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Reflection on intellectual property
Limitations on intellectual property protection
Reflection on intellectual property
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Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Shawn C. Reimerdes In today’s ever-advancing technological era, now more than ever, sophisticated technology, cyber-attacks and security, encryption, decryption, hacking, and many other computer-related issues, have made their way into the world of lawsuits and court appearances. In the case of Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Shawn C. Reimerdes, we see just that. This case was brought to the United States District Court, S.D. New York on August 17th, 2000 and was amended on September 6th, 2000. This complicated court case involving the encryption and decryption of copyrighted production materials brings up the issues of illegal piracy and a possible violation of First Amendment rights. This case was the first test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a United States federal law. Comprised of eight major movie production studios, Universal City Inc. produces and copyrights a wide array of motion pictures on Digital Versatile Disks, or “DVD’s”. In order to protect these copyrighted materials, they use an encryption system called the Content Scrambling System, more frequently referred to as “CSS”. CSS is “a Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme that is …show more content…
Each year, Universal City Studios, Inc. continues to invest a large amount of revenue into film production, which includes making sure that their content is copyrighted, licensed, and encrypted. All of these measures are aimed at the prevention of piracy of their motion pictures. For a third party, like Shawn Reimerdes, 2600 Enterprises, Inc. and countless others, to put themselves in a position of unlawfully decrypting, copying, and sharing the DVD’s content and material seems wrong and unlawful. The argument of “freedom of speech” should not be a liable defense when it infringes on the overall profit of a company, its employees, and mitigates the rights, rules, and regulations otherwise stated in a Federal
UST Inc. is a dominant player in the smokeless tobacco industry. We have been tasked with weighing the cost and benefits of having leverage in their capital structure and to advise the CEO whether or not to go ahead with the recapitalization. After solving for UST’s credit ratings and value given three different stock buyback scenarios, $700 million, $1 billion, and $1.5 billion, we would suggest that UST move forward with the recap at $1 billion.
...nd a strong message that the illegal distribution of copyrighted works has consequences, but if individuals are willing to step forward on their own, we want to go the extra step and extend this option" (RIAA 1).
In Charles W. Moore’s essay, “Is Music Piracy Stealing?” Moore uses great statistics of the people who are concerned and not concerned about music piracy. He gives many examples of the facts he has researched and gives an ethical appeal to his audience. “This week the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched an ad campaign using the slogan ‘copying is stealing,’ attempting to convey the message that digital copying is as serious and criminal as stealing a CD from a record shop or a DVD from a video shop” (Moore 242). However, throughout Moore’s entire essay he has a weak introduction and conclusion paragraph, repetitive examples, examples that do not apply to his topic and he uses many logical
Online copyrights violation is a very serious problem, but censorship is not its solution. Online censorship in SOPA can decrease the number of copyright infringement online but are not able to change the apparent ignorance of the rules of copyrights among publics. More importantly, freedom of speech is a basic human right that should not be compromised under any circumstance.
In the film The People v. Larry Flynt, there are several notable court cases that tap into the issue of free speech. The main speech that caught my attention was the Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. Throughout this paper I will show an understanding of the issues in this particular case, including the speech issues, arguments that support the speech, arguments that suppress or punish the speech, issues I agree with in the case, and how the case may be different in a different time period. Also, I will give a short review of how I might direct or construct the film different. This was an critical case to protect our 1st Amendment right to free speech and how Larry Flynt helped protect that.
Mandalay Bay Shooting Gasper v MGM Resorts International On October 1, 2017, a horrific event occurred in Las Vegas. Steven Paddock fired into the crowd of a music festival from a Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 people and injuring more than 500 others. Following this tragic shooting, a law suit was filed by Paige Gasper against the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino’s parent company, MGM Resorts International. This law suit claimed the company had negligent preventative measures and failed to maintain the Mandalay Bay premises in a reasonably safe condition.
An option that copyright owners have considered toward protecting their works from circulating in P2P networks is to use a variety of technological tools to prevent piracy. Such tools would be capable of blocking, decoying and redirecting the connections of unauthorized copyrighted file transfers. However, federal and state laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of ...
