Salon.com > Siva Vaidhyanathan

Supreme Court’s unsound decision

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 23:40:00 +0000

Note to technology developers who want to market products that will help people share copyrighted files: Whatever you do, don't end your brand name with "-ster"!

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in the case of MGM vs. Grokster. In this case, the major movie and music companies sued Grokster and StreamCast, two companies that produce peer-to-peer interface software that enables users to share music and video files. Writing the majority opinion, Justice David Souter cited Grokster's very name -- "an apparent derivative of Napster," a company the court characterized as "notorious" -- as evidence of a marketing strategy in which Grokster had knowingly induced massive copyright infringement.

So just to be safe, maybe all companies should send a message to their customers like the one Apple does with its iPods? You know, those stickers and signs that wink at you while admonishing, "Don't steal music"?

Is your computer a loaded gun?

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 19:30:00 +0000

The torrent of unauthorized file sharing through peer-to-peer Internet services has generated a barrage of panic, overreaction and reckless attempts to change the cultural and technological behavior of some 60 million Americans.

The most recent and most reckless comes from the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, and the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. It's awkwardly named the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act, or the Induce Act. It would subject to civil penalties anyone who "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" a copyright violation by a third person. In other words, the photocopier in your office could be contraband, as could the computer on which I am typing this column.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Thursday, July 22, on the bill. Testifying will be representatives of the entertainment industries and the consumer electronics producers.

Phantom editors

Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:45:00 +0000

If Hollywood studios could deliver their dream products in their dream formats, they would send every first-run film via electronic pipes to thousands of theatres around the world. Digital projectors would emit high-quality images on screens. And the studios could control which versions got to which theatres. Theatres in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Singapore, or Utah might receive versions that lacked nudity. Theatres in New York, Amsterdam, and San Francisco might receive versions with extra nudity. If audiences registered disappointment with a particular ending, studios could quickly adjust and beam out a revised version with a new ending. Studios could even send multiple versions to the same theatre -- a PG-rated version for all shows before 8 p.m., and an R-rated version for all shows after 8 p.m. The storage capacity of DVDs would allow multiple versions on the same disc, so that families could watch "Titanic" without the naked scenes if the kids were in the room and with those scenes when the kids fall asleep. And once each home is connected with a pay-per-view jukebox, there would be no need for the DVD. Families could just order up their preferred digital stream. Ideally, of course, Hollywood would save on the cost of casting and re-shooting scenes by replacing as many human beings (or "blood actors," as they are known) with computer-generated cartoons.

After the copyright smackdown: What next?

Fri, 17 Jan 2003 20:30:00 +0000

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress was within its constitutional bounds to extend the duration of all copyrights by 20 years -- up to 70 years beyond the life of the author and potentially infinitely -- many saw the ruling as a knockout blow to the movement to reform copyright.

Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be called the "Dred Scott case for culture," unjustifiably locking up content that deserves to be free. After all, six of the nine justices concurred with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she issued a stark opinion that cavalierly dismissed the historical "bargain" that justified American copyright in the first place: We the People agree to grant a limited, temporary monopoly to a creator or publisher in exchange for access to creativity and the eventual return of the work to a state of freedom.

And Ginsburg's opinion did not allow that the purpose of copyright is to encourage future production, not lock up works already created. She ignored the fact that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 does nothing to "promote the progress" of science or art because it grants no incentive to produce and distribute new works.

Fired for being Israeli

Wed, 26 Jun 2002 23:53:00 +0000

Miriam Shlesinger is not the kind of academic who hides behind stacks of books and papers, happy with a calm career, satisfied with middle-class security, professional perks and a comfortable office chair.

Shlesinger is not only an internationally known translator and linguist. She has used her skills to translate for courts that are hearing charges of human-rights abuses and war crimes. She has run the Israeli chapter of Amnesty International. And she is a frequent critic of Israel's policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But now, hoping for a way to stop the senseless killing in Israel and Palestine, a handful of European academics are pushing to punish Israeli scholars. And because she lives and works in Israel, Shlesinger is being shunned from her professional circles.

Shlesinger, a senior lecturer in translation studies at Bar-Ilan University, was dismissed from the editorial board of The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication. Another Israeli scholar, Gideon Toury, a professor in Tel-Aviv University's School of Cultural Studies, was removed from the international advisory board of Translation Studies Abstracts.