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Here are some of the regulatory developments of significance to broadcasters from the past week, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

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Note from David Oxenford: Seth Resler of Jacobs Media yesterday wrote on his Connecting the Dots blog about the ease of synthesizing the voice of a celebrity, and the temptation to use that replicated voice in an on-air broadcast.  Last week, in an article on policy issues raised by AI, we mentioned that some states have adopted laws that limit the use of synthesized media in political advertising.  In Seth’s article, he quotes Belinda Scrimenti of my law firm pointing out some of the legal issues that arise from using a synthesized voice even in entertainment programming, and especially in commercials. Belinda has expanded on her thoughts and offers the following observations on the use of synthesized personalities on radio or TV. 

The advent of artificial intelligence poses interesting and often challenging legal issues because the law is still “catching up” with the technology. Consider the impact of new AI platforms that can learn a person’s voice, then speak whatever text you submit to it in that person’s voice. If a user submits 60 seconds of Taylor Swift audio to the AI platform, the platform can use this sample to learn to “speak” as Taylor Swift, and the user can then have “her” say whatever the user wants.

While some states are considering or have adopted some restrictions on impersonation by AI, many existing legal concepts applied with traditional celebrity impersonation claims are already applicable to this kind of synthesized celebrity impersonation. Thus, if the use by a broadcaster of Taylor Swift’s voice (either taped and edited or impersonated by a human) would violate the right of publicity that is already found in the law of most states, the use of her AI voice would also violate these same rights.  Continue Reading Using AI to Replicate the Voice of a Celebrity – Watch Out for Legal Issues Including Violating the Right of Publicity

The Copyright Office, at the request of Congress, has initiated a study to examine the rights and protections of news publishers under copyright and related laws.  The Office issued a Notice of Inquiry seeking public comment on a variety of issues that could extend new protections to “press publishers” and perhaps other content creators that go beyond those accorded by traditional principles of copyright law.  The Office terms these protections “ancillary copyright protections.”  The Notice of Inquiry tees up several specific proposals for consideration, asks many specific questions, and solicits additional ideas that should be considered to protect publishers.  Comments are due November 26, 2021.  The Copyright Office will also hold a virtual public roundtable on December 9 to consider these issues.  This study could have an impact both on traditional media outlets who produce content, and on digital media that shares those comments.

The impact of digital media on traditional publishers of content – especially news content – was the trigger for this review.  The Notice begins with a recitation of the financial impact that the growth of the internet has had on newspapers and other publishers (“publication” under the Copyright Act is the distribution of a copy or recording of a work to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending.  While a pure public performance does not constitute publication, digital subscription services and similar on-demand uses of content would likely fit within this definition).  In its opening paragraphs, the Notice focuses on digital “news aggregators” and their impact on publishers.  The Notice takes a broad view of the term aggregator – talking not just of headline clipping sites devoted to specific topics, but also to broader digital media sites like Facebook and Google that feature content from a variety of other sources.  While recognizing that aggregators can drive traffic to publisher’s digital content, the Copyright Office seeks comment on whether these aggregators also harm publishers by sending traffic only to specific articles and not to an index or home page for a publisher where a viewer might be inclined to view more content (and perhaps more of the publisher’s own ads).  From that opening discussion of news aggregators, the Notice looks at possible “ancillary” rights that may assist publishers in overcoming any negative impact of aggregators. These are discussed below.
Continue Reading Copyright Office Initiates Study of “Ancillary Copyright Protections” Accorded to Publishers – Reviewing News Aggregation and Digital Media’s Use of News Content from Traditional Sources

We’ve written before over the controversy as to whether embedding pictures or video served by a social media site on your website negates the need to get explicit permission from the copyright owner for that use.  For years, many had relied on old court decisions that employed a “server test” – a site was only liable for the use of copyrighted material if that material resided on the same server as the rest of the website content being made available by the site’s owner.  But that test seems to be falling by the wayside based on a number of recent cases (see our articles here and here).  Another decision was released the week before last by a US District Court Judge that seems to further advance that trend.

In a case brought against Sinclair Broadcast Group, video of a starving polar bear was posted by Sinclair on websites that it controlled without permission of the individual who recorded it. The video was posted as part of an article on the popularity of the video.  The videographer sued – and Sinclair responded that it could not have copyright liability as it did not host the video, but instead merely embedded a link to Instagram where the videographer had posted the video.  In his decision denying a motion to dismiss, the Judge determined that intentionally embedding the code that brought up that video whenever a website visitor visited a Sinclair site was a “display” of the video by Sinclair and the functional equivalent of hosting the video on Sinclair’s own servers, so the infringement claim could not be dismissed. The Judge did, however, allow Sinclair to continue to argue that, in the context the video was displayed, the use may have been a “fair use.”
Continue Reading Embedding Social Media Videos on Your Website? – Court Case Says Get Permission from Copyright Owner First

A few weeks ago, the news was abuzz with the controversy over an Australian law that would make social media companies and even search engines pay for their making available content originating with traditional media outlets.  While the controversy was hot, there were articles in many general interest publications asking whether that model could work outside Australia – and perhaps whether such a bill could even be adopted in the US.  What has received far less notice in the popular press was a US version of that bill that was recently introduced in Congress to address some of the same issues.  The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021 was not introduced in response to the Australian law, but instead it is an idea that pre-dated the overseas action.  Versions of the US bill have been introduced in prior sessions of Congress, though it never before gained much attention.  But this year’s version has been introduced in both the House and the Senate, has already been the subject of a Congressional committee hearing, and has gained support (including from the National Association of Broadcasters and even the tech company Microsoft).

