Pixelization

Respect Copyright Law: Don't Print Your Own Canadian Money

Of all the reasons not to churn out banknotes in your own cellar, worries about liability for copyright infringement never occurred to me. 

Until my wife and I took our two boys up to Winnipeg for the weekend.

Although we could probably have made it through the weekend on credit cards, I was super psyched about getting a wad of Canadian currency out of an ATM machine. 

To experience the full excitement of traveling abroad, you've got to have a pocket full of unfamiliar money. Nevermind that their pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters look almost identical to U.S. coins. And put aside the fact that the exchange rate right now between the U.S. and Canada is almost exactly one-to-one. I was still excited to use different cash.

Inspecting the colorful bills, I got a delightful surprise: a copyright notice!

Aspiring counterfeiters be warned – the bills are copyrighted by the Bank of Canada! That will make you think twice before xeroxing off a sheaf of north-of-the-border moola. 

In the United States, we discourage that sort of thing with specially crafted counterfeiting laws. Under these laws, you can be arrested by Secret Service agents who, in proving their mettle to make the presidential security detail, will take you down in broad daylight in a swarm of dark suits and sunglasses while never ceasing to speak covertly into their earpieces. 

The Secret Service is all business. To my knowledge, they've never waterboarded anyone, but if they did, you can be sure they would do it without taking off their ties or unbuttoning their collars. 

If you counterfeit money in Canada, you could, apparently, get sued for copyright infringement. Don't think just because Canadians say "sorry" a lot that they will go easy on you. They will be all over you like the RIAA on a mother of two who downloaded a couple dozen songs from the internet.

But honestly speaking, of all the absurd and hyperactive claims of copyright, I think this has got to take the cake. Now, I have no doubt about the law. I am not a student of Canadian copyright law, but I am quite sure the Bank of Canada is entitled to the copyright in their currency designs. But under the Berne Convention, Canada does not need to use a copyright notice to have copyright protection. And to the extent the copyright notice is designed to have evidentiary value in a lawsuit, it's just funny.

And more to the point, why would Canada care to assert a copyright claim over their bills anyway? What possible copying of Canadian banknotes could there be that does not constitute protected fair use or criminally prosecutable counterfeiting? 

The only thing I can think of that might fall between the cracks would be if some lazy foreign government decided to rip off Canadian currency designs to avoid the the annoyance of having to come up with their own. But there are two glaring problems with this argument. 

Princess Joan, one-third the population of Sealand, on her principality's coinage.

First, the smaller a country is, the more fired-up it gets about designing its own money. 

For instance, the dubiously sovereign Principality of Sealand – perched on an abandoned gun platform in the English channel, population three – has far more coin denominations and stamp issues than people. 

Second, to be blunt, no third-world nation out there wants to put an engraving of pond hockey on their banknotes. 

(Sorry.)

Konomarked photovoice from Michigan State

A Michigan State student, Ross Kraynak, has used the konomark for a couple of great video pieces he’s posted to the internet.

One is a “photovoice” contrasting the daily life of a refugee with that of the filmmaker’s. It’s a wonderfully engaging piece. I especially like the sound editing.

The other konomarked video is a media workpart – a crowd scene useful as b-roll. The footage was taken at celebrations after Michigan State beat UConn in the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four tournament. It’s an excellent example of the kind of thing that video producers would be hard pressed to create from scratch, but that is inexpensive to capture if someone seizes the opportunity when it arises.

The konomark means that Kraynak is inviting you to ask him if you can use the video as part of your own production for free. An FAQ about konomark is at konomark.org. 

Seeing Kraynak’s video’s made me realize that I should post some higher-resolution konomark graphics so that it is easier to konomark film and print media. Those graphics are now available at konomark.org.

Unsettling Settlement Unsettled

In May I wrote about some of my qualms with the proposed Google Book Search settlement. I am happy to hear through the law-professor grapevine that the parties have asked the court to delay the settlement hearing, which was to take place on October 7, 2009, so that they can revise their proposal.

The last straw was apparently the DOJ's objections, which are, in my mind right on. Especially this:

Google’s competitors are unlikely to be able to obtain comparable rights independently. They would face the same problems – identifying and negotiating with millions of unknown individual rightsholders – that Google is seeking to surmount through the Settlement Proposal. Nor is it reasonable to think that a competitor could enter the market by copying books en masse without permission in the hope of prompting a class action suit that could then be settled on terms comparable to the Proposed Settlement. Even if there were reason to think history could repeat itself in this unlikely fashion, it would scarcely be sound policy to encourage deliberate copyright violations and additional litigation as a means of obtaining approval for licensing provisions that could not otherwise be negotiated lawfully.

