With copyright playing a bigger and bigger part of our lives, it makes sense that we would be increasingly invested in copyright law and the controversies that surround it. However, 2011 was a year, in many ways, that was defined by divisiveness. New legislation, treaties, trials and other stories did more to divide people than bring them together. However, new services and tools have also come along to open new doors for enjoying creative works and making sure that artists are being paid.

So what were some of the big stories in 2011? Here are just some thoughts and observations I’ve noticed as I looked back over the past year on Plagiarism Today and other copyright-focused sites.

Copyright: Looking Back Over 2011

Looking back over 2011, when it comes to copyright, most are likely going to remember it as the year of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its related bills. While it’s true that the debate over these bills have been white-hot in recent months, most of the year was spent debating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was signed by most parties, after several years of negotiations, in early October.

Though SOPA’s predecessor, PROTECT-IP, has been around since the early part of the year, it didn’t garter nearly the attention of its younger cousin, which largely kicked off the online protests.

In the courtrooms, the controversial company Righthaven, which was famous for its “no warning” lawsuits against those who allegedly copied content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and, for a while, the Denver Post, has had a very rough year. It’s litigation campaign is on the ropes after a string of defeats and now is having its assets, including its domain, auctioned off to pay legal expenses to former defendants.

On the upbeat side, the music industry had a big year with the U.S. launch of Spotify and the launch of iTunes Music Match. Though these launches don’t mean the end of the piracy fight for the record labels (nor have they restored sagging profits yet), they show a shift in direction for the industry that may better position it in the future.

In fact, the record industry is continuing its war on music streaming service Grooveshark, which may be in serious trouble shows clearly that the record labels haven’t quite thrown in the towel on piracy.

However, on the movie side, Netflix faltered in a major way with a botched price increase and proposed name change. However, movie studios and tv networks scored some major legal victories, including the shuttering of DVD streaming service Zediva.

When it comes to consumers, in the U.S., major ISPs and rightsholders agreed voluntarily to a “six strikes” system to address suspected infringement. New Zealand passed a “three strikes” law and France ran into some trouble with their ongoing regime after a data leak.

All in all, 2011 was a very controversial year and one with a lot of divisiveness and bitterness. In it though, there was still some reason to hope and thoughts that may move us forward to a better future.

Plagiarism and Content Theft: Looking Back Over 2011

When looking at the situation for webmasters, bloggers and other smaller content creators, the biggest story of the year likely has been Google’s “Panda” updates, formerly known as “Farmer”. With those updates, Google publicly went to war with content farms, spam sites and scrapers.

The results, however, have been mixed. While many who were victimzed by spam sites earlier have seen relief and the updates may be discouraging new spammers from getting in the business, other sites, which are routinely the victim of spammers, have been gobbled up with the updates along with the copycats.

However, history has shown us that the impact of the changes likely won’t be that great in the long run.

Google also made strides with its DMCA service, accepting form DMCAs (as opposed to faxed ones) for all of their services and greatly improved their response time on DMCA matters.

In non-Google related news, the year began with another round of plagiarism tests by Dr. Weber-Wulff, a professor at the HTW Berlin.

Weber-Wulff gave top honors, this time, to PlagAware, a Germany-based service not well known in the U.S. She also gave high marks to Turnitin, Ephorus, PlagScan and Urkund. Other U.S. favorites such as Copyscape and Plagium fell into either the “Barely Useful” or the “Useless” categories.

Finally, when it comes to detecting image plagiarism and infringement, one of the major players, PicScout, was purchased by the major stock photo company Getty Images, likely in a bid to help continue its legal campaign against infringement.

Bottom Line

All in all though, what 2011 will most likely be remembered for, in the long run, is that it was a “business as usual” kind of year for these matters. When you discount the steep controversies and the ongoing debates, there was little legislation, few major legal victories and little that, by itself, will have a major impact moving forward.

In many ways, this was a year to set the stage for a potentially huge 2012 but even that is debatable as there are many variables at play. With the slow pace of copyright and plagiarism news, it could easily be another year or two before we have any major turning points.

Or, it could be tomorrow.

Still, with no Limewire-sized services being shuttered, Grokster-like rulings, DMCAs being passed and so forth, there probably won’t be that much to remember 2011 for when this time next year rolls around. 2011 may have set the stage, but it didn’t play the lead part.

1: Oprah can relax, $1 trillion lawsuit is dismissed

First off today, we have a post from the “That didn’t take long” department. Oprah’s famed $1 Trillion lawsuit, which made the “Weird Story of the Week” in the latest edition of the Copyright 2.0 Show, has already been dismissed.

