one wonders why it couldn’t also be available anywhere there were interested parties.
  • Vivian Maier – Her Discovered Work: Maier was a Chicago street photographer from the 1950s to 1970s who died earlier this year. Some 40,000 negatives have been found, and they’e now being blogged.
  • 100 years of Big Content fearing technology — in its own words | Ars Technica: Copyright-holders have objected to pretty much every advance in media technology, it seems.
  • Mac Sales Spike When A New Version Of Windows Comes Out | Business Insider: A curious interpretation of the figures, but they reckon that when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows it drives people to buy Macs instead.
  • The Federal Trade Commission’s Coming War on Bloggers | Valleywag: While I normally don’t read Valleyway, I caught someone mentioning this article and was caught by one useful new term: conceptual gerrymandering. If the US FTC wants to give tax breaks to “news organisations” they’ll have to define what they are. Could it be old journalists versus bloggers battle writ large?

Links for 15 October 2009

15 October 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Here are the web links I’ve found for 15 October 2009, posted almost automatically. Almost

Why AFACT v iiNet is important

12 October 2009 in Internet, Politics by Stilgherrian | No comments

Crikey logo

Oh, in case you’re wondering, this legal case AFACT v iiNet is about online copyright infringement — that is, illegal file sharing — and whether ISPs do enough to stop it. Its result will set important precedents for the entire telecommunications industry, as well as your expectations of privacy online.

I wrote a backgrounder for Crikey last week, which is free to read.

If iiNet loses, all ISPs could be hit with similar claims worth millions of dollars. That cost, and the cost of additional monitoring, would be passed on to customers. The hearing is expected to last until mid-November. Judge’s rulings are expected early next year.

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