Comments on: Intellectual property roundup

By: Hugo S Cunningham

Hugo S Cunningham — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:46:11 +0000

@GC–
The commenters on the Techdirt article are less willing than the writer to deride CafePress for crying wolf. They point out that the takedown letter from the Orwell estate’s attorney was vague about which material was infringing. Under our current unbalanced copyright law, CafePress could suffer ruinous liability for deleting too little, while the Estate would almost never suffer loss from pushing too far.

By: MattS

MattS — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 21:58:36 +0000

In reply to John Fembup. 31 years ago.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 20:55:57 +0000

Does anyone know the history of the California legislation that granted old audio recordings copyright until 2047? I smell a special interest.

By: John Fembup

John Fembup — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 19:20:52 +0000

1984 is so 30 years ago.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:33:53 +0000

In reply to gitarcarver. Thanks for flagging that. I've updated the entry above.

By: gitarcarver

gitarcarver — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 16:20:59 +0000

RE: “After nastygram from George Orwell estate…”

There appears to be a lot more to this story than just the nastygram and the seller removing the items.

It appears that the seller on CafePress was violating copyright laws and the Orwell estate sent him and CafePress a request to take down items that displayed Orwell’s image and or Orwell’s copyrighted quotes.

CafePress went bananas and removed everything that had to do with Orwell throughout the site. The removals included things that the estate knows and says are not copyrighted and they did not ask to be removed.

Some sites have said that the estate did not send a “proper” DMCA takedown notice, but I am not sure that a DMCA notice would have been required and not a simple violation of copyright notice. (Someone smarter than I will have to answer that one.)

No matter what, it seems the “villain” here is not the Orwell estate or the seller, but CafePress itself for going far beyond what the estate asked for.

See here for more information: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151031/22181932684/orwellian-story-about-cafe-press-takedowns-orwells-estate-was-really-cafe-press-screwing-up.shtml