Shallow Harbors: EU Poised To Rewrite Rules For User-Generated Content

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Almost from the day the Digital Millennium Copyright Act came into effect, copyright owners have sought to limit the so-called safe harbor protections against infringement liability the law grants to online service providers that host user-uploaded content.

But a series of lawsuits aimed at setting strict limits on the safe harbors, starting at least as early as Perfect 10’s 2002 litigation against CCBill and stretching through the Veoh cases and Viacom’s long-running battle with YouTube, largely failed in that regard and arguably made things worse for rights owners. The result was a series of court rulings reinforcing the strict and precise requirements of the notice-and-takedown system the law spells out for getting infringing content removed from online platforms.

Legislative efforts to limit or weaken the safe harbors fared no better, culminating in the spectacular crash-and-burn in 2012 of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, which largely scared Congress off similar attempts ever since. Read More »

Disney Sees Red Over Ruling on Download Codes

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Ever since sales of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs began their long eclipse behind the rise of more convenient digital alternatives the Hollywood studios have sought ways to extend the life of the high-margin disc business by finding ways to integrate disc sales with the broader digital economy.

The most systematic effort was the UltraViolet initiative. By creating an UltraViolet account, consumers could register their purchase of a DVD or Blu-ray Disc and obtain access to a digital version of the same movie, which they could then stream to connected devices without a DVD or Blu-ray drive, via participating streaming services.

Disney, which never joined the UltraViolet consortium, had its own version it called Disney Movies Anywhere (now re-christened simply Movies Anywhere and incorporating most of the former UltraViolet studios). Disney packaged its discs with an insert containing a code, which, when entered by the consumer in her online Movies Anywhere account allowed her to stream the movie through participating online services, or to download the movie onto up to eight registered devices.

DVD rental kiosk operator Redbox has likewise struggled with consumers’ declining appetite for DVDs and Blu-rays. It’s main strategy has been to keep its rental prices extremely low, which has often put it at odds with the studios, who by and large would prefer to see the low-end rental market wither away. But Redbox, too, has sought ways to make itself digitally relevant. Read More »

High Court Of Canada Cooks Google’s Goose

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When you think about landmark legal rulings affecting the internet you don’t usually look to the courts of Canada. But the Supreme Court of Canada this week sent shock waves through internet legal circles by issuing an injunction against Google requiring the search engine to de-index an allegedly infringing website everywhere in the world.

The 7-2 ruling was surprising on multiple levels, not least because Google is not actually a party to the litigation that led to the injunction. More surprising still was the court’s assertion of global jurisdiction over the internet. But for Google the worst may be yet to come.

The dispute involves Equustek Solutions, a smallish Canadian technology firm that sued its former distributor, Datalink Technologies Gateway, in 2011 alleging that Datalink was relabeling some of Equustek’s products and passing them off as its own. Then, according to the suit, Datalink used confidential documents and information it had obtained from Equustek to produce and sell competing products. Read More »

VidAngel Calls Hollywood’s Bet

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The Hollywood studios have a fraught history with third-party services that re-edit their films, typically to remove the sort of content that had earned the film an R or even PG-13 rating.

Back in the 1990s, a handful of video rental store operators, mostly in conservative Utah, began manually editing purchased copies of VHS cassettes for their customers as a service, most famously with Titanic, to remove the the naughty bits. Studios and filmmakers grumbled but manual re-editing wasn’t exactly a business designed to scale so Hollywood mostly let it be.

In the 2000s, with the advent of the DVD format, some of those same entrepreneurs figured out ways to partially automate the editing process and tried to turn it into the business. In 2000, the Utah company CleanFlicks started producing cleaned up versions of DVDs created by muting the audio at key points or removing entire sections of the audio track, then offering them for sale and rental. Read More »

Have Netflix, Will Travel: EU Digital Single Market Inches Closer

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Negotiators for the European Commission, the European Parliament, and European Union member countries this week reached agreement on new rules that will allow citizens from one EU country to access digital services they subscribe to, such as Netflix, Spotify, and sports live streams, when traveling in another EU country starting in 2018.

Up to now, exclusive territorial licenses between rights owners and online services, as well as other rules, have generally prevented services from granting access to subscribers from outside their home country.

“Today’s agreement will bring concrete benefits to Europeans. People who have subscribed to their favourite series, music and sports events at home will be able to enjoy them when they travel in Europe,” EU vice-president in charge of the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said in a statement. Read More »