I am glad that not only is the DOJ giving this serious scrutiny, but so are a group of law professors. James Grimmelmann at NYLS has put together a great conference in New York, October 8-10, 2009. This is legal scholarship at its best – providing independent, scholarly scrutiny of incredibly complex issues that affect the public interest.

Feeling Handy

To my students, I'm an intellectual-property law professor. But to my mom, I'm a handy son who helps with projects around the house.

 

I was over at my mom's house helping her hook up her new LCD panel television and TiVo HD. But there was a problem. I couldn't get the new TiVo to work through the TV's HDMI jacks. HDMI is, I understand the preferred way to connect things to achieve the best quality. Finally, I got the picture to come through. But with this message:

HDMI Not Permitted

The TV or audio receiver is not compatible with HDCP digital rights management standards. Unplug the HDMI cable between the DVR and the TV or audio receiver.

Use the supplied component video cable instead to connect video from the DVR to the TV. You will need to connect a separate cable to the same TV input for audio. 

If you need help, see the Start Here poster or visit TiVo Customer Support.

"I'll be darned," I told my mom. "You're having an intellectual property problem."

There are so many great things about life in the new millennium. And then there is DRM.

Google Book Search and Contractual Voodoo

Let's say that you have a good idea for an internet application, but it would involve infringing millions of copyrights. You'd like to negotiate a deal, but there are hundreds of thousands of people with whom you'd have to negotiate. So what do you do? 

Here's an idea: Find just one or two agents to represent all the copyright holders with whom you'd like to negotiate. These superagents do not actually get people's permission to represent them ... that would be impractical. Instead, these agents simply declare themselves to be representatives of the copyright holders. Then you and the agents hammer out and sign a contract that binds all of the copyright holders. 

There is, obviously, one big problem with this plan. It is completely preposterous. Contract law does not allow for it. It is elementary that you cannot bind someone to a deal without their consent. 

Yet Google, with their Google Book Search program, is on the verge of accomplishing just such a feat of contractual voodoo. How? Through a proposed settlement agreement of a class-action lawsuit.

If, before launching Book Search, Google had filed a declaratory-judgment action to determine whether they were on solid legal footing, Google's prospects might have been quite meager.

But Google did not do this. Instead, the folks at Google went with a much more promising brute-force approach: Google debuted their service, grew it steadily, and attracted admirers. Having taken command of the status quo, they sat back and waited to be sued. When Google was inevitably hailed into court, it finally had someone across the table with whom it could negotiate. And negotiate it has. The 141-page settlement agreement is the licensing agreement that Google could never have reached otherwise. 

Class actions are a necessity for certain kinds of disputes. And there undoubtedly needs to be a way for all disputes – class-action suits included – to be settled. But this is not a case where what's done is done and the courts must make the best of a bad situation by creating some final resolution to set the matter to rest. Google Book Search is not, for instance, a toxic spill or a cancer cluster that can't be undone. The harm can be stopped immediately. Specifically, if Google Book Search infringes copyrights, Google can pull the plug on it tomorrow. 

So as a settlement agreement, this one strikes me as somewhat fishy. 

I like Google Book Search. I see it as a social good of substantial magnitude. But that doesn't make the settlement agreement wholesome. It calls for careful scrutiny. The final fairness hearing is on October 7, 2009, and objections must be filed by September 4, 2009. I hope the court will get to hear some thoughtful criticism.

Digital History Made This Month: iTunes Music Now DRM Free

This month, Apple's iTunes made the final transition to ridding itself of DRM (digital rights management) restrictions on the music files it sells. That means that the iTunes software and associated encryption algorithms are no longer trying to prevent you from taking newly purchased iTunes music to an unauthorized computer.

This is a great thing for iTunes consumers, because it means they no longer need to worry about the red tape of trying to authorize and de-authorize different computers and players just to hear the music that's already been paid for. It also means iTunes consumers are no longer tied down to iPods and iTunes software to play their music. 

But there is a significance to this that goes far beyond its impact on consumers or Apple. I would call this is a red-letter day in the history of intellectual property. Ten years ago, when Napster and illegal downloading were scarring the pants off the record business and much of the rest of the entertainment industry, it looked like to me and to many people like we were headed into an era of trusted systems – where proprietary formats and cooperating hardware would hold a Big-Brother-like grip over audiences – deciding what people could and could not do with reproductions of copyrighted works. It was in that environment that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed, which made it a criminal offense to defeat DRM systems through hacking or reverse engineering. 