The reason, the lack of a copyright registration, is something I had mentioned when I covered the lawsuit on the 3 Count last week.

As Queen would have said, “Another One Bites the Dust”.

2: IFPI pressures Global Gaming Factor on Pirate Bay money

Global Gaming Factor’s CEO Hans Pandeya has received notification from the IFPI that the anti-piracy organization, which represents record labels abroad, will try to work with Swedish authorities to block the transfer of money to buy The Pirate Bay. Whether this is to intercept it to pay the fines already awarded or outright block it altogether remains unclear.

This is just another hurdle in the GGF’s planned buyout of The Pirate Bay. Rumors are already circulating that the company will not be able to raise the needed cash, approximately $7.8 million, and the man tapped to be the CEO of the new, legitimate, Pirate Bay, ex-Grokster CEO Wayne Rosso, has already quit the post citing concerns about its viability.

All of this is going to make August 27th, the planned purchase date, a very dramatic one indeed!

3: Special Handling Fee to Be Suspended for Claims Pending over Six Months When Registration Is Needed for Litigation Purposes

Finally today, good news for those of you waiting for a registration from the U.S. Copyright Office. If it has been over six months and you need the certificate for a potential lawsuit, you can get the special handling fee, usually $760, waived. That means you can get your registration much more quickly, usually within a few weeks, at no additional cost.

However, once again, bear in mind it only affects cases where the filer has waited more than six months AND the registration is needed for litigation. Otherwise, your case won’t qualify.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

Stashy was an image host that, through a set of browser extensions, encouraged users to “stash” images found on the Web into their account. Those images would then be available for browsing by visitors and the general public.

The site caused controversy among Flickr users when it was discovered that various Flickr images were appearing in user accounts there. At first, Stashy temporarily closed the site with a note saying “Sorry folks, we have to clear some images that are not suposed to be here. See you tomorrow,” and began to remove many of the allegedly infringing images.

The site reappeared briefly yesterday evening but disappeared again this morning with a lengthier note. This one said, in part, “We created Stashy to bring joy and fun to the people, not to deal with guys that post copyrighted stuff. And since the site started to fail in its mission and we do not have any profit from it, we decided to shut it down.”

The site is currently offline and, in an email to me following a request for comment they said that “We do not have the man power to control and support the site 24/7 this seams like the best solution.”

Some Thoughts

Stashy was an ill-conceived service pretty much from its inception. Though likely well-intended, there was, quite literally, almost no legitimate use for the service as every image in Stashy was a probable infringement.

The problem was that Stashy, unlike most photo storage services, would not allow you to upload images from your hard drive. Rather, it would only download them from the Web.

Those with legitimate photo hosting needs would find this site useless as their images would already be available on the Web, however, those wanting to copy images belonging to others would have found it a great tool.

With so few legitimate uses, the site may have found itself dealing with a lawsuit for copyright infringement and, following the Grokster ruling, may have had a shaky case going forward.

Shutting down the site was a wise move. However, it would have been far better to create an application with greater legitimate uses and better protections for copyright.

On that note though, I find the attitude of “blame the users” to be very worrisome. While we certainly don’t hold Flickr accountable when someone abuses its services for infringement, most Flickr users don’t infringe copyright and the service is built specifically to make that as unlikely of an outcome as possible.

With Stashy, the intended use was almost certainly an infringing one. So while I agree with blame the visitors, when the tool is designed for infringement, it has to bear at least some of the responsibility.

Conclusions

To me, what the case highlights is the nature of Web development these days. According the site right now, Stashy was created by a pair of students with almost no resources.

But while that is impressive, with no lawyers or others to guide them, they created a service that was potentially very dangerous to both the Web at large and the creators of the site.

The good news is that, despite some heated words and bad publicity, the story of Stashy is primarily one of a crisis being averted. The site was taken down peacefully, no lawsuits have been filed and everyone can move on.

It could have been much worse.

My hope is that the developers will continue to build new sites, but will pay closer attention to copyright issue in the future.

On that note, if there is any way I can help with that, they have an open invitation to contact me.

All totaled, the show had fifteen stories, including the following:

• YouTube Releases Fingerprinting Technology
• Radiohead Can’t Stop Piracy, Even When the Work is Free
• The Record Labels Sue Usenet
• Perez Hilton is in Hot Water Again
• Law Firm Thinks “View Source” is Illegal
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here. Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Also, while you’re at it, consider taking a look at the new Numly Web Site that Chris ambushed me with at the beginning of the show. Feel free to send him your thoughts on it as well. .

Still Pretty Show Notes