Copyright Theft & The Courts (Reprint)

[DudeAsInCool]

Online thieves collide with the law

A look at how copyright theft is being handled in the courts

‘We don’t want to legislate the Internet out of existence by making laws too strict.’

— MICHAEL OVERLY, Attorney with Foley & Gardner

By Bobbi Nodell

MSNBC

July 23, 1999 — While the Internet yearns to be a free-wheeling exchange of information, corporate America is beginning to chase down those who circulate copyrighted material on the Internet without paying dues. Companies have hired digital detectives to locate sites violating the U.S. Copyright Act, and then, using threats or legal action, have forced the operators to remove the material. Here’s a look at the efforts — in the boardrooms and in the courtrooms — to crack down at online theft.

      

 WITH AN ESTIMATED 300 million web sites, policing illegal activity is a never-ending chore.

       Christopher Young, president and chief operating officer of Cyveillance based in Alexandria, Va., says that his company has uncovered 100,000 violations since it was formed 1 1/2 years ago to search for illegal sites.

       Young said the violations his company has uncovered run the pilfering gamut — including theft of statistics from the National Basketball Association site, trading nude photos of Pamela Anderson, downloading copies of Windows 98, stealing Madonna’s new album before it was released, or taking a Nike logo and illegally representing the web site as that of a Nike dealer.

       ”[And] don’t even get me started on rumors and opinionated information on companies” posted on bulletin boards and in chat rooms, he said, saying that such false information meets the legal definition of slander.

       Michael Overly of the Los Angeles law firm of Foley & Lardner, said while there is no specific statutory law directed at copyrighted material online, courts are addressing the issue in piecemeal fashion in a number of cases.

       “In some areas of the country there is no direction, while in others there’s been conflicts in the law,” he said.

       One of the main questions at issue is how to clarify copyright protections for the online world. For instance, should Internet service providers [iSPs] be held liable for something a subscriber posts on-line? Under the U.S. Copyright Act, an ISP technically could be held liable, though a number of courts have resisted that interpretation, Overly said.

       In 1996, for example, the Church of Scientology sued Netcom after the ISP refused to remove church writings posted on its computer network by a former Scientologist minister. The church argued that the doctrines were copyrighted material and Netcom should be held responsible for copyright infringement. However, a federal judge in California ruled that Netcom was not liable, even though it was partly responsible for the material being illegally published by refusing to remove it after receiving notification from the church.

       FEARS OF OVERREACTION

       While there is general agreement that online theft is a problem, some think companies are destroying a good thing by becoming overly aggressive in their attempts to root it out.

       “There’s a Salem witchhunt going on out there saying that this is something worse than it really is,” said Jon Noring, the founder of OmniMedia Digital Publishing, an online book publisher and himself a victim of cyber theft. “It could lead to Congress passing much more Draconian laws which could have a serious effect on free passage of information.”

       He said he is especially concerned that the Software Publishers Association is trying to create a “police state” by overzealously guarding copyrighted software.

       While a far cry from totalitarianism, there have been a number of attempts on the national front to crack down on online theft:

After a MIT student created a site encouraging web surfers to steal software and computer games, lawmakers scurried to toughen up the copyright act to create certain criminal penalties for copyright infringement — even if the offender does not benefit financially, said Dallas attorney Craig Weinlein. The result was the “No Electronic Theft Act” signed into law by President Bill Clinton on Dec. 16, 1997.

The U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 was amended in 1995 to protect the transmission of a digital performance, therefore if someone plays music over the Internet without proper authorization, they could run afoul of this act.

Now many companies are rallying behind a new bill - the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (HR 2881) - that addresses several new areas of copyright theft.

       Most important, it would exempt online service providers from copyright liability for simply transferring information on the Internet. It also would make it illegal to develop software that would disable encryption included on software and CD-ROMs intended to prevent people from copying the work. The bill passed the Senate but was blocked in the House by the library coalition and is still waiting to be voted on.

Controversial legislation also is pending to protect information databases from being appropriated. Currently, if someone compiles baseball statistics, for instance, that information is not protected. The Collections of Information Anti-Piracy Act, sponsored by Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., was passed by the House, but few think it will pass the Senate, where it has encountered opposition from researchers and others who worry that once this material is copyrighted, it won’t be available to the public.

       Other areas still need hashing out, including how efforts to prevent copyright infringement might themselves infringe on privacy.

       For example, many companies are turning to digital “watermarks” — an electronic code — to track copies of their software, sound recordings, books or photos. But some Internet libertarians worry that these companies also will use the technology to track and assemble information on the customers who purchased the material.

       Also under debate is the online definition of “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Saying the copyrighted material is not for profit, is no longer a shield, as many schools have been prosecuted for copyright infringement, point out lawyers.

       The key, for lawmaker, is knowing where to draw the line.

       “We don’t want to legislate the Internet out of existence by making laws too strict,” said Overly. “In the United States, we have a tendency to rush in and legislate before we know what’s going on with new technology.”

       

       MSNBC’s Molly Masland contributed to this story.

       

       

[DudeAsInCool]

This is an old special report from the technology archives of MSNBC. I thought it was worth looking at again..