#musicbrainz

There are also issues of international law. For example, most sites we're speaking here would probably be illegal in Finland.

how so, srotta ?

Which means they'd technically be illegal in other Nordic countries too, as well as good part of Europe.

using the sites is illegal or the sites themselves.

Basically, archive.org seems to be on shaky ground when retransmitting information it found on the net. Robots.txt or not.

where in finland are you, srotta?

pbryan: but musicbrainz isn't creating a derivate of the coverart by show it inline, a musicbrainz page is not a new work under copyright law (no creative processes involved), and we're not hosting the image so no copying is involved either.

ruaok: We have no concept of "fair use", which is pretty much what, for example, Wikipedia (or archive.org) leans on.

s/show/showing/

pbryan: you're getting *really* close to the heart of the matter!

ruaok: Copyright-wise, that is, they're infringing.

warp: How many times have sites been subject to legal liability for deep linking or image linking?

srotta: really? bummer. :-(

I can. The displaying/copying of scanned covers falls under distribution

I think a "fair use" justification a'la WIkipedia is much stronger than using archive.org and assuming it is fair use.

ruaok: It's sort of the same as with Google and the Belgian newspapers - it worked as long as nobody took notice of it.

pbryan: but in those cases, the page probably was a new work.

nikki: Tampere.

warp: Is a MB release page *not* a new work?

srotta: In Denmark, we have "citationsret" (the right to quote), which is more or less the same as US "fair use". (There are a few others, but the quoting right is the major one.)

ah

pbryan: no.

warp: How so?

Freso: Yeah, same here, but fair use is usually thought to be more lenient.

pbryan: to create a copyrighted work, there needs to be some creativity involved.

Freso: That's, of course, depending on who's doing the interpretation.

Freso: citationsret is quite limited, and would likely not aplly to covers.

So, MB position is that its release/track/AR data is not protected by copyright?

pbryan: as long as they are facts, that is correct for US jurisdictions.

facts are not copyrightable in the US.

Okay, so like sports scores.

yep.

Freso: But, for example, in Finland the most obvious use of "right to quote" is related to critic - if you're criticizing a work of art, you also have the right to reproduce that piece as part of your critic.

pbryan: If anything the data-structure is copyrighted by MB :)

fuck the mlb, by the way.

lol

mlb?

martin luther bupkus

ruaok: And not having fair use is not as bad as it sounds, we do have several amendments to copyright, they are just maybe more well defined than the generic concept of fair use.

So, if a release page is not a new work (ignoring the annotations, which may contain copyright-protected content), how does including an image without permission put MB at risk?

This channel (and IRC in general) is taking too much of my attention, and I *really* need to be done with the packing.

and well defined may very well be good.

You can't copyright data. but you can copyright a work consisting of data, though.

here fair use can be argued many ways.

So, I must bid ye all fareweel now.

and the RIAA would like to argue it away altogether.

bye freso

See ya Freso.

natta Freso

I'll see you on the 20th/21st!

canlight diiner then?

candlight dinner?

ruaok: We'll see. :)

Have fun Freso :)

lol

i should go too, bye :)

I'd like to assert that an MB page, as organized, is protected by copyright. The data it contains is not.

ruaok: It's the same in Finland, the local equivalents of RIAA and the lot are lobbing away to make the copyright law more strict.

s/data/factual data/

pbryan: yes, that is probably accurate.

pbryan: correct.

but I've not really nailed a laywer down to agree with that.

So, really, there would be three ways I can see MB "legally" publishing cover art: 1. permission of artist; 2. permission of licensee (and they are authorized to "sublet") and 3. fair use.

I would argue, while we're talking about it, that while data cannot be copywrited, collections of *structured* data can - and so long as we're linking, and not actually incorporating the actual bytes - whether we choose to represent that link in graphical or text form, it is being used under fair use to create an overall *structured* collection of data, much more so even than Google Images, which was creating structured content

petros: I agree completely.

