copyright – Terence Eden’s Blog

DMCA as a vector for pornographic spam?

@edent — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 11:34:05 +0000

There's a law in the USA called the DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Amongst its myriad provisions is the ability for copyright holders to send takedown notices to service providers. If someone has ripped off your content, you can send them a legal letter saying "take that down".

People often send DMCA requests to Google saying "this site has stolen my copyrighted content - please remove that page from Google."

Google, to their credit, let me know that they'd recently received a complaint about me 😢

Ah, dammit! What photo had I inadvertently copied?⁰ Here's what Google said:

Huh? Back in 2020, I wrote a blog post called "This blog strips off for CSS Naked Day". It contains a single image:

That's a screenshot that I took of Firefox. My use of my image on my site isn't a copyright infringement.

WTAF?

Scrolling through the legal complaint I found I was in illustrious company.

After accessing the full report, I discovered that the complaint was made on behalf of an OnlyFans user called "firefoxs" who has - to quote her bio - the "#1 Nicest Tits On OF"¹.

Needless to say, I dispute the allegation and I've filed a DMCA Counter Notification.

Perhaps this is just a case of an overzealous lawyer hitting every website which contains an image called "Firefox"? Or perhaps it is a ploy to get a bunch of irate webmasters to visit an OnlyFans page to assess the evidence?

Either way, I think the biggest pair of tits on the Internet are firefoxs' copyright lawyers!

I try to use Creative Commons or copyright-free images where possible. But I'm only human and sometime slip up. ↩︎
A claim which I am unable to substantiate. ↩︎

Liberating out-of-copyright photos from SmartFrame's DRM

@edent — Sun, 15 May 2022 11:34:11 +0000

During the middle of the 20th Century, the UK's Royal Air Force took thousands of photographs of the country from above. Think of it like a primitive Google Earth.

Those photographs are "Crown Copyright". For photographs created before 1st June 1957, the copyright expires after 50 years.

Recently, the organisation "Historic England" started sharing high-resolution copies of these photos on a nifty interactive map.

But there were two problems.

Firstly, they claimed that the photographs were still under copyright. This (no doubt inadvertent) mistake was pointed out to them and was eventually corrected.

The second, and to my mind more troubling, problem is that the photos were "protected" using SmartFrame's Digital Restrictions Management.

SmartFrame has some useful features - it allows for high-resolution photos to be loaded "zoomed out" in lower resolution. The user can then zoom in on a portion which then gets loaded as higher resolution. That's it really. SmartFrame's main selling point is that it "brings robust image control". AKA, it uses DRM to prevent users from downloading images.

It also promises "Complete image protection". This is nonsense. If you transmit an image to a user, the user can copy that image.

Here's how easy it is to download the images which SmartFrame claims to protect.

Screenshots

The obvious flaw in SmartFrame is that users can take screenshots of the high-resolution image. Zoom in, screenshot, pan left, another screenshot, repeat.

Of course, stitching together all those images is a bit of a pain. But perfectly possible to automate if you wanted to.

Canvas Chunks

The way SmartFrame works is by loading small "chunks" of the image and then drawing then on a element.

In your browser's network inspector, you'll see each 256x256 sub-image loading. The images are not encrypted, so they can be saved directly. Again, it is a manual and tedious process to scrape them all and then stitch them together.

Inspecting the network requests shows that they all use the same Accept Header of authorization/wndeym9ajvin,*/* - that appears to be common across multiple SmartFrame instances. Bad form of them to reuse that key!

Canvas Access

It's fairly easy to download anything drawn onto a element by running:

var c = document.getElementsByClassName("stage") 
c[0].toDataURL()

However, SmartFrame have overloaded the .toDataURL() function - so it produces a warning when you try that. It's simple enough to disable their JS once the image has loaded.

Of course, the is smaller than the full resolution image - so you may need to manually increase its size first.

It's also possible to simply right-click on the in the inspector and copy the Base64 representation of the image:

Putting it all together

I am indebted to Stuart Langridge for connecting all the dots. He has written and fully documented some code which is, essentially:

Grab the canvas
Resize it
Wait several seconds for the image chunks to fully load onto the canvas
Turn the canvas into a Data URL
Download the data

It looks something like this:

var container = document.querySelector("div.articlePage.container");
container.style.width="6000px";
container.style.maxWidth="6000px";

setTimeout(()=>{
  var stage = document.querySelector("canvas.stage");
  var url = document.createElement("canvas").toDataURL.call(stage);
  var a = document.createElement("a");
  a.href = url;
  a.download = "liberated.png";
  a.click();
}, 3000);

And that's it. A user can paste a dozen lines of Javascript into their browser's console and get a full-resolution PNG.

Warnings

This technique should only be used to download images which are free of copyright restrictions.

Companies should be careful before buying a DRM solution and ensure that it is fit for purpose. SmartFrame really isn't suitable as sold. Despite its grandiose claims of "Super-strong encryption" and "Multi-layered theft-prevention" - it took less than weekend to bypass.

It is possible that SmartFrame will update their systems to defeat this particular flaw. But, thankfully, DRM can never work effectively. You can't give users a locked box and a key - then expect them to only unlock the box under the "right" circumstances. As Bruce Schneier once said:

trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet.