Apple's successful push to make iTunes music DRM-free indicates that the survival of the entertainment industry, in fact, did not hinge on DRM technology and the passage of the DMCA as Big Hollywood would have had everyone believe. It turns out, if you charge reasonable prices, people are generally willing to pay rather than go out of their way to get copies unlawfully.

A big downside of DRM for society is that it creates a technological barrier to exercising fair-use rights. So this development with iTunes is a very happy one. By shedding DRM in this instance, the free market actually provided people with a freedom that Congress was all too willing to bargain away. 

Acknowledging What Harvard Law Owes to Slaves

The three sheaves of wheat on the Harvard Law School coat of arms (top), derived from the family crest of Isaac Royall (bottom), may be fairly said to represent the labor of slaves.

Harvard Law School was founded with money amassed through slavery.

This is a fact that HLS, my alma mater, does not try to hide. But it is a truth that is not exactly advertised either. If you visit the “Our History” page of the law school’s website, you get a somewhat-whitewashed version of the school’s heritage. More than a third of the 311-word synopsis of HLS history reads as follows:

The Law School traces its origins to Isaac Royall, who in 1781 left land from his estate in nearby Medford to Harvard University, with the proceeds intended to "endow of a Professor of Laws at said college, or a Professor of Physics and Anatomy." Harvard took the opportunity to fund its first chair in law, and the Royall chair continues to support an HLS professor today, more than 200 years later.

In 1806, Royall’s heirs sold the rest of his estate and used the funds to establish a school of law at Harvard University. The Royall family coat-of-arms -- three stacked wheat sheaves beneath the university motto, Veritas -- was adopted as the school’s shield.

What this account omits entirely is that Isaac Royall was a slaveholder – his donated estate was built from slave labor and the slave trade.

I appreciate that the issue of how Harvard Law deals with its slave-money origins raises a set of very difficult questions. (A very thoughtful and wonderfully engaging discussion by Janet Halley, Harvard’s current Royall Chair, can be found here.)

Nonetheless, I think there is one simple question of fairness that transcends the historical, political, and social complexities: Shouldn’t HLS acknowledge Royall’s slaves as it does all other benefactors?

Surely they are benefactors. We know that the slaves were not paid the wages they were owed for their labor. So, to borrow a concept from remedies, it seems only fair that Royall’s slaves should, in retrospect, be awarded something like a constructive trust on their unremitted earnings. That trust property, having been converted to charitable contribution, leaves a residue of acknowledgement of giving. That acknowledgement is currently possessed, posthumously, by Royall. It seems only equitable to shift that res to the account of the slaves, or at least allow them to share as co-tenants.

I think it follows that, at a minimum, Harvard Law ought to acknowledge the slaves’ contributions in the school website’s historical narrative. And I think a tangible statement on campus – a wall-mounted inscription somewhere – would very much be in order. Many of the slaves’ names are known and are listed by The Royall House Association. Those individuals should be acknowledged. Using the information found on the Royall House Association’s rolls, I imagine the inscription might read as follows:

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE INVOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE SLAVES OF THE ROYALL ESTATE FOR THE FOUNDING ENDOWMENT OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL:

HECTOR
QUACO
RUTH
NAN
CUFF
PETER JUNE
CUFFEE
PETER
FORTUNE
CAPTAIN
BLACK BETTY
ABBA
QUACOE
DIANA
JOHN
NANCY
BETTY
GEORGE
SARAH
JACOB
JEMMY
ABBA
ROBIN
COBA
WALKER
NUBA
TRACE
TOBEY
PRESENT
CATO
BARRON
NED
HOUSE PETER
ROBIN
QUAMINO
SMITH
PHILLIP
TRACE
SUE (SUSANNAH)
JONTO
OLD NEGRO MAN
SANTO
GIRL 6 YEARS OF AGE
OLD COOK
GEORGE
ABRAHAM
BETSEY
NANCY
COOPER
HAGAR
JOSEPH
MIRA
PHEBE
PLATO
STEPHY
DIANA
JOSEPH
BELINDA
JOSEPH
PRINE
PRISCILLA
BATHSHEBA
NANNY
AND OTHERS WHOSE NAMES ARE LOST

[Reposted from my April 21, 2009 post at PrawfsBlawg. Some very interesting comments followed.]

