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I imagine that Amazon are going to argue in court that if the publishers are held to be correct, then computer monitor manufacturers are not licensed to display

by wbhart 7y ago

I imagine that Amazon are going to argue in court that if the publishers are held to be correct, then computer monitor manufacturers are not licensed to display copies of the work and that they also should pay the publisher (again) as should people who make software that alters the performance, e.g. volume or equalizer functions. Amazon is not fundamentally offering a textual copy of the work. If they were doing so they would be violating the license. Instead they are offering a technology to transform the (possibly flawed performance of) the work using a tool (that is itself possibly flawed). That is not the same thing as distributing a textual copy of the original work. A computer is a device on which the work is licensed to be distributed, and it happens to have the capability to transform the work, just as a volume knob or a graphic equalizer would. If Amazon can't offer this technology because they are licensed to distribute the work, what is to stop someone selling such technology who is not licensed to distribute the work? The effect is the same, precisely because it is a general purpose computing device with sophisticated functionality. And yet I don't see publishers getting far with a claim that all manufacturers of speech-to-text devices (think of deaf people) should pay them because the device could be used to transform their works. Of course I know this is not how any publisher sees their work. E.g. you need a different license to perform a work than you need to modify or make a video production of a work (mechanical vs sync license, etc.)

ysavir 7y ago
> A computer is a device on which the work is licensed to be distributed, and it happens to have the capability to transform the work, just as a volume knob or a graphic equalizer would. That's not a fair comparison, and I'm sure you know that. But I appreciate someone playing the devil's advocate here; such exercises are always useful. > If Amazon can't offer this technology because they are licensed to distribute the work, what is to stop someone selling such technology who is not licensed to distribute the work? What's stopping them from selling such technology? Nothing, as far as I'm aware. It's similar to how BitTorrent clients are not themselves illegal, but users of the client can use them towards illegal ends.
gnicholas 7y ago
> I imagine that Amazon are going to argue in court that if the publishers are held to be correct, then computer monitor manufacturers are not licensed to display copies of the work and that they also should pay the publisher (again) as should people who make software that alters the performance, e.g. volume or equalizer functions. The well-established doctrine of patent/trademark/copyright exhaustion [1] prevents this undesirable result. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S._law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S....
- gamblor956 7y ago
  To clarify, the exhaustion doctrine allows the owner of the licensed work (ebook, etc) to access/display/use the work except as disallowed by the license. This includes viewing it on a computer monitor. It's irrelevant that the computer monitor maker does not have a license to the work, since the viewer does. In the case of the audiobook speech-to-text argument: the licensee has a license to the audiobook but not the prose version of the work, which is a legally distinct creation under many decades of international and domestic IP law. So Amazon or the customer needs to have the license to the prose work for speech-to-text to be defensible, but neither do.
  - wbhart 7y ago
    I am not convinced by this. Amazon does not at any point convey a copy of the written work to the customer. At no point does such a copy exist, nor can it conceivably be constructed from the technology Amazon are supplying to their customers. This is not (if I understand correctly) a PDF document they can download and read, it's a technology that allows the words that are currently being spoken to be seen in written text. At no time does a legally significant quantity of the written work get conveyed to the customer. Amazon will just ask the publishers to show where this alleged copy of the textual work resides in their system. They won't be able to do so, as it doesn't exist there. This does seem to be what they are in fact arguing. And I think they will prevail. I would not expect them to prevail if they offered a pdf of the book or if their software actually contained a copy of the original text that was being conveyed to the customer.
cannonedhamster 7y ago
Replying to a reply of this. What copyright exhaustion? They just keep changing the rules to make it longer without the consent of anyone act we have no say in it. The average person in the US thinks the copyright length is insanely long. Legally if someone keeps changing the contract without the consent of all parties shouldn't that contract be null and void?
- gnicholas 7y ago
  I agree that the duration is out of control, but that's not what the exhaustion doctrine is about. It's about letting a person who has paid for a license to IP to be able to use it without having to secure licenses for all the devices/platforms they want to use it on. It doesn't solve the interminable extension problem you mentioned, but it does moot the point raised by parent's comment.
convivialdingo 7y ago
If I utilize a copyrighted work in the creation of something new, depending on the level and quantity, my new work could likely be considered derivative of the original work. I think Amazon will argue that that speech-to-text isn’t “creative enough” nor does it involve humans, and it is a purely mathematical function and this not covered. Most likely this will not end in Amazon’s favor.
Avshalom 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Computer%2C_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Comp.... sorted out most of that and yes hilariously for a couple weeks it was illegal to run software.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  and yes hilariously for a couple weeks it was illegal to run software. This simplification of the legal case is just as bad or worse than a movie saying they found America's launch code by hacking the dark web (in the movie's defense, they were focused on the fighting and explosions, IT accuracy was not on the top 100 items of their priority list.) It was never illegal for a licensee to run software they had licensed on their own computers. The issue was whether an unlicensed repair/maintenance company, Peak, could run MAI's OS while repairing customer computers. The 9th Circuit said no. Congress subsequently changed the underlying statute so that repair companies could run computer software as part of their repair/maintenance duties.

