Canadian court says that music clips can be royalty free

In an interesting decison, Canada's Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that no royalty is payable for the use of thirty-second or less clips which are used by consumers to 'preview' potential purchases on digital music services. The court was hearing an appeal by the songwriter's collection society SOCAN from the Copyright Board of Canada which had applied the 'fair dealing' doctrine to preview clips - it seems by extending the exception for 'research' on the basis that these clips were used by consumers to research music that they might then want to buy. SOCAN had argued that research-based fair dealing exception only applied to proper academic or scientific research, the traditional interpretation of that provision. The Board disagreed and said research did include circumstances when a "consumer is searching for an object of copyright that he or she desires and is attempting to locate and wishes to ensure its authenticity and quality before obtaining it".

The Federal Court affirmed the Copyright Board's interpretation, saying:

The legislator chose not to add restrictive qualifiers to the word “research” in section 29. It could have specified that the research be “scientific”, “economic”, “cultural”, etc. Instead it opted not to qualify it so that the term could be applied to the context in which it was used, and to maintain a proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users’ interests.

If, in essence, the legal research such as that referred to in CCH has a more formal and rigorous aspect, the same is not necessarily true for that conducted by consumers of a work subject to copyright, such as a musical work. In that context, it would not be unreasonable to give the word “research” its primary and ordinary meaning. The consumer is searching for an object of copyright that he or she desires and is attempting to locate and wishes to ensure its authenticity and quality before obtaining it. I agree with the Board that “[l]istening to previews assists in this investigation”.

The court was also asked to consider whether the dealing itself was fair given the large number of previews at issue. The court confirmed that the Board's decision was not unreasonable or in error.

Michael Geist said this on his excellent blog (link below): "The implications of this decision are very significant. While fair dealing is still constrained by the current list of exhaustive categories (research, private study, news reporting, criticism, and review), the broad interpretation of research to include consumer research could be used a wide variety of other situations where consumers use a portion of a work as part of their buying decision making process. Moreover, the broad interpretation of research should be similarly applied to private study, news reporting, criticism, and review, which, with the exception of private study, also do not contain restrictive qualifiers. This does not mean the law is a free-for-all - the dealing itself must still be analyzed to determine if it is fair - but it does confirm that the door is open to creative uses of the fair dealing provision in Canada consistent with the Supreme Court of Canada's view of a copyright balance between user rights and creator rights".

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5036/125/

Transparent LAN Service for WAN Bandwidth

As businesses increasingly move from having all of their activities in a single building or campus, the need for wide area connectivity is increasing. This is especially true of companies with nationwide branch offices, and medical centers spread out over regional areas. There have always been telecommunications services to tie multiple locations together, but now there are services that actually let your local area network span an entire metro area, even multiple states.

The service you may be looking for is called transparent LAN service. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. Instead of maintaining individual LANs for each location and then using legacy telecom services to transfer data between them, the transparent LAN makes all those separate LANs look like one big one.

Transparent LAN service is an Ethernet layer 2 switching service. It’s similar to bridging a number of smaller networks together as you would in-house. The difference is that this capability lets you bridge branch offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Seattle and elsewhere so that they are part of a unified whole.

One technology that is rapidly gaining popularity for implementing transparent LANs is VPLS or Virtual Private LAN Service. This is a standards based carrier service that uses IP / MPLS networks for core network. Some carriers have a nationwide footprint for their IP networks, so they can easily offer VPLS in many major cities.

Transparent LAN services run at native LAN speeds of 10, 100 and 1000 Mbps. Higher speeds of 10 Gbps are becoming increasingly available for enterprises with demands for high traffic levels and low latencies. Fully meshed multipoint-to-multipoint layer 2 services require special equipment at both the provider and customer edges. For that reason, a transparent LAN solution is a managed service between all locations. The carrier will install a CE (customer edge) interface and provide the last mile connection between each of your locations and their core network.

With transparent LAN service, a PC on the West Coast is located right next to the printer on the East Coast. You can converge your networks so that you have voice, video and data all running on the same Ethernet network from coast to coast. You don’t have to make all of these WAN connections work, your managed service provider will take care of that. Even a huge network can be managed as if it were right there in your office building.

Does this sound like a service that would benefit your enterprise? If so, get more details and pricing for Transparent LAN Service with a simple online inquiry.

Reproduction behind closed doors

Last week the Advocate General’s opinion was delivered on Case C-467/08, SGAE v Padawan. The ECJ has been asked to clarify private copying levies.

The Copyright Directive provides, in Article 5(2)(b), for an optional exception for private non-commercial copying, on the condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation. All European countries with the exception of the UK and Ireland now have a private copying exception – in most cases compensating rightholders by a levy on companies manufacturing, importing or distributing copying machines and media (e.g. blank CDs, video recorders, MP3 players, computers and printers). In 2004 copyright levies raised €568m in the EU.

The Advocate General was of the view that a levy should not be indiscriminately applied – it’s ‘justified only where it may be presumed that the digital reproduction equipment, devices and media are to be used for private copying’. She said that it was OK for such presumed use to be estimated. Specifically in this case equipment used by businesses would not be for private non-commercial use, so a private-copying exception levy was not applicable.