It is not unusual to find hostile response of audio-visual industry against a new copying technology. Every time when a new copying technology was invented and introduced into the market, the industry responded argued that the new technology would cause significant damage to them by promoting piracy; It was true with the cases of Xerox, audio tape recorder, video tape recorder, compact disc (CD), and finally with the online file sharing through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) service. Usually, introduction of new copying technology led to series of legal disputes just like what we are witnessing in the current case of the Record Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) lawsuits against KaZaA and its individual members. Quite contrary to the industry’s usual arguments, however, new technologies eventually have proved additional revenues of profit for them so far. (Bettig, 1996)
Over the past decade the societal view of creative society has greatly changed due to advances in computer technology and the Internet. In 1995, aware of the beginning of this change, two authors wrote articles in Wired Magazine expressing diametrically opposed views on how this technological change would take form, and how it would affect copyright law. In the article "The Emperor's Clothes Still Fit Just Fine" Lance Rose hypothesized that the criminal nature of copyright infringement would prevent it from developing into a socially acceptable practice. Thus, he wrote, we would not need to revise copyright law to prevent copyright infringement. In another article, Entitled "Intellectual Value", Esther Dyson presented a completely different view of the copyright issue. She based many her arguments on the belief that mainstream copyright infringement would proliferate in the following years, causing a radical revision of American ideas and laws towards intellectual property. What has happened since then? Who was right? This paper analyzes the situation then and now, with the knowledge that these trends are still in a state of transformation. As new software and hardware innovations make it easier to create, copy, alter, and disseminate original digital content, this discussion will be come even more critical.
A Worldwide Problem Software piracy is defined as the illegal copying of software for commercial or personal gain. Software companies have tried many methods to prevent piracy, with varying degrees of success. Several agencies like the Software Publishers Association and the Business Software Alliance have been formed to combat both worldwide and domestic piracy. Software piracy is an unresolved, worldwide problem, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue. Software companies have used many different copy protection schemes. The most annoying form of copy protection is the use of a key disk. This type of copy protection requires the user to insert the original disk every time the program is run. It can be quite difficult to keep up with disks that are years old. The most common technique of copy protection requires the user to look up a word or phrase in the program's manual. This method is less annoying than other forms of copy protection, but it can be a nuisance having to locate the manual every time. Software pirates usually have no trouble "cracking" the program, which permanently removes the copy protection. After the invention of CD-ROM, which until lately was uncopyable, most software companies stopped placing copy protection in their programs. Instead, the companies are trying new methods of disc impression. 3M recently developed a new technology of disc impression which allows companies to imprint an image on the read side of a CD-ROM. This technology would not prevent pirates from copying the CD, but it would make a "bootleg" copy differ from the original and make the copy traceable by law enforcement officials (Estes 89). Sometimes, when a person uses a pirated program, there is a "virus" attached to the program. Viruses are self-replicating programs that, when activated, can damage a computer. These viruses are most commonly found on pirated computer games, placed there by some malignant computer programmer. In his January 1993 article, Chris O' Malley points out that if piracy was wiped out viruses would eventually disappear (O' Malley 60). There are ways that a thrifty consumer can save money on software without resorting to piracy. Computer companies often offer discounts on new software if a person has previously purchased an earlier version of the software. Competition between companies also drives prices low and keeps the number of pirated copies down (Morgan 45). People eventually tire or outgrow their software and decide to sell it.
The Internet. It is a vast network of millions of users, surfing and sharing billions of files, all day, every day. To individuals holding copyrights on intellectual property, this is a frightening proposition. After all, there is virtually no protection for these copyright holders from the misuse of their property. But, as Scott Sullivan, writer for The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin stated, “as history has proven, technological and societal advances usually come with a price.” The price society is paying for the Internet is a loss of copyright protection by laws for their intellectual material.
In the present day, Americans have had to realize what the word “freedom” means. Whether it is recognizing our freedom as American citizens and defending ourselves against a growing threat of terrorism, or protesting war as we attempt to protect another country’s plea for freedom, all Americans have looked closer at the definition of freedom. In this heightened age of freedom and evaluating our constitutional rights, it is interesting that censorship is still a controversial issue. Perhaps the most significant examples of censorship take place in the arts. While the First Amendment considers censorship illegal, there are many ways that censorship still occurs in visual art, theatre, television, and film. Perhaps film has the most organized system of censorship found in the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Chris Roth writes in his article “Three Decades of Film Censorship…right before your eyes”, that censorship by ratings is a serious First Amendment issue that deserves debate and action. The article poses many questions about the MPAA and the restrictions it places on director’s creativity. However, the most important issue it addresses is our freedom as American citizens to promote, protect, and view a diverse mosaic of ideas on screen.
...entertainment industry is saying that intellectual property is just as real as physical property. The digital age faces a true balancing act a digital dilemma if you will- the right to freedom of expression while protecting intellectual property.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Markman, David & Vega 2001, Mark, Digital Future: Movie Industry Tries to Keep One Step Ahead of Hackers, Daily Journal, Los Angeles.