What happens if you steal someone's Good Tweet™?

@edent — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 12:47:28 +0000

Way back in the early days of the Social Web, the writer Cory Doctorow invented Whuffie. Think of it as a way to formalise "upvotes" and "likes" on social media.

Whuffie, a form of digital social reputation, replaces money and is a constantly updated rating that measures how much esteem and respect other people have for a person. This rating system determines who gets the few scarce items, like the best housing, a table in a crowded restaurant, or a good place in a queue for a theme park attraction.

On the surface, it seems like a nice idea. But the last decade of social media has shown how easily it can be gamed and abused. It is trivial to pay for positive sentiment on social media. The crowd upvotes entertaining content more than thoughtful content. Sites like Klout and Kred faded into obscurity because tracking social sentiment across dozens of sites is impractical and inaccurate. The days of getting a book deal and TV series based on your Good Tweets™ are long gone.

And yet...

One of the least useful members of Twitter is "The Numbers Grifter". The sort of parasitic user who steals a popular Tweet and passes it off as their own. Or who takes an image, mislabels it, and passes it off as something sensational.

Hardly high crimes and misdemeanours. At worse, they're depriving someone else of their 15 minutes of Internet Fame.

Except...

Techbros have found a way to monetize content theft like never before. THANKS BLOCKCHAIN! NFTs are a stupid idea - oh, wow, you own a digital receipt in a ledger - and they attract a lot of scammers. People who copy popular images, claim them as their own, and then start selling them:

https://twitter.com/CorbinRainbolt/status/1369433485086195717

And on and on it goes.

What's the solution to this? The hucksters who run various NFT auction houses have no real answers.

The monetary transactions are mostly anonymous - so good luck suing anyone for ripping off your artwork.

The magic of the Blockchain is that you can't delete content from it - so good luck convincing everyone to irrevocably delete the distributed database.

Some NFT galaxybrains suggest that artists mint every single thing they create - in order to prevent others from stealing it. Coincidentally, this makes NFT sellers a lot of money.

NFT is not about supporting content creators. If you want to support your favourite artist - send them money. PayPal, bank transfer, gift vouchers. Anything! Commission them, buy a print, promote them to your friends.

The major use-case of NFT is monetising copyright infringement. It is explicitly designed to be permissionless, untraceable, and profitable for the scammers.

Please don't buy into the lie that it democratises art collection. It's just a rip off.

Virgin Media Just Gave All Of Their Customers Plausible Deniability‎

@edent — Wed, 23 Apr 2014 11:08:43 +0000

My current ISP is Virgin Media. They get a lot of stick for being a bit useless - but I can't fault the speed of my domestic connection. They recently upgraded me for free to 152Mbps downsteam (and a less impressive 12Mbps up).

As part of this upgrade, they sent me an email stating:

now that your broadband has been supercharged, on the house, why not put it to the test? You've got the UK's fastest widely available broadband speed which is 12x faster than Sky and BT's regular broadband^, so get your friends over with their tablets, phones and laptops to try it out.

Well, that'll be a fun evening, eh? All of us sat around pushing the fibre to its limits. But, wait! How will all my friends get on the wifi?

Luckily, Virgin has thought of that. The bottom of the email helpfully suggests...

P.S. You can even change your WiFi password so it's easier to share.

Brilliant! Virgin's suggesting is that you change your super-strong password from "@WZ*dobAv8AxCbUeTckU" to "comein" so that your mate Dave can find it a bit easier to leach your WiFi.

This means three things.

Your password is weaker! Making it much easier for a malicious user to guess.
Dave now has access to everything on your network. Your file server, printer, TV, games consoles, security cameras, etc. He has unfettered access.
If he is so inclined, Dave can download illegal content under the guise of your IP address. If he's smart, he'll drive round to your house, sit outside in his car and do it. Or maybe he'll just torrent Game of Thrones while the rest of you are playing MarioKart.

Virgin, however, don't see this as a problem.

Fixing It

It turns out, Virgin already thought of a solution to this problem. The SuperHub2 cable modem they provide isn't the best bit of networking kit in the world, but it does have "guest networks".

A Guest Network has a different SSID (Network Name) and, more importantly, is completely separate from your main network. Your friends will still have Internet access, but they won't be able to pilfer your files, control your telly, or switch your Internet Connected Fridge off.

I suggested this to Virgin, but they seem to think their customers are too thick:

Really, it's about as hard as changing the password on your main WiFi page.

If your friends can't bear your company without the pacifier of free WiFi, I strongly suggest that you set up a guest network. Add a password which is easy enough to type on a phone's keyboard, and let them run wild. Just remember - although they'll be unable to access your computers, you have no control over what sites they visit and which files they download...

Plausible Deniability

Perhaps that is Virgin's plan all along. As an ISP, the last thing you want is your customers getting sued for copyright infringement. You want the customer to enjoy all the delights that the Internet has to offer without constantly being worried that the cops are going to bust down their door.

Plausible deniability is a term coined by the CIA in the early 1960s to describe the withholding of information from senior officials in order to protect them from repercussions in the event that illegal or unpopular activities by the CIA became public knowledge.

