McDonald's gets right to fix its ice cream machines

McDonald's gets legal right to fix its ice cream machines

More McFlurrys: US Copyright Office allows McDonald's to fix broken ice cream machines | USA Today | Max Hauptman:

October 29, 2024 - "A broken ice cream machine is a familiar inconvenience to McDonald's customers. Franchise owners have complained about difficulties fixing the machines, McDonald's itself has poked fun at how often the machines are seemingly broken, and there is even a dedicated independent site for customers to see when and where they might be denied a McFlurry.

"Those worries may soon be a thing of the past, after the U.S. Copyright Office issued a new set of exemptions last week that allows restaurants to repair equipment used in 'retail-level commercial food preparation,' which includes those soft-serve ice cream machines used to make McFlurrys. Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, and e-commerce website iFixit petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office for the exemption, which went into effect Monday....

"Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal for third parties to bypass digital locks on any copyrighted materiel, including software used in commercial devices like those McDonald's ice cream machines, even for repairs. What that has meant for McFlurry fans until Monday is that every time an ice cream machine in a McDonald's location breaks or has any kind of technical problem, it can only be repaired by the manufacturer and copyright holder.

"Since 1956, McDonald's has partnered with the Taylor Company, an Illinois-based manufacturer, for its ice cream machines, leaving only the Taylor Company with the 'right to repair' them. According to iFixit, which looked inside a McDonald's ice cream machine last year, the devices contain "lots of easily replaceable parts.'

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2024/10/29/mcdonalds-mcflurry-ice-cream-machine/75914325007/

Food Theory: McDonald's FINALLY Fixed Its Ice Cream Machines! | Food Theorists | November 19, 2024:

Canadian copyright term extension on hold

Canada Introduces USMCA Implementation Bill…Without a General Copyright Term Extension Provision - Michael Geist, MichaelGeist.ca:

May 30, 2019 - The Canadian government tabled Bill C-100 yesterday, the bill to implement the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement.... [K]ey provisions ... include new criminal provisions on trade secrets and tampering with rights management information. The bill also features several provisions related to copyright term but notably does not touch the current general copyright term of life of the author plus an additional 50 years. There are several new terms included in the bill with extensions for anonymous works, performances in sound recordings, sound recordings, and cinematographic works. The bill expressly states that none of the extensions are retroactive which means that the works that are currently in the public domain will remain there even after the new terms are established.

Yet the big story is that Section 6 of the Copyright Act, which states that the general term of copyright is life of the author plus 50 years, remains unchanged despite a USMCA requirement of life plus 70 years. Why unchanged?

I am advised that the reason is that the Canadian government negotiated a 2 1/2 year transition period for the USMCA and it intends to use the time to consult with the public on the best way to meet the copyright term obligation. That holds the promise of the making the best of a bad situation given that few (other than the embarrassingly one-sided Heritage committee study) think that extending the term of copyright benefits Canadians.

For example, there has been some thought given to establishing a registration requirement for the additional 20 years. That approach would allow rights holders that want the extension to get it, while ensuring that many other works enter the public domain at the international standard of life plus 50 years. By providing for life plus 50 and the option for an additional 20 years, Canadian law would be consistent with Berne Convention formalities requirements and with its new trade treaty obligations. Copyright registration would not eliminate all the harm to the public domain, but it would mean that only those that desire the extension would take the positive steps to get it, thereby reducing the costs of the USMCA’s unnecessary copyright term extension.

Read more: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2019/05/canada-introduces-usmca-implementation-bill-without-a-general-copyright-term-extension-provision/

Article copyright Michael Geist. Licensed Creative Commons BY 2.5.

Canadian copyright extension buried in trade deal

IPPro Magazine | The Great White North: How Canada is matching US IP system changes | ippromagazine.com - Ben Wadecki:

March 6, 2019 - "The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement USMCA, touted by US president Donald Trump as a 'great deal for all three countries', is a reorganisation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and will shape trade and IP relations between the three countries for years to come....

"In relation to copyright, Paul Smith, senior partner at Smiths IP, remarks that under USMCA, the extension of the copyright terms from the life of the author +50 years will become the life of the author +70 years.... Smith points out that the change has been criticised as a curtailment of Canadian heritage and as a significant increase in the cost of education in Canada, all apparently to benefit a handful of large US-based entertainment companies."
Read more: http://www.ippromagazine.com/specialistfeatures/specialistfeature.php?specialist_id=50

New NAFTA Would Harm Canadian Copyright Reform and Shrink the Public Domain - Creative Commons - Timothy Vollmer:

October 1, 2018 - "The extension of already-lengthy copyright terms will discourage new creativity in Canada. It will further prevent Canadians from accessing and using the rich pool of resources in the public domain, which means they can be used free of any copyright protections. Creativity always builds upon the past, and the public domain is our shared cultural commons used to create new works of art and science....

