Favorite If you’ve got lawyers and a copyright, the law gives you tremendous power to silence speech you don’t like. Copyright’s statutory damages can be as high as $150,000 per work infringed, even if no actual harm is done. This makes it far too dangerous to rely on the limitations and exceptions to fair use,…
All posts tagged Copyright Trolls
NO FAKES – A Dream for Lawyers, a Nightmare for Everyone Else
Favorite Performers and ordinary humans are increasingly concerned that they may be replaced or defamed by AI-generated imitations. We’re seeing a host of bills designed to address that concern – but every one just generates new problems. Case in point: the NO FAKES Act. We flagged numerous flaws in a “discussion draft” back in April,…
EFF Reminds the Supreme Court That Copyright Trolls Are Still a Problem
Favorite At EFF, we spend a lot of time calling out the harm caused by copyright trolls and protecting internet users from their abuses. Copyright trolls are serial plaintiffs who use search tools to identify technical, often low-value infringements on the internet, and then seek nuisance settlements from many defendants. These trolls take advantage of…
For Would-Be Censors and the Thin-Skinned, Copyright Law Offers Powerful Tools
Favorite We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity…
Copyright Trolls Target Users in Brazil, Threatening Due Process and Data Protection Rights. Civil Society Groups Are There to Help
Favorite Copyright trolls typically don’t produce or distribute content, but instead make money off of copyrighted material by using the threat of litigation to shake down people who allegedly download movies and other content over the internet—a business model that invites harassment and abuse. These entities operate in many countries around the world, and have…
Ready to Pay $30,000 for Sharing a Photo Online? The House of Representatives Thinks You Are
Favorite Tomorrow the House of Representatives has scheduled to vote on what appears to be an unconstitutional copyright bill that carries with it life altering penalties. The bill would slap $30,000 fines on Internet users who share a copyrighted work they don’t own online. Take Action Now is the time to tell your Representative to…
Defenders of Copyright Troll Victims Urge Congress to Reject the “Small Claims” Bill
Favorite A dedicated group of attorneys and technologists from around the U.S. defend Internet users against abuse by copyright trolls. Today, they wrote to the House Judiciary Committee with a warning about the CASE Act, a bill that would create a powerful new “small claims” tribunal at the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington D.C. The…
Federal Judge Says Embedding a Tweet Can Be Copyright Infringement
Favorite Rejecting years of settled precedent, a federal court in New York has ruled [PDF] that you could infringe copyright simply by embedding a tweet in a web page. Even worse, the logic of the ruling applies to all in-line linking, not just embedding tweets. If adopted by other courts, this legally and technically misguided…
BMG v. Cox: ISPs Can Make Their Own Repeat-Infringer Policies, But the Fourth Circuit Wants A Higher “Body Count”
Favorite Last week’s BMG v. Cox decision has gotten a lot of attention for its confusing take on secondary infringement liability, but commentators have been too quick to dismiss the implications for the DMCA safe harbor. Internet service providers are still not copyright police, but the decision will inevitably encourage ISPs to act on dubious…
What if You Had to Worry About a Lawsuit Every Time You Linked to an Image Online?
Favorite A photographer and a photo agency are teaming up to restart a legal war against online linking in the United States. When Internet users browse websites containing images, those images often are retrieved from third-parties, rather than the author of the website. Sometimes, unbeknownst to the website author, the linked image infringes someone else’s…