Entries tagged with “licensing” from Tools of Change for Publishing

Mark Cuban: Copyright Law Gives Hulu Advantage Over YouTube

Peter Brantley
June 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

Mark Cuban says the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF) gives Hulu a distinct advantage over YouTube:

Hulu has one HUGE advantage over YouTube, it has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site. It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy. YouTube on the other hand, has that right for only the small percentage of the videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with. For probably 99pct or more of the videos on the site, YouTube isn't supposed to know what they even are.

How can that be? Because YouTube hides behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hulu is a media site that presents videos with advertising. It can do whatever it wants. YouTube is a hosting service. It's not allowed to know what videos are uploaded by users and its not allowed to generate revenue against those videos. It can only sell advertising around videos it has licenses to.

Related Stories:

• Study: Web Video Audience Stabilizes and Consumes More Streams
• Sorting through Layers of Copyright
• Some Quotables from OnCopyright 2008
• Orphan Works Legislation and Copyright Conundrums
• Copyright Clearance and Transaction Use Permits

Ruling: First Sale Doctrine Applies to Promotional CDs

Peter Brantley
June 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Universal Music Group (UMG) tried to prevent sales of promotional CDs labeled "Not for Resale," but a federal district court says the first sale doctrine extends to these promotional discs. From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

In its ruling, the district court found that the initial recipients of "promo CDs" own them, notwithstanding "not for resale" labels. The court rejected the notion that these labels create a "license," concluding that the CDs are gifts. According to the opinion, "UMG gives the Promo CDs to music industry insiders, never to be returned ... Nor does the licensing label require the recipient to provide UMG with any benefit to retain possession." (The court also found that federal postal laws relating to "unordered merchandise" establish that promo CDs are gifts to their recipients.)

With software vendors, laser printer manufacturers, and patent owners trying to strip consumers of their first sale rights with unilateral labels, licenses, and notices, today's ruling sets an important precedent holding the line against these efforts (and comes one day after the Supreme Court reaffirmed the same principle in the patent context in Quanta v. LG).

Related Stories:

• Orphan Works Legislation and Copyright Conundrums
• Copyright Clearance and Transaction Use Permits
• Amazon POD: Friend or Foe to Indie Publishers?

Copyright Clearance and Transaction Use Permits

Peter Brantley
February 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

There are times at a conference when several people tell you, “You have to talk to Person-X” and no matter how hard you try to align schedules, it just doesn’t happen.  At the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference, for me, that Person-X was John Billington of the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC).  John is the Product Manager for New Media at CCC (and, btw, not to be confused with his uncle James, who is the Librarian of Congress, i.e., the head honcho at the U.S. Library of Congress).  

The place of CCC in publishing probably benefits from a short digression.  The CCC, a not-for-profit company, has long provided rights clearing and licensing services for institutions such as libraries and major corporations; they offer a variety of products ranging from suite (repertory) licenses to individual author-based services.  Well-known publishers ranging from Stanford’s Highwire Press to O’Reilly Media use products such as RightsLink to authorize customer-based usage of intellectual property.  Historically, CCC has been most involved in licensing text-based products - written materials, such as articles (e.g., coursepacks), books or their subcomponents (e.g., chapters), and similar materials. 

Like everyone else, CCC has noted the rise of new media forms and the desirability of IP holders to obtain satisfactory use arrangements that do not perceptibly endanger their ability to extract value from their core assets.  Tellingly, I was lucky enough to catch up to John in San Francisco only because he was attending a gaming conference - and with major online games engendering extensive markets in pre-run players at set skill levels, as well as online property development in virtual environments such as SecondLife, rights licensing is an increasingly important desiderata.