"Before these negotiations took place, an increase in copyright term was not  on the agenda for the Canadian reform. Last year, Canadian ministers responsible for the copyright review indicated some support of the public domain, stating that an updated law 'should ensure […] that users benefit from a public domain.' In our submission to the public consultation, we wrote:

"'We believe that Canada has been right to push back against any extension of copyright term or expansion of the scope. The copyright term of life of the author + 50 years is already far too long. Extremely long copyright terms prevent works from entering the public domain, where they may be used by anyone — including CC licensors — without restriction as the raw material for additional creative works.' If the USMCA is adopted, it will clearly violate the direction of the Canadian copyright reform....

"The USMCA text shows the powerful hand of U.S. copyright interests. A copyright term extension was floated in earlier versions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and Creative Commons joined with dozens of other organisations to push back on it then.... But USMCA shows a swing back in the other direction, almost surely a result of U.S. pressure to ratchet up copyright protection and enforcement measures....

"There is no reason for any more copyright term extensions, which would harm the commons and are contrary to the policies and values supported by the Creative Commons community."

Read more: https://creativecommons.org/2018/10/01/new-nafta-would-harm-canada-and-shrink-the-public-domain/

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In praise of the public domain

by George J. Dance

January 1, 2019 - In Canada, January 1 is Public Domain Day, the day when works of art lose their copyright status and pass into the public domain. "Public domain" means that the art no longer has an owner who can charge (and therefore exclude) those who want to experience it. Physical copies are still owned; but anyone in the country – teacher, humble blogger, or even small press owner – can make their own copies without having to pay royalties for the privilege.

Public Domain Day happens today in the United States, as well, but there it is more momentous. January 1, 2019 is the first Public Domain Day in the U.S. in 20 years, the very first since the rise of the internet.

The concept of a 'public domain' has a long pedigree, reaching back to the Roman legal concepts of res nullus (things that cannot be owned) and res communes (things owned in common). In modern law, though, it is treated as a mere negative: the things to which property law does not apply. The term itself was coined by French poet Alfred de Vigny, who equated the end of a work's copyright with it falling "into the sinkhole of public domain." "Sinkhole" was a good description; For most books, songs and poems, the lack of copyright meant that no one would publish them; a work that fell into the public domain could well and truly disappear.

However, the internet changed all that. Project Gutenberg began putting the literary canon online – Internet Archive began doing the same for the rest of pre-1923 writing – Wikimedia Commons did the same for paintings and music. Today, rather than being lost to us, public domain works are available and freely accessible to billions.  

Simultaneous with the rise of the net in the 1990s, copyright holders began pushing to extend their copyrights. In 1995 the United Kingdom increased its copyright term, from life plus 50 to life plus 70 years. The United States followed suit in 1998 with its own 20-year increase, from 75 to 95 years. The British law was retroactive, declaring works already in the public domain (some already republished) back in copyright (and those published works therefore illegal). However, as the U.S. Constitution forbids ex post facto punishments, Congress had to be content with freezing copyrights for 20 years, effectively banning Public Domain Day for that time.

Canada has been under considerable pressure (most recently with the Trans-Pacific Partnership) to increase its own term. Thankfully, that pressure failed; not least, because such extensions of copyright are indefensible. A libertarian can accept the idea of giving a work's creator the sole right to use and profit from his work, even for life; and adding an extra fixed term insures his dependents against his accidental death. (For example, if a writer dies at 30, Canadian law lets his heirs collect royalties as if he had lived to 80.) But there is no justification for forcing consumers to pay royalties to a creator's grandchildren.  

Yet copyright advocates continued to demand more for another decade. Some, like Sonny Bono (a main proponent of the 1998 law), even argued for perpetual copyrights that would never expire. Perpetual copyright is also forbidden by the U.S. Constitution, which empowers Congress to grant patents and copyrights for "limited times" only; Bono and his ilk hoped to circumvent that by passing further 20-year extensions every 20 years, meaning that the next increase had to happen by 2018.

Fortunately, the internet changed all that, too. The tipping point came in 2012, when Congress debated the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA), which would have forced ISPs to black out websites accused of copyright violation and blacklist the site owners. Online opposition to SOPA was massive and widespread, and in addition backed by big sites like Google and Wikipedia. For once the big money pushing to expand copyright was balanced by big money pushing back. "The defeat of SOPA was so complete," says website Ars Technica, "that it has essentially ended efforts by copyright interests to expand copyright protection via legislation."

Which is why the U.S. enjoyed a Public Domain Day this year. American copyright law today is far from perfect, and in many respects not even very good. But at least this day can remind Americans that, thankfully, their government no longer has carte blanche to make it worse.