"Who? Me officer? Why no! I certainly did not download those files. My IP address you say? Well, Virgin encouraged me to share my WiFi password with all my friends. I suppose it could have been any one of them. What? No, I don't know which of my mates likes Game of Thrones, I've never seen the show myself...."

Should Wikipedia Have 3D Models of Sculptures?

@edent — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 07:00:29 +0000

I was wandering round The Henry Moore Foundation last Friday - thanks to the delightful wedding of my good friends Mike and Nikki.

Looking at the abstract statues and carvings, I was struck not only by their beauty, but by how easy they would be to reproduce with a 3D printer. Ok - ok! I'm a little obsessed since building a RepRapPro for work - but hear me out.

Wikipedia has been collecting high-resolution scans of famous works of art - although not without controversy - and providing them for free to the public. For example, you can download a 90MB image of the Mona Lisa at 7,479px * 11,146px, detailed enough for just about any purpose.

The controversy with Wikipedia and the National Portrait Gallery was of volunteers downloading ultra-high resolution scans which had been created by the museum and were not originally intended to be set free.

Now we have a situation where many museums are actively laser scanning their artefacts - the Smithsonian have a great 3D collection. It's very easy to grab the Smithsonian's 3D scan of the Willendorf Venus; just check the source code of that page. Some time later, the 3D file can be converted to an STL and shared freely for anyone to view and download.

And, if galleries aren't scanning their own sculptures, what happens when Wikipedia volunteers start taking 3D photos of famous works of art? It wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to sneak a Kinnect and laptop into a gallery and surreptitiously create a 3D mesh. Or, even, just take lots of photos at different angles and use software to determine the dimensions.

And that's exactly some enterprising chap has done. With nothing more than an iPhone and used the 123D Catch software, it takes less than five minutes to make a 3D model of Moore's "Old Flo".

That 3D file could easily be embedded into Wikipedia in much the same way that high-resolution photographs are today. This would allow visitors to experience an object in 3D in their browser. See, for example, how GitHub manages this.

With an ancient sculpture, I think that's acceptable. The 3D scan is a series of facts about an object. It's a slavish copy of a work of antiquity - no more deserving of copyright than a photocopy of a Shakespeare folio.

But what about Henry Moore? Most of his art was created in the second half of the 20th century, and he died in 1986. In most parts of the world, his copyright persists for at least another 20 years.

I'd love to see interactive 3D models of his work embedded in Wikipedia - but is it legal or moral for people to create such items?

I'm not a copyright expert. I feel uncomfortable that the 3D scan of "Old Flo" has been unilaterally released by the scanner as Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike. The scan is undoubtedly its own work - but just as taking a photo of a portrait doesn't necessarily create a new and copyrightable piece of work, I'm not sure that a straight scan of a sculpture somehow releases the object from the bonds of copyright.

Today, we are exactly where we were with MP3s in 1998. Converting art to .stl files is a niche sport for dedicated fans, it requires expensive hardware to reproduce the original art, and the quality isn't that great.

15 years later and our laws have barely caught up with the fact that people can reproduce movies and music in nano-seconds.

How will our copyright laws react when high quality models of sculptures are freely shared on underground art exchanges?

Shakespeare And Emoticons

@edent — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:00:07 +0000

Rob Pensalfini has written a delightful blog in which he accuses (or perhaps credits) Shakespeare with inventing the emoticon.

He claims that this is within A Winter's Tail, Act I, Scene ii - in the first folio.

So, I turned to the First Folio viewer which allows people to see scans of the first printing of The Winter's Tale - in this case, the New South Wales scan. Direct link to scan.

The "emoticon" is also present in the second folio, the third, and the fourth.

However, at some point, the smiley vanishes!

The fourth folio was printed in 1685. By 1786, the :) had dropped out - as seen in this British Library edition by John Bell. (The annotations to the 1786 edition make no mention of any changes to the particular soliloquy.) In just 100 years, some form of mutated Grammasites must have eaten up the parentheses.

Google Books is a fine resource - but, as far as I can tell, it doesn't allow one to search a particular time period.

Thanks to Imran Ghory for telling me about Copac - an electronic resource to search British academic libraries. So, by crafting a specific query, we can see all the publications within a specific timeframe.

Sadly, most of the resources are locked behind the Athens system. An academic system managed by Eduserv.

OpenAthens says it is:

Unlocking the door to knowledge

Ah, yes, the famous "Unlocking knowledge by locking away behind paywalls" strategy. We all know how well that works out...

So, the hunt is on! If you have access to these long-out-of-copyright resources, perhaps you can discover when the original smiley was exorcized and who was responsible for it?

Sky News Infringed My Copyright

@edent — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:00:43 +0000

UPDATE!

I have reached a settlement with Sky.

Update: 16 March, 2011. They have finally paid up!

tl;dr

Sky News stole my copyrighted work and distributed it without credit or payment.

I asked them to pay £1,500.

They refused.

Full Story

During the recent O2 brouhaha I recorded a video showing how the issue could affect people. I deliberately gave it the standard YouTube licence rather than the Creative Commons licence.

