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Submission + - Appeals court slams record companies on DMCA in Vimeo case

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: In the long-simmering appeal in Capitol Records v. Vimeo, the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld Vimeo's positions on many points regarding the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. In its 55 page decision (PDF) the Court ruled that (a) the Copyright Office was dead wrong in concluding that pre-1972 sound recordings aren't covered by the DMCA, (b) the judge was wrong to think that Vimeo employees' merely viewing infringing videos was sufficient evidence of "red flag knowledge", and (c) a few sporadic instances of employees being cavalier about copyright law did not amount to a "policy of willful blindness" on the part of the company. The Court seemed to take particular pleasure in eviscerating the Copyright Office's rationales. Amicus curiae briefs in support of Vimeo had been submitted by a host of companies and organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Public Knowledge, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Twitter.
Google

Google Submits Patent Application For Online Voting (thestack.com) 44

Posted by timothy from the needs-a-none-of-the-above-option dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Google has outlined a concept for real-time online voting in the Google home page in a patent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Entitled 'Social Voting-Based Campaigns in Search', the application proposes a voting user interface (VUI) that will enable a user to submit one or more votes in a voting-based campaign, giving the hypothetical example of a campaign to vote for the 'Top American Singer', with users authenticated via Google log-ins. If implemented, the system would represent a new foray for Google into generating rather than recording analytics and metrics of popularity.

Comment Re:Not a bad thing (Score 1) 262

Profits were not distributed amongst employees.

Uh, yes they were, actually. £35m in profits were distributed. That's 30% of their £105m total revenue.

So, what, are you saying their net margin was something like 70-80% and the other 40-50% of that money got transferred offshore? That seems implausible but if you have some kind of source I'd be open to reading it.

Comment Re:Not a bad thing (Score 1) 262

So what you're saying is...you would be in favor of distributing profits among all employees? Which is what I said also. Yes inequality is a problem that's why I said what I said. I'm befuddled why you would essentially agree with me but phrase it as though you're taking a contrary position.

Comment Re:Righthaven (Score 1) 67

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#50681489) Attached to: All Malibu Media Subpoenas In Eastern District NY Put On Hold

What is right wing about filing a lawsuit to unmask a doe, suing that person, then settling for a much smaller amount. It seems this is used by many different trolls, and likely doesn't have any political ideology behind it. It is sleazy though. Filing a lawsuit with the intention of settling just to get a payout is wrong. It is short circuiting the justice system for personal profit.

Yeah that's neither right nor left, it's the universal language of greedy bloodsuckers.

Comment Re:Righthaven (Score 3, Interesting) 67

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#50680643) Attached to: All Malibu Media Subpoenas In Eastern District NY Put On Hold

What is right wing about that process? The Democrats support the movie industry, not the Republicans.

The fact that Democrats support something doesn't negate the possibility of something being right wing. The Democrats are not ideologically pure, or ideologically homogenous, and very few of them can be considered "left".

To me, pretending that copyright is only about property rights, and ignoring the fact that copyright was also supposed to be about free speech and about making material available for free to the public after a limited time, is definitely "right wing".

Comment Re:DMCA needs to die (Score 1) 67

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#50679313) Attached to: All Malibu Media Subpoenas In Eastern District NY Put On Hold

This has nothing to do with the DMCA, this is a straight out copyright infringement lawsuit being filed. The real problem is that the methods the copyright holders (or the copyright enforcement goons acting on their behalf) are using to identify torrent users aren't good enough and its good to see at least one judge willing to call these enforcers out on it.

Exactly. Would have been nice for judges to start doing this 11 years ago, but glad they've come around.

Submission + - All Malibu Media subpoenas in Eastern District NY put on hold

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: A federal Magistrate Judge in Central Islip, New York, has just placed all Malibu Media subpoenas in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and Staten Island on hold indefinitely, due to "serious questions" raised by a motion to quash (PDF) filed in one of them. Judge Steven Locke's 4-page Order and Decision (PDF) cited the defendant's arguments that "(i) the common approach for identifying allegedly infringing BitTorrent users, and thus the Doe Defendant, is inconclusive; (ii) copyright actions, especially those involving the adult film industry, are susceptible to abusive litigation practices; and (iii) Malibu Media in particular has engaged in abusive litigation practices" as being among the reasons for his issuance of the stay.

Comment Re:Victory for common sense! (Score 1) 91

by NewYorkCountryLawyer (#50099775) Attached to: Judge Calls Malibu Media "Troll", Denies Subpoena

If other judges follow this precedent, it will be the death knell of civil litigation involving the internet in any way. I don't like how trolls do business, but I don't think changing the rules like this is a good idea overall.

This isn't changing the rules. This is following the rules.

See my article in the ABA's Judges Journal about how judges had been bending the rules for the RIAA. "Large Recording Companies v. The Defenseless: Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigation". The Judges' Journal, Judicial Division of American Bar Association. Summer 2008 edition, Part 1 of The Judges Journals' 2-part series, "Access to Justice".

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