Further US copyright extension unlikely this year

Why Mickey Mouse’s 1998 copyright extension probably won’t happen again | Ars Technica - Timothy B. Lee:

January 8, 2018 - "On January 1, 2019, every book, film, and song published in 1923 will fall out of copyright protection — something that hasn't happened in 40 years. At least, that's what will happen if Congress doesn't retroactively change copyright law to prevent it — as Congress has done two previous times.

"Until the 1970s, copyright terms only lasted for 56 years. But Congress retroactively extended the term of older works to 75 years in 1976. Then on October 27, 1998 — just weeks before works from 1923 were scheduled to fall into the public domain — President Bill Clinton signed legislation retroactively extending the term of older works to 95 years, locking up works published in 1923 or later for another 20 years.

"Will Congress do the same thing again this year? To find out, we talked to groups on both sides of the nation's copyright debate.... To our surprise, there seemed to be universal agreement that another copyright extension was unlikely to be on the agenda this year....

"The rise of the Internet has totally changed the political landscape on copyright issues. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is much larger than it was in 1998. Other groups, including Public Knowledge, didn't even exist 20 years ago. Internet companies — especially Google — have become powerful opponents of expanding copyright protections.

"Most importantly, there's now a broad grassroots engagement on copyright issues — something that became evident with the massive online protests against the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012. SOPA would have forced ISPs to enforce DNS-based blacklists of sites accused of promoting piracy. It was such a bad idea that Wikipedia, Google, and other major sites blacked themselves out in protest.... The protest against SOPA 'was a big show of force," says Meredith Rose, a lawyer at Public Knowledge. The protest showed that 'the public really cares about this stuff.'

"The defeat of SOPA was so complete that it has essentially ended efforts by copyright interests to expand copyright protection via legislation. Prior to SOPA, Congress would regularly pass bills ratcheting up copyright protections.... Since 2012, copyright has been a legislative stalemate, with neither side passing significant legislation.

"And that means that advocates of a new copyright term extension bill wouldn't be able to steamroll opponents the way they did 20 years ago. Any term extension proposal would face a well-organized and well-funded opposition with significant grassroots support.... Of course, copyright interests might try to slip a copyright term extension into a must-pass bill in hopes opponents wouldn't notice until it was too late. But ... 'The likelihood of it slipping by unnoticed' is low, Rose said.

"And even some content creators aren't keen on ever-longer copyright terms. The Authors Guild, for example, 'does not support extending the copyright term, especially since many of our members benefit from having access to a thriving and substantial public domain of older works,' a Guild spokeswoman told Ars in an email. 'If anything, we would likely support a rollback to a term of life-plus-50 if it were politically feasible.'"

Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-its-not-planning-another-copyright-extension-push/
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Happy Birthday copyright claim invalid, judge rules

'Happy Birthday' song copyright claims are invalid, federal judge rules - LA Times - Christine Mai-Duc::

September 22, 2015 - "None of the companies that have collected royalties on the 'Happy Birthday' song for the past 80 years held a valid copyright claim to one of the most popular songs in history, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled on Tuesday.

"In a stunning reversal of decades of copyright claims, the judge ruled that Warner/Chappell never had the right to charge for the use of the 'Happy Birthday To You' song. Warner had been enforcing a copyright since 1988, when it bought Birch Tree Group, the successor to Clayton F. Summy Co., which claimed the original disputed copyright.

"Judge George H. King ruled that a copyright filed by the Summy Co. in 1935 granted only the rights to specific piano arrangements of the music, not the actual song.

"'"Happy Birthday" is finally free after 80 years,' said Randall Newman, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit, which included a group of filmmakers who are producing a documentary about the song. 'Finally, the charade is over. It's unbelievable.'

"Until now, Warner has asked for royalties from anyone who wanted to sing or play 'Happy Birthday to You' – with the lyrics – as part of a profit-making enterprise. Royalties were most often collected from stage productions, television shows, movies or greeting cards. But even those who wanted to sing the song publicly as part of a business, say a restaurant owner giving out free birthday cake to patrons, technically had to pay to use the song....

"Two of the filmmaker plaintiffs paid $1,500 and $3,000 for the rights to use the song, their attorneys said. Filmmaker Steve James paid Warner $5,000 to use the song in his 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams.

"At a March hearing in the case, records show, a Warner/Chappell representative seated in the audience told the judge that the company collects as much as 'six figures' for certain single uses of the song. The song brings in about $2 million a year in royalties for Warner, according to some estimates....

"It is not entirely clear, the judge ruled, that the Hill sisters wrote the lyrics for 'Happy Birthday To You.' But either way, they never asserted a copyright claim for the lyrics, even though they sued for the rights to the original melody....

"Ultimately, the judge ruled that no evidence existed that the Summy Co. -- the original company to assert a copyright claim -- ever legally obtained the rights to the ... song from whomever wrote it.