Later that evening, I was alerted to the fact that Sky News had broadcast my video without first seeking permission.

I grumbled a bit on Twitter and was contacted by a representative of Sky News. He was very quick in ascertaining that my video was used without my permission and arranged to prevent it being shown again.

I was not happy about this state of affairs. BSkyB and News International have been very vocal about digital piracy and copyright infringement. They have relentlessly pursued a copyright maximalist agenda which - I believe - is damaging to the creative industries. Not to mention rampantly hypocritical.

Sky News accept user generated videos, with this stern warning:

Copyright protects the interests of the people and companies who create these products. If the content or product or marks in your video are owned by someone else, you are infringing copyright and run the risk being prosecuted.
It is important that you understand that you cannot take other people's creations and use them as you see fit.
Uploading somebody else's video is no different to taking something from a shop without paying. Copyright infringement damages the music, film and television businesses and the future development of music, film and TV programmes.
From Sky News' Frequently Asked Questions about user videos. Emphasis added.

Sky News have a history of ignoring copyright and infringing the moral rights of authors.

Unfortunately, the Digital Economy Act doesn't allow me to sue Sky News for distributing my content for free without my permission. An individual can lose their Internet access for sharing a movie, however there don't seem to be any sanctions against a large company for sharing my copyrighted work without permission.

I don't have the resources to fight a legal battle against Sky. So I decided to settle for cold, hard cash.

Originally, Sky made the following offer:

For a short youtube video like that we would normally pay around £50 & would be more than willing to pay an extra £25 for the fact you weren't asked in the inconvenience it has caused you.

The NUJ publish a freelance rate card. The rate for freelance video should be around £300 per minute.

I farted in Sky's general direction. I wanted £300 for the broadcast of the video, plus £1,200. I calculated that as £400 for them failing to ask permission, another £400 for them infringing my copyright, and then £400 for them violating my moral rights.

Even if they didn't agree with the above reasoning, it is usual to charge four times time standard licence rate when a copyright owner is asked to assign all rights away. Effectively, Sky News had unilaterally assigned all my rights to them - so I felt justified asking for this sum.

Overall, I thought £1,500 was reasonable - especially when you consider that the Daily Mail paid £2,000 for using photographs without permission.

Sky came back with an offer of £300.

I pointed out that s107 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 had provisions for fines of up to £50,000, or a six month prison sentence. In comparison £1,500 seems modest.

Sky replied:

As I indicated, we do not yet agree on a sensible figure for this use.
Bearing in mind you are now invoking the Copyright Designs and Patents Act I have placed this matter in the hands of our lawyers.
This does not represent an unwillingness to come to an agreement between us but, unfortunately, it is likely to slow the progress slightly.

Now I'm waiting to hear back from their lawyers. I wonder what their hourly rate is?

I'll update this post when I know more...

A Settlement 🔗

I have accepted an offer of £300. A few minutes ago, I received this email from Sky:

After consulting with our Sky lawyers our position is that we believe a £300 settlement is a fair and appropriate sum. Our position is:

The £300 is in respect of what you describes as "infringement of copyright" rather than any "union rate";

Contrary to what you claim, we did not act as if you had assigned us all rights. Specifically, we did not claim ownership nor seek to profit from it by licensing to others;

Criminal liability will not attach in relation to an inadvertent use of footage;

English law does not recognise violation of moral rights;

There is no authority that an infringement in these circumstances attracts four times the usual licence fee. To the contrary, the usual measure is what the reasonable cost of licensing would have been.

Our offer is generous for the reasons above and we will not increase it.

May I also stress that when you are relating this issue to third parties on whatever platform I would consider it unfair if you did not relay the fact that we immediately acknowledged your copyright and sought to bring redress. I stress, once again, that we take copyright and its infringement very seriously at Sky News.

I'm not a copyright lawyer, so am in no position to argue against their formidable legal might. I have invoiced them for £300. I must point out that - once I contacted them - Sky were very quick to take down the infringing content and have been unfailingly polite in their dealings with me.

I will be donating £100 to both The Open Rights Group and MySociety. And drinking the rest.

Thank you for all your comments, tweets, and messages of support.

Footnote

I'm currently on holiday - so comment moderation and updates may be delayed.

WURFL and Database Copyright

@edent — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 12:35:55 +0000

When a phone's web browser visits your site, how can you tell what capabilities that phone has? How can you work out its screensize, whether it can play mp3s, or know if it supports a particular bit of JavaScript?

It ought to be possible using a mixture of UAProf, accept headers, and media queries. But it's not. The data are inconsistent and unreliable.

Out of this frustration, a number of databases have been developed to track the capabilities of as many devices as possible. For the longest time, the most popular and accurate was WURFL - the Wireless Universal Resource FiLe.

Developed over the years by a community of volunteers, and lead by Luca Passani, it was an excellent tool. Mostly accurate, highly useful, and generally well regarded.

As is common in the Open Source world, some people were dissatisfied with WURFL - both with the data and the lack of a commercial version - so they forked the project. This is perfectly normal practice. You take the Open Source information, and you do what you want with it - making it fit your needs better. (The specifics of who wanted what and why are probably best left to historians.)