The opinion would appear to introduce a new grey area: when is a levy being applied indiscriminately? If this opinion is followed by the ECJ, member states could exercise their discrimination differently, removing different sales from the imposition of the levy. This would result in less consistency of levies across Europe, adding to the existing intractable problem that member states have wildly differing levies, imposed on different products and different charges. An iPod classic costs €229 in Germany (where the levy is €2.56), €259 in France (€20 levy) but only €217.65 in Luxembourg (no levy).

Private copying is such a complicated and unmanageable thing – didn’t a levy seem like such an elegant, simple solution?

Murdoch out to challenge local papers?

Just weeks after launching a Big Apple edition to challenge the New York Times, Rupert Murdoch may be getting ready to put a bit of competitive pressure on other newspaper publishers, too. This possibility was signaled when it was revealed last week that the Wall Street Journal is buying tons of new press towers to enable it to print color on an estimated 75% more pages of the newspaper than

Why Managed MPLS Networking Services

Let’s say your company has offices located all across the country. Each location has its own private local area network , perhaps supporting computer networking, IP telephony, and video conferencing. As stand-alone facilities, things work great. But your enterprise is more than just a collection of geographically dispersed sites. It is an organization with a common mission and processes.

You decided long ago that you needed to integrate your network facilities to unify the company. There are big efficiency improvements to be gained by not having to support every function at every location. When employees across the country are electronically just as close as those down the hall, you can establish centers of excellence and marshal short term support when there are local overloads.

There’s also the opportunity to avoid toll charges on internal telephone calls when you put your phone system on your own network. That can amount to an enormous cost savings when there is regular communication between sites. Only when you need to go off net, or on to the public switched telephone system, do you pay for local telco lines and, perhaps, toll charges. You can decide whether it makes more sense to have local access at each location or consolidate your lines with ISDN PRI service or SIP trunking.

The trick becomes how to interconnect those far flung business sites. Most companies start out with dedicated point to point T1 lines and move up to faster services, such as Ethernet, DS3 or OC3, as the traffic levels increase. What gets lost in incrementally adding line after line is the opportunity to save cost on WAN network bandwidth. One day you find yourself with a huge portfolio of telecom line charges plus a considerable staff to manage your ad-hoc WAN network.

What’s better? Today’s answer is managed MPLS networking services. MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching is a “cloud” network designed specifically to link multiple locations with specific connections or in a fully meshed network. What characterizes a fully converged MPLS network is scalable bandwidth, privacy of connections, high reliability with fast response when issues do arise, a service footprint that covers all of your locations, and quality of service controls that ensure high performance for time sensitive applications like enterprise VoIP and real-time two-way video conferencing or telepresence.

That sounds like a tall order, but there are a number of top carriers who specialize in offering private networking services with nationwide footprints. It is even possible to include overseas offices through traffic exchange with carriers in foreign countries. Each of your sites is connected to the cloud through an appropriately sized dedicated access connection. From there the network operator programs your connections into the tag servers that manage network traffic. Even though your share the cloud with other customers, your bandwidth is guaranteed and your connections are private. For the ultimate in security, you can choose to encrypt your data during transit.

By turning your WAN network operations over to a MPLS networking carrier, you unload the burden of constant monitoring and network management, but you’ll also likely realize a significant cost savings. Will quality of service suffer? On the contrary, a top tier carrier has more resources at their disposal than you can afford to manage a nationwide network 24/7. They’ll also have far more bandwidth in their core network than makes sense for any single enterprise. That means you can grow your resources to match the growth in your business without incurring extensive construction delays every time you want to increase throughput between locations.

How do you find these high performance network providers? The best way is to go through a telecommunications broker who has a complete suite of carriers available to bid on your business. You can then feel confident that you are getting the best service at the best price, without having to develop the expertise and staff a group to search the industry. That’s all taken care of quickly and easily. How quickly and easily? Take literally a minute to enter an inquiry for managed MPLS networking services and an expert Telarus consultant will be at your service in no time at all.

Limewire bites the dust .....

The international music industry has responded with delight at a court ruling that has found against Limewire, one of the oldest file-sharing networks on the Internet. In a 59-page decision issued Tuesday (May 12th) in New York, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood has ruled in a summary judgment that the peer-to-peer company is guilty of inducing copyright infringement, committed copyright infringement and practiced unfair competition. Reuters report that the judge leaned heavily on one of the plaintiff's expert witnesses, Dr. Richard Waterman of the Wharton School, who testified that a random sample of 1800 files turned up copyright infringement in 93% of them, including 43.6 percent of copyrighted files owned by the plaintiff record labels. Based on the results, Dr. Waterman concluded that "98.8 percent of the files requested for download through LimeWire are copyright protected or highly likely copyright protected, and thus not authorized for free distribution."