A Lawyer's Take on the Nine Dots Puzzle

A while back, Ben Bildstein wrote a very nice post about my konomark and copysquare projects. In Ben's post, he challenged readers with a puzzle concerning connecting nine dots with four connected lines.

I mentioned that I could solve Ben's dot puzzle with just three lines, instead of the four the challenge called for. I dropped the hint that to do so, you've got to think like a lawyer.

Ben recently gave up and asked for the solution.

So I will provide it here. But if you want to take a moment to think about it before I reveal it, here was Ben's challenge: "try to join these 9 dots with 4 straight lines, connected end-to-end; hint: start at a corner"

Okay.

Ready to see the answers?

Here is the engineer's answer. (Clever.)

Here is the lawyer's answer - with only three lines. (A little too clever.)

The thing is, Ben said "dots," instead of "points" that were "arranged in the pattern represented by the dots." Yeah, I know. As Ben pointed out, the puzzle is a nice illustration of "thinking outside the box." One might say that the lawyer's solution is "thinking outside of traditional notions of fair play." But hey, there's a lesson in there for future drafters of contract provisions and patent claims. I am a law professor after all.

Thanks again to Ben for his kind comments.

Public Domain Site of the Month: NOAA Photo Library

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, better known as "NOAA," has made a huge number of incredibly valuable public-domain images available on their photo library website.

Searchable and organized into collections and albums, the NOAA image collection includes nature at its scariest (tornados and lightning), cutest (curious and cuddly baby polar bears), and ugliest (scorpion fish and angler fish).

A particularly helpful reference set is a collection of animal shots called NOAA's Ark. While most of the collection is utilitarian or photojournalistic in character, there are some artistic photographs as well. And it's not just photographs. There are beautiful antique etchings and woodcarvings.

NOAA's librarians, developers, and photographers put forth a lot of effort to create such a valuable public resource. It's appreciated.

For Your Consideration - Disney/Pixar's Irony IRON-E

Some of the WALL-E merchandise in transit from Disney/Pixar to a landfill near you: From top to bottom: plug-in video game, light-up pillow, programmable robot, throw, book that makes sounds when you press the buttons.

Now that it's after Christmas, if you live in Los Angeles, you are getting to hit full on with the onslaught of ads vying for your nod on the nomination ballots for the Academy Awards.

It's a lovely time of year to be in LA. Even if you are not a member of the Academy, you can't help but feel important as billboards, newspaper ads, and even radio ads all pucker up to you and offer something "for your consideration." After all, you don't need a ballot to not vote for a movie. And not voting for all those movies every year always made me feel good.

Now that I'm in Grand Forks, North Dakota - surprise, surprise - I am no longer assaulted by ads desperately seeking my "consideration." These days, my only form of ersatz rebuffery is refusing to purchase the brands of beet seed that billboards beseech me to buy.

But I am certain that back in La La Land, execs have purchased acres of ad space in Variety and on bus shelters throughout the city to tout Disney/Pixar's WALL-E for an Oscar nod. If not, it's because the movie is such a shoe-in it doesn't need any help. Not because it's good, but because it has great heaping shovels full of social and cultural MESSAGE of the sort the glitterati can't get enough of.

If you didn't see WALL-E, here's all you need to know [SPOILER ALERT:] Earth has become so cluttered with garbage that it has been abandoned by humans and all other life forms. WALL-E, a squat, adorable robot, dutifully scoops up the detritus of our consumption-driven society and stacks it into neat cubes. Humanity persists as race of sedentary blobs living on a spaceship where their fat bodies are whisked around in pods that move from one form of passive entertainment to the next. In the end, people learn to value the environment and exercise. In other words, the lesson is that humanity needs to take its political direction from Tinsel Town and strive toward having awesome bodies like those of all the underemployed SAG-members out jogging on the Miracle Mile on any given Wednesday. It's a beautifully animated validation of everything LA.

Now while the members of the Academy are being called upon to send in nominations for this orgy of SoCal self-love, we here in Grand Forks are not being ignored. We have our part to do. Specifically, Disney/Pixar is asking us out here in fly-over America to BUY WALL-E MERCHANDISE. In other words, we are supposed to clutter up the Earth with mountains of WALL-E licensed plastic crap and grow soft and pudgy with our WALL-E video games, DVDs, and other couch-viewed entertainment products that are compatible with a sedentary lifestyle. (Examples pictured.)

Ah, the irony! That would be like agronomy titan Holly Hybrids touting the aphanomyces tolerance of their beet seeds to North Dakotans but trying to sell muffins made with cane sugar to Californians. As if!!

[Cross-posted on The Backbencher.]