As I understand it, DeviceAtlas was originally based - partly - on WURFL. So too is newcomer OpenDDR.

Enter The Lawyers

In 2011, WURFL became ScientiaMobile - a company designed to profit from WURFL. Not unreasonable in my opinion. What they did, essentially, is fork WURFL and re-licence.

WURFL then became unsuitable for anyone wanting to contribute to or use future versions of it in a manner consistent with the original licence.

All of this is perfectly fine - it's what happens next which I find problematic.

ScientiaMobile claimed that OpenDDR was illegally using their copyrighted data:

On the 3th of January 2012 GitHub received a letter from ScientiaMobile requesting to remove from GitHub the repository OpenDDR-Resources. The letter claims that the repository contains material infringing Scientiamobile copyrighted work. From: Open letter about the takedown by Scientiamobile on one of our GitHub repositories

As the letter goes on to say that the original licence for WURFL specifically stated:

This project is open-source and is intended for developers working with the WAP environment. All the information listed here has been collected by many different people from many different countries. You are allowed to use WURFL in any of your applications, free or commercial. The only thing required is to make public any modification to this file, following the original spirit and idea of the creators of this project. (My emphasis added).

So, what have OpenDDR done wrong according to ScientiaMobile? Nothing that I can see. They state:

we allege that the two files entitled "oddrVocabulary.xml" and "DeviceDataSource.xml" available in that directory infringe upon my client's copyright in WURFL.xml From the letter from Scientiamobile lawyer

Databases and Copyright

I'm not a lawyer (sorry mother!) so I find it a bit hard to understand exactly what's going on here.

There is currently a case before the European Court of Justice concerning whether a database of football fixtures can be covered by copyright.

The case has not yet concluded. But the opinion of the Advocate General is available.

As I understand it - and I may be wrong - there are three aspects to database copyright.

Facts cannot be copyrighted.
The structure of a database cannot be copyrighted unless it is sufficiently creative.
"Sui generis" (a Latin phrase meaning "The lawyers are getting more expensive now!") It means that the work as a whole could be considered under copyright.

Undeniably, the contents of the WURFL database are facts. They are not subjective interpretations, nor are they creative works.

The structure of the database is an interesting one - there are only so many ways you can place this data into a file. One might be able to argue that the naming of the database tables and fields are creative and could be copyright. Although, as OpenDDR have done, one could change these in a derived version of the database.

Next, is the whole work subject to copyright? If a collection of football fixtures cannot be subject to copyright - how can a collection of device characteristics be?

Finally - even if the new version which ScientiaMobile have created is a copyrighted work, there can be no doubt that the original database was under a very permissive licence.

Taking Without Giving

The original WURFL was licensed as GPL. This means that if you took the code, modified it, and then distributed it - you had to publish those changed.

In the case of web services, the GPL doesn't consider offering a service through your website as distributing. Hence why WURFL decided to re-licence under the Affero GPL.

As Luca said at the time:

In a nutshell, AGPL is a strong copyleft, just like GPL, but with one big difference: using your WURFL application on a web server constitutes distributions and triggers the GPL copyleft provisions.

Now, is it wrong for companies like DeviceAtlas to take WURFL, improve it, and not contribute those changes back?

It may be a bit unfriendly, but there's nothing illegal about it. The original licence allowed for it. Even if it hadn't, it doesn't look like a database of facts can come under copyright.

Here's the kicker; OpenDDR were publishing all their changes to the WURFL database on GitHub!

So, as far as I can tell, OpenDDR are being accused of:

Taking a database covered under GPL.
Changing the data.
Publishing the changes.

What exactly is the problem with that? Nothing!

Conclusion

The original WURFL was created by a community of volunteers who, we can assume, contributed data with the understanding that it was to be licensed openly.

Other companies took the WURFL data - which was not copyrighted - and began to sell access to it. They also improved the quality of the data without contributing back.

This angered Luca, so he decided to close future access to companies unless they paid ScientiaMobile. I don't think that's the best thing to do, but it was his decision to make.

What he cannot do, in my opinion, is retroactively change the licence and then go after anyone who uses an older version of the database. Even if he could, the database itself is not subject to copyright.

I'll leave the last word to Luca:

Conflict of Interest

I'm not a fan of Luca Passani - and he's not a fan of me. We've both been at the opposite ends of technical disputes in the past. I like to think that I have always behaved professionally and courteously, but I do not feel that Luca has reciprocated that respect. This may affect my judgement in this blog post.

Google Contacts Copyright Madness

@edent — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:19:34 +0000

Google has rightly received praise for its reworked "Contacts" functionality. But there is still a rather glaring error.

One of the things I love to do is add images to my contacts. It gives me a visual cue when I'm scrolling through looking for a person, it prompts my memory when I see the face of a friend calling me, and it helps me remember what people look like. As you can see, I'm pretty good at keeping everyone's photo on my phone up to date.

Which Conditions Are Appropriate?

Google's interface for uploading images has some rather confusing conditions attached to it...

"Do not upload pictures containing celebrities, nudity, artwork or copyrighted images."

