Commercial Speech Prezis

As always, PDFs of the Prezi presentations can be downloaded here.

Fair Use Victory in the Courts!

Lawrence Lessig - professor and author of several readings for this class - sued Liberation Media, the Australian music label that owns the rights to French band Phoenix' song “Lisztomania," and won! Here is the story, via Ars Technica: 

Last summer, Liberation had a video of one of Lessig's lectures (called "Open," which is embedded above) taken down when the company found that he had used video clips with Phoenix's music in it. Lessig, in collaboration with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, challenged the takedown and sued Liberation, arguing that he was well within his right to use Phoenix's music under fair use policies. (Phoenix, for its part, wrote that it was happy to have its music remixed under fair use principles.) 

Lessig teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to extract damages from Liberation under the DMCA's section 512(f), which requires copyright holders to pay damages if they overstep their bounds in issuing a takedown. As Ars noted last summer, hardly any copyright holders have ever had to pay damages under 512(f). 

Lessig's and EFF's original complaint against Liberation ran down a long list of reasons why the Phoenix clips in Lessig's lecture should be considered fair use. Ars wrote at the time: “[Lessig] used a small proportion of the song, his lecture doesn't compete with the market for the song in any way, and the lecture is an entirely new creation. Phoenix wanted its song to entertain and make money; Lessig's lecture was educational, and neither he nor Creative Commons, the sponsor, made any profit."

What is the significance of this ruling? Hopefully music labels will think twice before being over zealous in their take-down requests.  

Yikes...wouldn't recommend ever doing this!

Described as the "biggest Facebook mistake ever," a daughter’s status update cost her father an $80,000 legal settlement. Via Yahoo! Shine: 

According to the Miami Herald, Patrick Snay, 69, was the headmaster at Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami for several years, but in 2010, the school didn’t renew his contract. Snay sued his former employer for age discrimination and won a settlement of $80,000 in November 2011. The agreement contained a standard confidentiality clause, prohibiting Snay or the school from talking about the case. However, Snay’s daughter, Dana, now at Boston College and a part-time Starbucks barista, couldn’t resist bragging about the case on Facebook. “Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver,” she wrote. “Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.” 

As a result of the Facebook post, the Third District Court of Appeal tossed out the $80,000 settlement because, according to Judge Linda Ann Wells, “Snay violated the agreement by doing exactly what he had promised not to do...His daughter then did precisely what the confidentiality agreement was designed to prevent.”

Señor Snay could appeal the case to the Florida Supreme Court. But should he?

Update on the Aereo Case

From the NYT:

Aereo, the start-up that uses tiny antennas to stream the free signals of TV stations to its customers’ Internet-connected devices for a fee, is stealing from the broadcast networks on a giant scale, the broadcasters asserted in a filing with the Supreme Court on Monday.  

“The Copyright Act does not tolerate business models premised on the unauthorized exploitation of the copyrighted works of others,” said the brief, which was filed by broadcasters including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. 

On April 22, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, a case that has significant implications for a television industry undergoing profound changes, as well as challenges from upstart competitors like Netflix and Amazon.

While Aereo is technically operating within the rule of law, the Court has acted in the past to try and preserve the broadcaster business model (see Turner Broadcasting v. Federal Communications Commission 1994). What do you think they will do with this case?

Copyright in the News: "Paramount Shoots Down 'Top Gun' Twitter Account"

Interesting/fun story about Twitter shutting down a Twitter account for its unauthorized sharing of screenshots of the movie "Top Gun." From Mashable: 

"Twitter user @555uhz decided that his love for Tom Cruise and fighter jets was best expressed by tweeting each scene of the movie, frame by frame. With each tweet, the entire plot was eventually revealed on the account's feed. Top Gun distributor Paramount Pictures issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) letter to Twitter, which resulted in the account's suspension. The account, created in January, had gained more than 6,000 followers by the time it was taken down. The date and time of the suspension is unclear, but it most likely occurred within the last 24 hours."

Seems a bit drastic, no? It is just as likely that the unauthorized use of the material increased market demand for the actual movie itself, at least from a marketing perspective. What do you think? Should Twitter have complied with Paramount's request?

Symbolic Speech Prezi (and PDF)

(Link to download a PDF of the presentation)

Media Ownership Updates (Feb 23)

Hi Folks! I wanted to nudge you to keep on thinking about your term paper, due at the end of the semester, and worth 35% of your final grade. There have been quite a few stories relating to the topic in the news recently, and so I thought I'd flag a few of them for you. The proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable has sparked a lot of concern from other industry actors, as well as civil society groups. Here is a WSJ article on how it is shaking up the rest of the industry. Another WSJ  article suggests that the merger is actually giving net neutrality new life. This table, from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, outlines how quickly cable provider profits have increased since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (a 400% increase in annual revenue in 15 years!). This piece suggests that the merger super charges the development of new Google Fiber networks, possibly even here in Atlanta. And the NYT profiled Comcast's lobbying and philanthropic activities, suggesting that the merger's regulatory assessment may be shaped by political calculations.

Enjoy! See everyone on Monday! 

Test I Grades are posted.

Go here, and find your unique five-digit number to see how you did. This number reflects any extra credit and a 5% curve. (The curve is calculated by the difference between the best test score and 100%; in this case the test raw test grade was a 95%.)

Class average after the curve is 76.3%

See everyone next Monday!

Test grades will be up on Thursday (Feb 20).

I'll upload them to my grades webpage as soon as they come back from the testing center. The posted grade will include your actual test score, plus any curve I add to the test (typically I curve the difference between the best test grade and 100 percent) and any extra credit from the in class pop quiz on February 3.  

You'll need to keep the student ID number I assigned you (and handed to you) to determine your grade. So please hold on to those ID numbers! 

In the mean time, if you have any questions, please just let me know. Next week we'll cover symbolic expression, and I hope you have a chance to review the readings before we meet (Hopkins chapter 3). 

Media ownership in the news

As I'm sure you all heard, Comcast is trying to buy Time Warner. These two cable, internet and content providers are enormous, and the outcome of the merger will likely shape the landscape of American cable and internet services for years to come. Here is a great article about the risks of the merger, from Wired:

"If approved by federal regulators, the merger would reverberate through myriad markets beyond the cable TV, commercial broadband, and telephone industries. The deal could impact satellite TV, television programmers like ESPN and Fox, online video providers like Netflix and YouTube, and the massive networks at the very heart of the internet.

Announced this morning, the pact certainly makes sense for Comcast — already the nation’s largest cable provider — giving it far more power to compete in the rapidly changing communications world. The company expects to close the deal by the end of year. But because it affects so many industries, the merger of the nation’s two biggest cable outfits is sure to receive intense scrutiny from regulators. The government may even block the deal, as it did with the proposed merger between wireless phone service providers AT&T and T-Mobile in 2011."

What do you think? Should the FCC block the merger? Can they? Why is the merger good? To be discussed in class next week!