Corporations, CDs and Click Thru Licensing Loopholes? 32
"What if there was a peer to peer service that had a click through license of some sort that made each user a member of the corporation. The user uploads a CD and it becomes property of the corporation. The user retains the original CD as a distributed back up for the corporation. In return for this service (providing a safe place to store the physical CD, using their harddrive space to store backup copies, using the user's bandwidth to distribute these backups to be backed up etc.) the corporation lets the users occasionally listen to that music and other music the corporation owns as a form of payment.
Users are not receiving a service (downloadable music) they are providing a service (storing digital music for a corporation). They are employees of the corporation that get paid by the right to listen to the music.
This would only work if corporation was non-profit and decentralized, a co-operative of some kind without any ability to have control taken of it by someone who would then try to collect its property (the CD's)."
I want in! (Score:2)
My Company Policy (Score:2)
Maily this is done so we don't get outdated information there when people leaving the company, or the business name changes, but I suppose it might enable legal reselling beyond the shrink-wrap's (highly questionable) restrictions, since the software proudly proclaims "this product is licenced to everybody everywhere" when it loads.
One minor flaw with this is that one unfortunate PHB didn't no
Legally a person? (Score:2)
Fortunately, this is not true.
I doubt your idea would truly go far. The argument, as I guess it to be, would be that when the corporation makes a copy for the member to play, it would be creating a copy which is *not* for the purpose of backup. That copy would be infringing on the copyright owner's right, and the corporation would have broken the law.
Doesn't really work (Score:3, Informative)
However, if the corporation owns a copy of a CD, then only one person can listen at once, otherwise it becomes a 'performance', which you haven't bought the rights to when you buy a CD. However if you only allow one person to listen then that may be ok (but then you're talking about a library copy- IRC there may be different terms for those.)
Secondly, you can't deploy it across the organisation, say with P2P; because you don't have a license to do that- that would be a copy, and the copyright holder has a monopoly on allowing people to do that.
IANAL
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2, Interesting)
Your argument implies that listening to music without headphones is a copyright violation.
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking the letter of the law, I think that that is correct. In practice, unless you are playing it for people who actually want to listen, and probably paying for it, you'd be vanishingly unlikely to run into problems.
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
I REALLY NEVER thought that I could find a good use for those guys. Now what can we do to keep the MPAA busy too. Is there some way to turn them against billboards and bad advertising signs?
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
Are you the owner of the vehicle which you are driving or a someone hired to drive it?
Or did you mean the idiot next to you at the stop light with a subwoofer where his spare tire ought to be?
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:1)
"Broadcasting a request show to a single person" is the name, and approx $390/year per stream is the game.
(as per http://www.fitzroydearborn.com/chicago/radio/sampl e-ascap.php3, the ASCAP fee is "$390 for all other noncommercial outlets.")
Add a dash of DSL-style overselling/"contention ratio" and I reckon you could get instant access to all ASCAP material for about $10/month on the assumption of 4/1 contention.
Any takers?
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
How about this? What if we created a P2P system similar to the proposal, but with a distributed library of corporate-owned copyrighted works. It could be any copyrighted work -- books, music CDs, DVDs, whatever. Then, like a public library (or Hollywood Video), only one employee would be able to check out any given copy at a time. However, this being a high-tech electronic library, as soon as you're finished with it the copy would be
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't really work (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You got to pay (Score:2)
No way this will be legal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No way this will be legal (Score:2)
Naw. Space shifting is a fair use. However, they'd be in some trouble if users could access a work simultaneously.
Re:No way this will be legal (Score:1)
Corporate purchase != corporate liscense. (Score:2, Interesting)
Are the moderators using some sort of filtering for approving Ask Slashdot questions? Seems like if you have DMCA in the question, it automatically gets approved.
Re:Corporate purchase != corporate liscense. (Score:3, Interesting)
Some legal problems (Score:4, Informative)
Nice idea, but it won't work. You are up against two legal problems: an employee and an employer are separate people; and the employment relationship is a non-trivial contract.
You are right in saying that corporations are juristic persons and can own property. Many corporations own licenses for software, for example. But to allow employees to use those licenses, the license must be assigned to a specific employee.
This is still a legal minefield: some licenses have conditions regarding assignment to other persons, duration of assignment, or even assignment to an instrument (a particular computer). It is generally recognised that an employer has the right to assign property to an employee for use in the course of his/her job, and to reassign that property as dictated by operational requirements. This constitutes fair use on the part of the purchaser.
But fair use and assignment do not give the employer the right to allow unrestricted or simultaneous use of intellectual property that is not owned by the employer (i.e. IP that has been purchased, such as a book, CD, or software).
The same is true for members of corporations -- the relationship between the corporation and a member is still a relationship between different persons having legal status, so a right afforded to a corporation does not necessarily extend to a member of that corporation.
The second problem regards the incorporation or employment. To say the least, a click-through "I agree to be employed" is not sufficient. No court will find that the contract of employment is valid unless the employer is clearly employing, and the employee is being employed and remunerated. While the latter may be true in this case, the former is not satisfied. Similarly the incorporation of a company does not occur on an ad-hoc basis; there are legal procedures that must be followed to introduce members.
Even then, you have to contend with the fact that may people in IT have contracts that prevent them from having other jobs at the same time ... not to mention that this practice is questionable under common law.
Any scheme of this nature ultimately comes down to being some sort of (non-sanctioned) library, and therefore illegal under the basic provisions of copyright. Even if you DID find a way to do it, the courts would also certainly find that you are attempting to circumvent the law, and respond appropriately.
Re:Some legal problems (Score:1)
Unfortunately, this difference doesn't make the proposal any more legal. By this argument, all the shareholders of a company which had purchased a copy of Microsoft Office could use that copy on their home computers *simultaneously*.
Even if it were restricted to one user at a time (which significantly reduces the utility of the proposal), this
How about a click thru license for P2P's (Score:1)
Re:How about a click thru license for P2P's (Score:2)
Re:How about a click thru license for P2P's (Score:2)
Line-ucks Corporation (Score:1)
EmmPeeThree
Not bad (Score:2)
Re:Not bad (Score:1)
Re:Not bad (Score:2)
So why not turn it around.. this is just the kind of thi
3 letters beat 4 (Score:2)
Employees or stockholders, either way, your problem won't be the RIAA or the MPAA, it'll be all the expense, accounting, and paperwork necessary to place a monetary value on that "pay" and figure out just which laws, rules, and regulations govern it. All of this just to pacify the IRS (and any state and municipal bodies which decide to get in on the act).