What? Those are some strange terms and conditions to have attached to a contact image. I'm not sure if they're copy-and-pasted from another app - or if they're intentional. Let's take a look at each one.

"Celebrities". If I've got a friend who is a celebrity - why can't I have her image as her contact picture?
"Nudity". It's my phone. I am not going to offend myself if I see a nude picture of a friend that I've uploaded. This is before we get in to what defines nudity.
"Artwork". This is just bizarre. If a street artist has drawn a caricature, I can't upload it? I can't use a company logo to indicate where my contact works?
"Copyrighted images". Again - what? I own the copyright on images I've taken. I may have permission to reuse a copyrighted image. I may even be justified in using a copyrighted image for my personal use. I suspect they mean "images to which you don't have permission from the copyright holder to use for this purpose". But even that doesn't cover the Fair Dealing provisions of many copyright laws.

If you try to use an image which is already on the web, you get this curious message.

"Remember, using others' images on the web without their permission may be bad manners or - even worse - copyright infringement."

This is an odd statement. A mixture of folksy advice and legal warnings. I don't see how personal use of a thumbnail from even the most copyright laden of images could be construed as infringement. As for "bad manners" - is it really Google's role to advise me on etiquette?

People Don't Read - But Copy Editing Matters

It's been well known fact for over 13 years that users don't read. That's especially true if the text is small and grey - as it is in these examples.

But if you do want to impart vital information, you need to employ a skilled writer to help you craft your message. You need to understand what it is you're trying to say, why you're saying it and what you expect your users to understand.

In this case, Google has a very muddled and confusing set of conditions which seem illogical and users - if they read them at all - are likely to ignore them.

Response to Government P2P Consultation

@edent — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:52:42 +0000

Dear Sir,

This is my response to your consultation "Consultation on Legislation to Address Illicit P2P File-Sharing". I believe that the paper "GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ON THE PROPOSED P2P FILE-SHARING LEGISLATION" is dangerously flawed.

In this response, I shall outline four general areas of concern. Practical, Philosophical, Technical and Cultural. I also will provide a series of solutions which I believe will have a positive impact for the creative industries of the UK.

Practical

There are several aspects of this proposed legislation which need to be considered carefully if they are to make any impact.

Justice

In this country we believe that the accused should be able to see the evidence presented against her and be able to challenge it. As it stands, your proposed legislation enables an alleged copyright holder to accuse an alleged sharer without giving the alleged sharer the ability to see or challenge the accusation.

I say "alleged copyright holder" because your proposal contains no method to verify whether the complaint originates from the correct copyright holder.

Proof

What standard of proof will a copyright holder have to produce? In conversation with your department you indicated that the proof presented to an ISP would be to the same standard as would be presented in court. This raises some very important questions:

How is an ISP to judge if a complaint made against one of its customers is valid? Are ISPs expected to interpret legal documents and make judgements in law?
If a copyright holder believes that they have proof which would stand up in court - why don't they go to court?
How will an ISP or their customer be able to verify that the complaint has come from the genuine copyright holder?

Mistakes

Inevitably, there will be mistakes in this process. What redress does a user have if falsely accused?

What punishment will there be for those who accuse falsely - knowingly or unknowingly? The way the proposal is written, it would only take three complaints from Political Party X to knock a competing Parliamentary candidate off the Internet. A handful of bogus requests would be enough to cripple any business.

Without a strong disincentive against false or malicious accusations, this proposal could result in large scale problems for honest citizens, businesses and organisations.

Will a false accusation be considered libellous? What options will a customer have against an ISP who responds to a bogus request?

Responsibility

Many people make their wireless Internet connections (WiFi) freely available to anyone who passes. I see sharing my WiFi as a civic duty as do many others. Are WiFi sharers expected to police everyone who uses their connection? If so, how would this work given that WiFi networks are very difficult to secure? Will a WiFi sharer be liable if they do not know that their Internet connection is being used illicitly?

If a user is kicked off from an ISP, the proposals are unclear as to whether they will have to pay for the remainder of their contract. If the user is not required to pay for the remainder of their contract, who will compensate the ISP for lack of custom? Given that ISPs subsidise their hardware and connection fees - will we see British businesses forced to close because they are forced to cut off their paying customers?

Mobile

(In the interests of fairness, I should point out that I work for, and own shares in, Vodafone Group. These views are my own and do not represent those of my employer)

All mobile telephone networks now offer 3G data across the country. 3G networks currently offer speeds of up to 14Mbps - much faster than the 2Mbps minimum mandated by the Digital Britain report.

Anyone can buy an unregistered SIM card, plug it into their laptop and have an instant, high speed connection to the Internet. Assuming that your proposed legislation covers mobile ISPs (again this is not clear in the proposals) how do you suggest that a mobile ISP contacts a customer who does not give her address? If the user is cut off with no warning (ignoring the legal and contractual issues resulting from this) what is to stop her buying another SIM from that, or any other, network provider?

Technical

Everyone's connection to the Internet is assigned an IP (Internet Protocol) Address. This is the globally unique number that defines them on the Internet.

Most ISPs assign Dynamic IP Addresses. This means that a user's IP Address may change several times a day.