Again, in Finland, both would be protected, but in different ways. Databases are protected (so I couldn't just suck everything from MB and present it as my own without permission), but individual pieces of data would not. The MB page might be a copyrighted piece in its own right (the "template" of the page), since it's clearly distinctive and work of creative process.

pbryan: that would not be "publishing" it would be "using". just nitpicking words here.

srotta: Same goes for Denmark

Hmm using.

publishing implies licensing

Copyright definitely does not cover use, does it?

EULAS (generally unenforceable) try to make that leap.

I thought copyright was all about use...

no - copyright does cover control over use, except as permitted under fair use

I thought copyright was all about distribution.

no

pbryan: both distribution and use/publishing

Use...

That's a troublesome word.

copyright is distribution + use - the one implies the other, and both are specifically made part of US copyright

Copyright covers everything except that which id explicitly doesn't cover. 8)

Okay, yes, I've seen decisions regarding how a work of art is displayed, under copyright.

This is not technically distribution, but "use".

we do make a use of the actual artwork in full, which weighs against the use, but our use of that art is both in a very small size, and as part of a much larger whole, which implies fair use

Okay.

(insert obligitory ianal here :P)

And for me IANAUSL.

In Canada, it's known as "Fair Trading".

Sorry, "Fair dealing".

Whoops, didn't mean to include the anchor in that link. :-P

In Canada it deals strictly in copying, not use.

doesn't read that way in the wiki description - it's talking about dealing, which could imply use, not just copying...

The fair dealing clauses of the Canadian Copyright Act allow users to make single copies of portions of works for "research and private study."

how do you define the act of "copying"?

Inclusion in another work, is an often cited example.

wouldn't that essentially be the same thing as "use", as defined by US "fair use", which covers "the authorized reproduction of copyrighted content"...

*I* define the act of copying to mean making physical copies onto a separate medium and/or transmitting to another party.

I think fair dealing and fair use are close.

I've made copies of quite a lot of works from my local library - I regularly get music from there (just to get the PUIDs and metadata into MB, of course). All perfectly legal.

It seems fair use is infringing activity, which is justified by its use, where fair dealing is not considered infringment at all.

over here, technically, the ripping of the library CD, even if to only generate puids, would be infringing.

Wow.

"

heh. I can feel that.

from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wikipedia...

to be honest, though, I think wikipedia's problems at the moment aren't funding, but much much more in the scandal arena and even more so in the massive beurocracy they're building

agreed.

the sheer number and size of their equivs of our guidelines is totally insane

but the other issues are moot if you can't keep things running,.

Agreed. You can be in the red all you want; running out of cash is what stops companies.

BrianFreud: The number of users is insane as well 8)

well, they topic breadth is a lot more ambitious than us.

incidentally, I got a lot more traction at ETech talking to people since I mentioned that we're self sufficient.

And the guides are made by users, as with MB?

So, is anyone investigating whether MB can cite fair use in all of its cover art?

some people stopped and really took notice.

true, but they have guidelines that make sense, then they have many more that just don't. I was reading some of them a week ago - you get 10 page essays resulting from single conflicts, where 20 different 10+ page guidelines could easily be abstracted into a single 1 page guideline

pbryan: I'm taking a break from investigating cover art right now.

I've spend far too much time on it already. :-(

:(

What needs to be done?

did I mention that I've talked to no less than 6 lawyers on this?

2 board meetings were focused on it.

cover art really needs its own separate group handling it, apart from MB, to protect MB and to be able to solely focus on the art legals

Not to me. :)

BrianFreud is right.

Woah.

its a big, ugly, hairy and messy topic.

far uglier than I ever thought.

every time I look at it it gets WORSE.

the main part I still cannot solve in that, though, is how it could ever be sufficiently funded to make it work

MBChatLogger: off

is not logging

is logging

Well, sure. It's presumably sanctioned by those that MB is receiving permission from. No?

basically.