"Tuesday's ruling means that the song is now considered a public work and is free for everyone to use without fear of having to pay for it, according to a statement from the plaintiffs' attorneys."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html
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Bachman's absurd argument for copyright extension

Randy Bachman: Canadian Music ‘Could Stop Being Made' Without Copyright Extension - Daniel Tencer, Huffington Post Canada::

June 24, 2015 - "Canada may stop creating great musical acts like Arcade Fire or Joni Mitchell if the country doesn’t extend copyright terms, rocker Randy Bachman says....

"As part of its latest budget, the Harper government extended copyright terms for sound recordings to 70 years, from the previous 50 years. Bachman, echoing the calls of certain artists’ groups, is calling for that extension to apply to songwriters and composers as well.

"The copyright extension in the budget 'helps only those who performed on the recordings,' Bachman writes. “The creators’ copyright protection is frozen at the life of the author plus 50 years. This would leave Canada lagging behind most other G20 countries, including the United States, the U.K., and almost all of the European Union'....

"He concludes by saying society 'should pay the creators what they have rightfully earned, so that a middle-class career (at least) can be the reward for solid songwriting skills, and so that they can keep creating — in Canada. Otherwise, Canadian music could stop being made.'

"University of Ottawa e-commerce law professor Michael Geist says Bachman’s column 'contains some of the most absurd claims about copyright in recent memory'....

"Geist wrote that Bachman’s claim Canadian artists would stop making music 'is simply not credible' because, with or without the copyright extension, they are protected for life.

"'The reality is that songwriters and composers typically get far more than 70 years since their work is protected for their entire lives plus an additional 50 years,' he wrote.

"'In Bachman’s case, "Takin’ Care of Business" was written in 1973. That means it has already been protected for 42 years. It is entitled to another 50 years after Bachman dies, meaning that it is guaranteed to get at least 92 years of protection'....

"He adds: 'Does Bachman seriously believe that there are any Canadian songwriters, composers, or authors who would decide not to write because they receive copyright protection for their entire lives and their heirs get 50 years of protection rather than 70 years?'"

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/06/24/randy-bachman-copyright-canada_n_7654566.html
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Book makes free-market case for copyright reform (video)

New book makes free-market case for copyright reform - Jerry Brito, Technology Liberation Front:

December 6. 2012 - "I’m happy to announce today that the new book I’ve edited, Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess is now available. The book is not a moral case for or against copyright; it is a pragmatic look at the excesses of the present copyright regime from a free-market, limited government perspective....

"Conservatives and libertarians, who are naturally suspicious of big government, should be skeptical of our ever-expanding copyright system. They should also be skeptical of the recent trend toward criminal prosecution of even minor copyright infringements, of the growing use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright enforcement, and of attempts to regulate the Internet and electronics in the name of piracy eradication. These are the issues Copyright Unbalanced addresses."

Read more: http://techliberation.com/2012/12/03/new-book-makes-free-market-case-for-copyright-reform/
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How copyright criminalization threatens online innovation

How Copyright Criminalization Threatens Online Innovation - Forbes - Timothy B. Lee:

December 6, 2012 -: "Jerry Brito has pulled together an edited collection of copyright reform essays by libertarians (and one from a pair of libertarian-leaning conservatives) called Copyright Unbalanced.... Jerry’s book promises to be a handbook for free-market copyright reformers....

"I contributed a chapter focusing on a recent development that I find particularly alarming: the increasing use of harsh criminal penalties, including civil asset forfeiture, against online intermediaries....

"In 2008, Congress passed the PRO IP Act, which for the first time allowed the use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright cases. This tactic, which has become infamous due to its abuse in drug cases, allows the police to seize property without convicting, or even indicting, its owner of any crime. The police have used this tactic with devastating effect against startups such as Megaupload, a popular file-sharing site that was shuttered by the federal government in January. The feds seized the Megaupload servers, all the firm’s assets, as well as the personal assets of founder Kim Dotcom. And they have charged Dotcom with criminal copyright infringement and are seeking his extradition from his home in New Zealand."

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2012/12/06/how-copyright-criminalization-threatens-online-innovation/
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Copyfraud

Copyfraud - by George Dance, Nolan Chart, Aug. 7, 2011:

"The threat of copyfraud is particularly ominous on the Web, where it can combine with a new phenomenon called 'copyright trolling.' Copyright trolls are law firms that 'acquire copyright licenses on articles and images, then go scouring the Web for infringers ... copyright trolls target small companies and individuals. Their business model is to pick on the relatively defenseless, threatening and intimidating people into paying settlements of a few thousand dollars' ... copyright trolls’ claims are rarely tested in court, and bogus copyright claims look as likely to go unexamined as valid ones."

Read more: http://www.nolanchart.com/article8871_Copyfraud.html