The intent of these bills, and other similar legislation considered across the world, is to open a new revenue stream for traditional media outlets which cover local news – outlets that have been hit hard by the online media revolution over the last 25 years.  As we have noted in other contexts (see for instance our articles here and here), as huge digital media platforms have developed in this century, these platforms have taken away over half the local advertising revenue in virtually all media markets – revenues that had supported local journalism.  The perception is that this has been done without significantly adding to the coverage of local issues and events in these markets.  We certainly have seen the economics of the newspaper industry severely impacted, with many if not most newspapers cutting staff and local coverage, and even how often the papers are published.  Broadcasting, too, has felt the impact.  Many legislators across the globe have come to the conclusion that these digital platforms attract audiences by featuring content created by the traditional media sources that have been so impacted by online operations.  To preserve and support original news sources, various ways in which the content creators can be compensated for the use of their works, such as the legislation in the US and Australia, are being explored.  We thought it worth looking at proposed legislation in the US and comparing it to the more extensive legislation introduced in Australia, and to highlight some of the issues that may arise in connection with such regulatory proposals.
Continue Reading Making the Tech Giants Pay to Use Traditional Media News Content – Looking at the Legislative Issues

Here are some of the regulatory developments of the last week of significance to broadcasters, with links to where you can go to find more information as to how these actions may affect your operations.

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With Dr. Seuss recently in the news for the decision of his estate to pull from publication certain books that were racially insensitive, we thought that we would go back and look at another decision involving the good doctor that we did not get around to reviewing when it came out at the end of last year – the decision that a book, Oh, The Places that You Will Boldly Go, a mash-up of Dr. Seuss and Star Trek, was an infringement on the Seuss’ copyrights and did not qualify for fair use treatment.  Who knew that Dr. Seuss would play such a prominent role in legal and public policy!  As we summarize below, and as we have written before (see for instance our articles here and here), fair use is not a simple concept or one that is as broadly applicable as many in the media industry seem to think.

The decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Boldly Go case overturned a lower court opinion finding the book to be a parody of the original Seuss work (Oh, the Places You Will Go), and thus entitled to fair use protection.  The 9th Circuit found that Boldly Go was not a fair use, but instead an improper exploitation of the copyrighted work.  The Court reached its decision by reviewing the factors set out in Section 107 of the Copyright Act that are required for a fair use analysis.  This decision is one which all media companies should review carefully, as it makes clear that fair use is not as broad of a concept as apparently believed.  Importantly, fair use does not cover any use that may be an amusing adaptation of an original work.  For instance, I am often asked by radio companies whether taking a song and substituting a new set of lyrics that provide some funny commentary on some newsworthy topic is fair use.  As is evident from the analysis undertaken in the Boldly Go case, unless the “parody” is making fun of the original copyrighted work, it may well not qualify as a fair use and thus may be subject to a claim of copyright infringement.
Continue Reading Dr. Seuss and Fair Use – Just Because You Make a Funny Version of a Copyrighted Work Does Not Mean that You Will Escape an Infringement Claim

In recent weeks, I have had several calls from broadcasters asking if it was permissible to copy articles from other news sources and post them on the station website – with attribution to the original source. As I told them, posting content without permission of the copyright holder can lead to big problems. We have written about these issues in connection with the use of photos and video (see, for instance, our articles here, here and here), and recently even using embedded photos from a social media site have been called into question (see our article here). The copying of any substantial part of a news article raises the same issues as posting pictures or video found on the Internet onto your site. Such actions diminish the ability to of the content’s owner to profit from its own content. If someone can read a story on a broadcaster’s website, why would they need to go to the site of the originator of that content – even where attribution to the originating site (and even a link to that site) is given on the broadcaster’s site?