The judgment itself is perhaps unsurprising given the Supreme Court's stance in MGM v Grokster where the Court unanimously held that defendant P2P file sharing companies Grokster and Streamcast (maker of Morpheus) could be sued for inducing copyright infringement for acts taken in the course of marketing file sharing software

Here it is interesting that the judge was willing to take a long hard look at the evidence available and the fact that the site promoted filesharing - Judge Wood dismissed LimeWire's contention that the statistics weren't reliable and accepted evidence that the service was not only aware of the copyright abuse but actively tried to attract infringing users. Wood also noted that the only step LimeWire took to curtail abuse was to make users agree not to infringe copyrights in its terms of service. The notice does "not constitute meaningful efforts to mitigate infringement," she wrote. The Court found that from 2004 to 2006 Limewire's annual revenue grew from nearly US$ 6 million to an estimated US$20 million. The judge found this growth depended greatly on Limewire users’ ability to commit infringement through Limewire.

Record label trade bodies were naturally delighted with Mitch Bainwol, CEO of Recording Industry Association of America saying "This definitive ruling is an extraordinary victory for the entire creative community" adding "Unlike other P2P (peer to peer) services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court's decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators. The court's decision is an important milestone in the creative community's fight to reclaim the Internet as a platform for legitimate commerce." IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy said: “Limewire has been a major hurdle in the music industry's efforts to make the transition to a new, legitimate online music business. This ruling will be hugely valuable both as an educational message and as a legal precedent internationally. It shows the stark reality of a site which made a fortune by violating the rights of artists and creators. The judgment also ends years of uncertainty among consumers, many of whom have felt free to use Limewire in the incorrect belief that it was a legitimate music site. Now it has been made clear to them that Limewire is not legal, does not respect artists and creators, has profited handsomely from its illegality and is not OK to use.”

In related news, a German court has granted a preliminary injunction against the current Germany-based Web hosts of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak has reported. The Motion Picture Association petitioned a court in Hamburg for an injunction against CB3ROB Ltd, operators of the CyberBunker Web hosting service. The court said that CyberBunker must specifically remove links to torrents purporting to facilitate downloads of "The Bounty Hunter," "Alice in Wonderland," "Our Family Wedding," "Green Zone," "Repo Men" and "Cop Out." CyberBunker now must either disconnect The Pirate Bay entirely, or else The Pirate Bay must remove those specific torrents to comply with terms of the court's order. Sanctions include fines of up to E250,000 for each instance of infringement and potential custodial sentences for CB3ROB directors.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=10632737

MGM v Grokster 545 U.S. 913 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-480

UPDATE

See http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20004982-261.html

Legal experts: LimeWire likely doomed: "It is obviously a fairly fatal decision for them," said Michael Page, the San Francisco lawyer who represented file sharing service Grokster in the landmark case, MGM Studios, vs. Grokster and also represented Lime Wire's former CTO in the company's most recent copyright case. "If they don't shut down, the other side will likely make a request for an injunction and there's nothing left but to go on to calculating damages."

With an injunction, the RIAA can force LimeWire to cease file-sharing operations. Music industry sources who spoke to CNET on condition of anonymity said the RIAA, the trade group representing the four largest music labels, is considering whether to seek an injunction prior to a status conference Wood scheduled for June 1. If that happens, LimeWire may have little room to maneuver and the company could be forced to shutter operations within weeks. Representatives for the Lime Group did not respond to interview requests. An RIAA spokesman declined to comment. "

Ruling could have chilling effect on P2P Services
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64E09C20100515

Browser Based Video Conferencing and Webinars

Video conferencing, once limited to the corporate environment, is now available to anyone with a broadband connection and web browser. MegaMeeting has a new suite of products available for PCs, MACs and Linux computers that don’t require the usual downloads and installations. If you can browse a website, you can participate in a video conference or webinar.

MegaMeeting’s web-based video conferencing system takes advantage of the Flash Player 9 plug-in that is already installed in most Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari browsers. If your computer has 256 MB of RAM and a 1.2 GHz or faster processor, it should work fine. You’ll also need an Internet connection with 240 Kbps bandwidth. That’s pretty much anything that dares to call itself broadband. In actuality, though, you’ll only be using 70 Kbps per video feed. Pretty easy requirements to meet, don’t you think?

A video camera isn’t required to be a participant, but if you have one, or can get a cheap one, you can be one of the 16 simultaneous video screens streaming in the conference. It’s just like one of those discussion shows on TV, but with a lot more screens. Unlike many competing services, MegaMeeting includes free Voice Over IP, so you get audio along with your video. No separate telephone calls are needed.

MegaMeeting’s product also scales from personal and small business use with 10 participants or fewer, on up to private branded enterprise solutions with the maximum number of attendees determines only by your available bandwidth and the number of seats purchased in your account. All of their plans offer unlimited video conferencing worldwide 24/7. Professional solutions support screen, application and desktop sharing plus PowerPoint presentations and computer sharing.

How much does all of this cost? Personal accounts start at under $50 a month. Professional accounts start at $15 a seat with a 3 seat minimum and get cheaper from there. Enterprise level solutions hosted on your own servers are appropriately priced, but considerably cheaper than alternative solutions.