Copyfraud

Copyfraud is a term used to describe the misuse of false claims of copyright.¹

Forms of copyfraud include:

• Claiming copyright ownership of public domain material.²
• Copyright owner imposes restrictions beyond what the law allows.³
• Claiming copyright ownership on the basis of ownership of copies or archives.⁴
• Claiming copyright ownership by publishing a public domain work in a different medium.⁵

Copyfraud is usually successful because there are few and weak laws criminalizing false statements about copyrights and lax enforcement of such laws. Also, few people are competent to give legal advice on the copyright status of commandeered material.^{The U.S. Copyright Act does not provide for any civil penalties for claiming copyrights on public domain materials, nor does the Act proscribe relief for individuals who refrain from copying or pay for copying permission to an entity that engages in copyfraud.[7}

In the U.S. Copyright Act, only two sections deal with improper assertions of copyright on public domain materials: Section 506(c) criminalizes fraudulent uses of copyright notices and Section 506(e) punishes knowingly making a false representation of a material fact in the application for copyright registration.⁸

Real examples

• In 2004, Ludlow Music, Inc. sued Jibjab Media, Inc. for its use of the Woody Guthrie song "This Land Is Your Land" in a video parody called "This Land".^{Guthrie wrote the song in 1940, but published it in a pamphlet in 1945, which created the copyright date. The copyright was filed in 1956 and Ludlow Music filed a copyright renewal in 1984. However, the song passed into the public domain in 1973. The Electronic Frontier Foundation researched this case and presented its findings to the court, which resulted in a dismissal of lawsuit against Jibjab.[10}
• The American Antiquarian Society web site stated that images of its archived printed materials from the 18th and 19th centuries "must be licensed by the society in consequence of its proprietary rights."¹¹
• Viacom, Inc. ordered YouTube in February 2007 to remove about 100,000 videos that were alleged to be clips of Viacom movies and television shows, from the YouTube web site. At least 60 of those videos did not infringe on any of Viacom's copyrights.¹²
• In 2004, The SCO Group sued Novell, Inc. claiming that it owned the copyrights to the Unix operating system and Novell had infringed on its copyrights by adding Unix code to the Linux operating system. In August 2007, a court found that SCO's copyright claims were false and Novell in fact owned the Unix copyrights.¹³
• in 2003, electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold, Inc. threatened two Swarthmore College students with charges of copyright infringement for posting some emails from Diebold's archives that discussed problems with its machines. Diebold was sued by the Online Policy Group for violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act section 512(f) and had to pay damages of $125,000 to the students and OPG.¹⁴

See also

• Fair use
• Public domain
• Copyright misuse

References

External links

• "Too Quick to Copyright" Legal Times article by Jason Mazzone vol.26, no.46
• "Throwing More Light on False Copyright Claims" Hellenic Historical and Genealogical Association article by James F. Ramaley, PhD
• RIAA harassment with false copyright claims
• Copyfraud on "The Army Officer's Pocket Companion"