by wbhart 7y ago

ysavir 7y ago

> A computer is a device on which the work is licensed to be distributed, and it happens to have the capability to transform the work, just as a volume knob or a graphic equalizer would. That's not a fair comparison, and I'm sure you know that. But I appreciate someone playing the devil's advocate here; such exercises are always useful. > If Amazon can't offer this technology because they are licensed to distribute the work, what is to stop someone selling such technology who is not licensed to distribute the work? What's stopping them from selling such technology? Nothing, as far as I'm aware. It's similar to how BitTorrent clients are not themselves illegal, but users of the client can use them towards illegal ends.

gnicholas 7y ago

> I imagine that Amazon are going to argue in court that if the publishers are held to be correct, then computer monitor manufacturers are not licensed to display copies of the work and that they also should pay the publisher (again) as should people who make software that alters the performance, e.g. volume or equalizer functions. The well-established doctrine of patent/trademark/copyright exhaustion [1] prevents this undesirable result. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S._law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S....

gamblor956 7y ago
To clarify, the exhaustion doctrine allows the owner of the licensed work (ebook, etc) to access/display/use the work except as disallowed by the license. This includes viewing it on a computer monitor. It's irrelevant that the computer monitor maker does not have a license to the work, since the viewer does. In the case of the audiobook speech-to-text argument: the licensee has a license to the audiobook but not the prose version of the work, which is a legally distinct creation under many decades of international and domestic IP law. So Amazon or the customer needs to have the license to the prose work for speech-to-text to be defensible, but neither do.
- wbhart 7y ago
  I am not convinced by this. Amazon does not at any point convey a copy of the written work to the customer. At no point does such a copy exist, nor can it conceivably be constructed from the technology Amazon are supplying to their customers. This is not (if I understand correctly) a PDF document they can download and read, it's a technology that allows the words that are currently being spoken to be seen in written text. At no time does a legally significant quantity of the written work get conveyed to the customer. Amazon will just ask the publishers to show where this alleged copy of the textual work resides in their system. They won't be able to do so, as it doesn't exist there. This does seem to be what they are in fact arguing. And I think they will prevail. I would not expect them to prevail if they offered a pdf of the book or if their software actually contained a copy of the original text that was being conveyed to the customer.

cannonedhamster 7y ago

Replying to a reply of this. What copyright exhaustion? They just keep changing the rules to make it longer without the consent of anyone act we have no say in it. The average person in the US thinks the copyright length is insanely long. Legally if someone keeps changing the contract without the consent of all parties shouldn't that contract be null and void?

gnicholas 7y ago
I agree that the duration is out of control, but that's not what the exhaustion doctrine is about. It's about letting a person who has paid for a license to IP to be able to use it without having to secure licenses for all the devices/platforms they want to use it on. It doesn't solve the interminable extension problem you mentioned, but it does moot the point raised by parent's comment.

convivialdingo 7y ago

If I utilize a copyrighted work in the creation of something new, depending on the level and quantity, my new work could likely be considered derivative of the original work. I think Amazon will argue that that speech-to-text isn’t “creative enough” nor does it involve humans, and it is a purely mathematical function and this not covered. Most likely this will not end in Amazon’s favor.

Avshalom 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Computer%2C_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAI_Systems_Corp._v._Peak_Comp.... sorted out most of that and yes hilariously for a couple weeks it was illegal to run software.

gamblor956 7y ago
and yes hilariously for a couple weeks it was illegal to run software. This simplification of the legal case is just as bad or worse than a movie saying they found America's launch code by hacking the dark web (in the movie's defense, they were focused on the fighting and explosions, IT accuracy was not on the top 100 items of their priority list.) It was never illegal for a licensee to run software they had licensed on their own computers. The issue was whether an unlicensed repair/maintenance company, Peak, could run MAI's OS while repairing customer computers. The 9th Circuit said no. Congress subsequently changed the underlying statute so that repair companies could run computer software as part of their repair/maintenance duties.