At the point when an accusation is made, an error of a few milliseconds could mean the difference between targetting one user and another. How would it be determined that an IP address was assigned to any particular user? What level of accuracy will be used to make an accusation?

Every item connected to the Internet provides a unique MAC (Media Access Control).

Given that most home computers allow a user to change the hardware's MAC on demand, how is a copyright holder able to prove that the computer they allege was involved in the possession of a particular user?

It is reasonably easy for any Internet user to pass their traffic through a Proxy. This allows a user to route their entire internet connection via another user's computer. This Proxy may be located anywhere in the world. How would a copyright holder determine whether the illicit P2P traffic they see is or is not via a proxy. This proposed legislation would only cover the UK - what is to stop a user proxying their traffic through Europe?

Given that the traffic between P2P users can be encrypted, how will a copyright holder be able to intercept and analyse the contents of the traffic? Assuming that they have the ability to break the encryption (which is highly unlikely) would this not be a breach of RIPA?

This legislation specifically discusses P2P traffic. Many forms of downloading copyrighted content do not use P2P protocols. How does this legislation address people who share copyrighted works via Email, FTP, or sneakernet?

Philosophical

I do not believe that downloading a DVD without the copyright holders' permission is the same as stealing it from a shop.

Copyright infringement is defined separately from theft. They are very different crimes as their position in statute makes clear.
In the case of theft, the owner of the goods loses them. Downloading merely makes a copy, it does not destroy or remove the original.
There is no difference between reading a book in a shop before deciding to purchase it, than there is watching clips on YouTube before deciding whether to purchase a film. Many larger bookshops have coffee shops and other reading spaces specifically to encourage customers to read the material prior to purchase.

There are many activities that millions of citizens do which deprives a copyright holder of potential revenue - yet we don't criminalise them.

Lending a book or DVD to an acquaintance. Just because the way we lend now involves computers, does not mean it needs to be treated differently from our traditional methods of sharing culture.
Selling a second-hand DVD, CD or book. P2P sharing does not have any profit element for the sharers - yet selling second hand does.
Church fêtes and school jumble sales rely on the donation of copyrighted works in order to raise money. Given the amounts of money these generate without returning anything to the copyright holders - why are they exempt from this proposed legislation while the sharing that does not generate any revenue is so punitively targeted?
Donating second-hand DVD, CD or book to a charity shop. In this case, the charity shop is given copyrighted work for free and then sells them at an inflated price. Yet charity shops are seen as an important lifeline for those unable to afford retail priced works - not to mention the sums raised for worthy causes.

Cultural

Studies have consistently shown that those who download the most also buy the most. There has been no correlation shown between increasing number of file-sharers and decreasing profits made by the creative industries. What we are seeing is a new way for people to express their enjoyment and involvement with popular culture.

With an estimated 7 million file sharers in the UK, it is obvious to me that there has been a massive failure in the marketplace to provide people with what they want. Businesses are faced with the unenviable task of changing their decades-old business models. Rather than having buggy-whip manufacturers petition the Government to ban Horseless-Carriages, the Government should be assisting businesses to adapt to this new world.

To this end, the Government needs to consider what changes it can bring about to the culture of the country which makes it more attractive to copy than to pay.

The most common cause for British shows like Doctor Who, Top Gear and Coronation Street being copied from abroad is the fact that they are shown months or years after their UK transmission. The Government should work with British content producers to ensure that they are able to quickly sell their content abroad at a fair price.
The same is true of television copied in the UK - if fans did not have to wait, they would not have to illicitly copy. The Government can liberalise television market and the available transmission spectrum to allow allow overseas shows to be cheaply and legally broadcast.
British cinema is enormously popular throughout the world. Delays in distribution encourage people to download rather than wait and pay. The Government should encourage co-production and simultaneous release of British works shown abroad.
Subsidise the conversion of cinemas to fully digital projection. Digital cinemas are cheaper to run, do not require pollution producing lorries to deliver heavy rolls of quickly degrading film and provide a more pleasant experience for the customer.
Broadcast TV is giving way to IP television. The Government and Ofcom should ensure that ventures like Project Kangaroo get the backing they need to provide a legal alternative to P2P file sharing.
If an artist - independent or otherwise - wishes to release their work in Europe, they have to deal with separate licensing bodies. The Internet ignores geographic boundaries. The Government should spearhead the creation of a pan-European licensing body to allow artists and companies to market their works easily and without excessive cost. We live in a large trading block - there is no reason why a digital download should cost more in one EU state than another.
VAT on cultural products. Books and printed music are exempt from VAT as are cultural performances. Are DVDs and video games any less culturally worthy? Cutting VAT on creative works produced in this country would encourage cheaper prices.
Live performances. The Government should make it easier for venues to get licences for live music. Many artists and venues have complained about the difficulty of obtaining the permission necessary to stage live music. The experience of live music cannot be replicated via file sharing.
Encourage the Metropolitan Police to drop Form 696. Barriers to live performances discourage artists and dent the ticket and album sales they need to thrive.
Encourage the production and manufacturing of creative works in this country. There is a growing sense that businesses are able to outsource their manufacturing to countries with lax labour laws - why then shouldn't a citizen purchase music from a country with lax copyright laws?
Increase funding for libraries and extend their remit to cover CDs, DVD and the digital distribution of books.

