We are now getting misleading Techdirt stories secondhand through Slashdot. It's interesting to see how far this game of telephone might go.
The "former copyright boss" is saying nothing of the sort. Here's what's actually happening:
Aereo is a company that streams NY broadcast TV over the Internet, capturing the broadcast signals and proxying them over IP to users. They are, unsurprisingly, being sued by every NYC television company, including PBS, because their product repackages broadcast TV in a product that lets users skip ads by default.
As I understand it, the suit is early days. But as is typical in cases like this, the content producers moved for a preliminary injunction to shut Aereo down while the case runs. The trial court refused, and so the content producers appealed.
Ralph Oman, who stopped working for the government before the dawn of the commercial Internet, filed an amicus in the content industry's appeals request to impose an injunction on Aereo.
Techdirt read Oman's amicus and reported sentences in the brief taken out of context. Techdirt's reading of Oman's amicus doesn't even make sense; the courts dealing with this case have no ability to create a "guilty until proven innocent" standard, nor can they require that technology produces consult Congress before launching products.
Oman was making an inside baseball argument to the court hearing the case. One element that recurs in all complex policy cases: how do judges resolve the (often contrary) forces of precedent, Constitutional principle, and the statutes enacted by legislatures. What Oman is arguing is not that the judge should apply some new restrictive rule on technology; rather, he's arguing that should the judge refuse an injunction on such a clear-cut case (his sentiment, not mine), that judge would in effect be creating a new policy of exempting technology companies from vicarious liability out of whole cloth, ignoring both precedent (thus his citation to a case where copy shop owners had been held liable for misuse of their property) and statute.
Obviously, Oman is a copyright hawk. I'm "conservative" as copyright goes, and even I don't think Oman is making a strong argument. This is obviously a very "leftist" forum, but that doesn't free you to make up entirely new and ridiculous arguments and stuff them into some random guy's mouth to create a straw man.
Finally, as straw men go, this is a pretty feeble one. This guy doesn't matter at all. He stopped managing copyright policy before the advent of CU-SeeMe.
The problem quote appears to be this: "Commercial exploiters of new technologies should be required to convince Congress to sanction a new delivery system and/or exempt it from copyright liability. That is what Congress intended."
Perhaps I should note that vicarious liability[1] was invented by the courts, so worrying about whether or not they are creating new policy here seems a bit ironic.
The problem quote is taken out of context. Oman is saying that vendors should be required to convince Congress to amend copyright statutes if they expect the courts to defer to them in copyright cases. He is specifically not suggesting that vendors should petition Congress for permission to launch new products. What he's saying is that if your new product harms someone else's rights, the statutes that protect those rights apply. This seems like common sense.
Vicarious liability is a basic principle of common law. It was not "invented by the courts". You can be vicariously liable for all sorts of things, not just copyright infringement. People mix this up because they've only heard of vicarious liability in terms of copyright infringement, and then in the context of famous court cases.
You already supplied the context, so I thought I'd put the quote in there with it.
It's hard for me to say that common law was not invented by the courts, given that it derives from a lot of old court decisions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
Though it's fair to point out that congress did enact laws to codify the parts of it we wanted. That said, one of the few surviving bits is copyright-related (the "hot news" doctrine):
"We are now getting misleading Techdirt stories secondhand through Slashdot. It's interesting to see how far this game of telephone might go."
You know when I was watching President Obama's cover of the hit single "Call me maybe" [1] I was thinking the same thing.
Kidding aside though, the two things that the Youtube spoof and this have in common are taking snippets of actual "stuff" and mashing them together into something that the person making the mashup finds useful/amusing/entertaining. As HN and Reddit and slashdot before them seep into the journalistic consciousness there are pretty clear efforts to craft a message based on selective sampling. By drilling into the sources for all the clips (unnecessary of course but bear with me) used to compose the 'call me maybe' video its clear that the President never set out to make this video or even knew the lyrics (probably does now though :-) and this slashdot article appears to be a lesser instance of the same effect. Pull a few bits out of context, wrap them together into a choice sounding narrative and blam! you've got a "story."
So to answer your question the 'telephone' you mention is simply 'spin doctoring' (to use the 20th century vernacular) and it will continue as long as people make long enough sound bytes in their communication that they can be re-purposed for spin without setting off too many alarms in the readership.
So are you railing against the nature of humans? I mean you're not the 'Wake UP! sheeple' type generally, and you're contribution here (and presumably elsewhere) is clearly appreciated, so you are taking action on your concerns (which is great and way ahead of a number of others).
Patrick rightfully called me out the other day for creating out of whole cloth this 'other' which could be held up and criticized. Is that what you are doing by saying "... we are O.K. with this,"? Who are the 'we' in that context, I don't like it, you don't like it, so it isn't you and I but is this group of 'others' some great uncritical mass of readers? And then to go one step deeper are you railing against, 'their' agenda or this technique of spinning?
"Pandering to the crowd", "Preaching to the choir", and other colloquialisms for providing positive feedback on a system of beliefs is as old as humans. Maybe older. I suspect its in our nature to have self doubt and to seek out re-assurance of our beliefs. It takes practice and introspection to catch yourself being 'sold' rather than 'educated.' For some people that effort doesn't pay sufficient dividends to invest the effort.
I find these human driven belief systems to be some of the most intriguing from a systems analysis point of view. I feel compassion for folks who are unwitting participants, and I feel anger towards folks who manipulate them to their own advantage, and admiration for folks who manipulate them for the greater good of the community.
You're chasing this pointer maybe a few links farther than I intended. I'm just saying that it's annoying that message board threads are comfortable ignoring the dishonesty of sources like Techdirt and Torrentfreak, so long as those sources are whipping up rageviews from people who vocally support copyright infringement.
The "former copyright boss" is saying nothing of the sort. Here's what's actually happening:
Aereo is a company that streams NY broadcast TV over the Internet, capturing the broadcast signals and proxying them over IP to users. They are, unsurprisingly, being sued by every NYC television company, including PBS, because their product repackages broadcast TV in a product that lets users skip ads by default.
As I understand it, the suit is early days. But as is typical in cases like this, the content producers moved for a preliminary injunction to shut Aereo down while the case runs. The trial court refused, and so the content producers appealed.
Ralph Oman, who stopped working for the government before the dawn of the commercial Internet, filed an amicus in the content industry's appeals request to impose an injunction on Aereo.
Techdirt read Oman's amicus and reported sentences in the brief taken out of context. Techdirt's reading of Oman's amicus doesn't even make sense; the courts dealing with this case have no ability to create a "guilty until proven innocent" standard, nor can they require that technology produces consult Congress before launching products.
Oman was making an inside baseball argument to the court hearing the case. One element that recurs in all complex policy cases: how do judges resolve the (often contrary) forces of precedent, Constitutional principle, and the statutes enacted by legislatures. What Oman is arguing is not that the judge should apply some new restrictive rule on technology; rather, he's arguing that should the judge refuse an injunction on such a clear-cut case (his sentiment, not mine), that judge would in effect be creating a new policy of exempting technology companies from vicarious liability out of whole cloth, ignoring both precedent (thus his citation to a case where copy shop owners had been held liable for misuse of their property) and statute.
Obviously, Oman is a copyright hawk. I'm "conservative" as copyright goes, and even I don't think Oman is making a strong argument. This is obviously a very "leftist" forum, but that doesn't free you to make up entirely new and ridiculous arguments and stuff them into some random guy's mouth to create a straw man.
Finally, as straw men go, this is a pretty feeble one. This guy doesn't matter at all. He stopped managing copyright policy before the advent of CU-SeeMe.