Years ago, there were many websites that would “aggregate” news by taking significant portions of news stories from other sites and make it available to the aggregator’s readers. There was a rash of lawsuits where content owners, including newspapers and others, claimed that aggregators using even a paragraph or two of the original story were infringing on their rights to their content. Content owners had real concerns about this aggregation sites, as a reader can usually get the gist of the story from the introductory paragraphs and, even when the aggregator provided a link to the full story, the readers would be far less likely to go to the full story when they had already been given its substance. Today, to avoid these lawsuits, most such news aggregators provide at most a headline (and sometimes even the headline can be creative enough to pose a copyright risk if run on an aggregator’s site – so just a generic paraphrase of that headline is often used), and at most a very brief description of the story on the originating site – a description that only directs the users of the aggregator site to the originating site and does not use any of the originating story’s language or original reporting, e.g. a statement that “you can find a good story about Virginia’s collapse in the NCAA tournament in this story” or “for more developments on latest in the personnel changes in the Trump Administration, check out this story in the Washington Post.” Using more than this kind of generic referral is a risk, and fair use is no often going to be available as a defense.
Continue Reading Using Copyrighted Content on a Website – Including News Articles and Videos – Secure the Rights!

Almost every week, we write about some legal issue that arises in digital and social media – many times talking about the traditional media company that did something that they shouldn’t have done in the online world, and ended up with some legal issues as a result. Two weeks ago, I conducted a webinar, hosted by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and co-sponsored by over 20 other state broadcast associations, where I tried to highlight some of the many legal issues that can be traps for the unwary. Issues we discussed included copyright and trademark issues, a reminder about the FTC sponsorship identification rules for online media, FCC captioning obligations, privacy implications, as well as discussions about the patent issues that have arisen with the use of software and hardware that makes the digital transmission of content possible. Slides from that presentation are available here and, for the full webinar, a YouTube video of the entire presentation is available below which can be reviewed when you have some spare time over this upcoming holiday or at any other time that you want to catch up on your legal obligations.

Some of the specific issues that we talked about are familiar to readers of this blog. We discussed the many issues with taking photographs and other content found on the Internet and repurposing them to your own website without getting permission from the content’s creator (see our articles here and here). Similar issues have arisen when TV stations have taken YouTube videos and played them on their TV stations without getting permission from the creator. Music issues arise all the time, especially in producing online videos and creating digital content like podcasts, as your usual music licenses from ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, GMR and SoundExchange don’t cover the reproduction and distribution rights involved when content is copied or downloaded rather than live-streamed (see our article here). The presentation also cautioned companies to be careful about trying to rely on “fair use” as there are no hard and fast rules on when a use of copyrighted materials without permission is in fact fair (see our articles here and here on that subject).

Similarly, there are many other potential pitfalls for digital media companies. We’ve written about some of the FTC rules on requiring sponsorship identification on sponsored digital content – even tweets and Facebook posts (see our articles here and here). Plus, there are always issues about privacy and security of personal information that sites collect – and particularly strict rules for content directed to children. And, as many stations found out when a company asserted patent infringement claims about digital music storage systems used by most radio stations (see our articles here and here), patent issues can also arise in connection with any companies use of digital media.
Continue Reading Legal Issues in Digital and Social Media – Identifying the Landmines for Broadcasters and Other Media Companies – A Video Webinar

In recent days, the press has been full of stories about Axl Rose from the band Guns N’ Roses sending take-down notices to websites, including Google affiliated sites, that feature a picture taken of him from one of his concerts making him look to be overweight (see, e.g. stories available here, here and here). The photos are often accompanied by captions, reinterpreting Guns N’ Roses songs by modifying the lyrics to include references to food or overeating or otherwise making light of the picture. The take down notice is premised on Rose’s alleged ownership of the underlying photo. According to the press reports, Rose requires all professional photographers taking photos at his concerts to sign releases, giving Rose ownership of all copyrights in the images taken. The legal issues raised by the take down notice are many – including reflecting on the recent calls for reform of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for user-generated content much in the news lately, particularly with respect to YouTube videos including music (see our article here). No doubt, however, the first issue that will be considered in answering these take down notices is whether the images and associated commentary constitute “fair use.”

The DMCA has adopted a “safe harbor” for “internet service providers” including website owners who host user-generated content – content that is posted not by the site owner and its employees, but instead by users of the site (see our article here). As the hosts of these sites do not control what is being posted, Congress in adopting the DMCA, thought that it was important that the site owners not be liable if users post content that could potentially infringe on some third party’s intellectual property rights. However, the site owner must take certain steps to minimize the posting of infringing content – including making clear in its descriptions of the proper use of the site that users need to respect intellectual property rights, and providing both on the site and in a registration form filed with the Copyright Office the name and contact information for a person who copyright holders should contact if they believe that infringing content has been posted on the site (the Copyright Office is proposing changes to that form, see our article here). Copyright holders can then notify these identified individuals of the perceived infringement by sending what are commonly referred to as “take down notices.” Certain formalities need to be followed in sending these notices are provided under the provisions of the DMCA, including a specific identification of the infringing content, and a good faith belief that the content is in fact infringing. In connection with any take down notice and the decision of the site owner as to whether to honor that request, the question of fair use must be evaluated.
Continue Reading Axl Rose DMCA Takedown Notices Illustrate the Difficulty With Safe Harbor Reforms – User-Generated Content and Fair Use Issues