Finally, if the Government wants to increase the penalties for copyright infringement, it must reduce the length of copyright terms.

The Statute of Anne originally set copyright to a length of 14 years. This has subsequently been increased to the extent that we may never have the same access to the work of The Beatles as we do Beethoven. The popular song "Happy Birthday To You" cannot be sung in public without paying a fee to Warner Chappell Music. This is despite the fact that the music was originally composed in 1893 and the lyrics in 1912.

A short copyright term encourages artists to create new work. With a potentially infinite Government backed monopoly, what incentive is there to create new art? A popular image or song only need be created once to provide a lifetime of revenue - including revenue for the creators' descendants. What incentive does copyright give to the creation of new art?

A short copyright also allows works to fall into the public domain. Think of the amount of new art which has been created on the basis of Dickens or Shakespeare. Hugely profitable - and copyrightable - derivative works have been created without having to pay anything to their respective estates.

Copyright provides specific protection in return for their eventual return to the public domain. This is an incredibly important part of the copyright equation which is often forgotten. Unless works are eventually placed into the public domain, they are effectively stolen from us. Our culture thrives on sharing stories freely. Laws which prevent us from freely enjoying our culture robs us and future generations of their heritage. Imagine a United Kingdom that forbade people from performing Romeo and Juliet, or from singing Handel's Messiah.

With copyright being such a poor deal for the public, it's easy to see why it gets so little respect.

Conclusion

The Internet provides citizens with many opportunities and business with many challenges. It is an enormous, technically complicated organism - perhaps the largest creation humans have ever assembled. The Government should not attempt to regulate the use of this new marketplace without first fully understanding it. From the proposals given, it seems clear that the Government is out of step with technology and with the culture of many of its citizens.

The Prime Minister recently stated that "The internet is as vital as water and gas". In this context, it's hard to see what can be gained from cutting off a vital service on the basis of unchallenged accusations.

It has been nearly 10 years since A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. Yet the creative industries have prefered to bury their heads in the sand and refused to innovate while people have grown used to the idea that they can download what they want, when they want it, without having to remunerate the copyright holders.

The Government must help business explore this new frontier and help business find new models which are profitable. It must do this without criminalising customers.

The proposed legislation is the equivalent of gas companies threatening citizens who dare light their homes via electricity. I oppose it and hope you take my response under consideration.

Many thanks

Terence Eden

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I'm a former Scrable Champion

@edent — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:42:00 +0000

Way back before Facebook, when the Internet was made of string and chewing gum, when Scrabble was a game for old people and nerds, I was.... Well.... A nerd!I loved Scrabble and attained the heady heights of school champion!

But it wasn't enough. I had tasted power and wanted more. I devoured Scrabble strategy books, word lists, reverse dictionaries and spent the nights dreaming about triple word scores.

I even went to the regional finals where our team came second to some suspiciously over-developed "school boys" from Westminster.

My love of scrabble stays strong, but I haven't dusted off my tiles in years.

All of which leads me to Hasbro/Mattel and their war against Scrabulous. I've never used the Facebook app - but I think I might take it up, just to spite them.

Old companies have a very hard time adjusting to the Internet way of doing things. There are two reasons for this...

1) Hasbro/Mattel exist in a nice and cosy status quo and don't want to take any risks. They're making a solid amount doing what they've always done, so why innovate?

2) The innertia of old companies weighed down with processes, multiple stakeholders, vested interests and office politics is staggering. It amazes me that Google and Apple can seemingly think of an idea on Monday and have it released on a Tuesday. Meanwhile, it's Thursday and I'm stuck in a meeting discussing whether the meeting to arrange the logo placement on the report exploring the possibility of designing a new application should be held in May or June.

Does Hasbro/Mattel have the legal right to sue Scrabulous? Undoubtedly. Some company is infringing on their work and not paying them. That's lawsuit time.

Do they have a moral right to sue? Scrabble was invented 50 years ago - I certainly think it should now be in the public domain.
Hasbro/Mattel haven't taken up the new economy and released an online version of any of the games. They've dropped the ball and, as always happens in this capitalist society, someone has picked it up and started playing with it.

Hasbro/Mattel can't simply buy Scrabulous and slap their branding on it - that would open the floodgates for thousands of rip-offs each trying to get bought out.
They can't sue them out of existance without generating a lot of ill-will.

So what can they do?

1) Fire whoever runs their Internet Division (and their heavy-handed legal team, for that matter)
2) Create an official version of Scrabble for Facebook. Make it so good that people would rather use it than some knock off.
3) Create social games that work across the Internet. Invest heavily in this new world. Put all their existing games online and develop great new games specifically to be played online.
4) Encourage Scrabulous to ceed to the Official Scrabble Facebook app. They shouldn't pay them off, they should obliterate tham with a better product, better marketing and a better experience and, maybe, the hint of a lawsuit.

Of course, what they'll actually do is sue, create a storm of negative publicity and reap the rewards of the Streisand Effect

Right. I'm off to install the Scrabulous app - who wants a game?