Joe Merante's Blog

One article that really caught my attention recently discussed the use of Creative Commons-licensed images from Flickr as part of the MegaFace dataset for training facial recognition algorithms. Despite its aggressive (but not untrue) title, it highlights the many sides of the questions we the people and we the companies building products with these technologies face confront. Focusing on the licensing, Flickr truly expanded the available commons of openly-licensed images by allowing its community to choose Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Interestingly, the latest version of the most permissive CC license expressly does not license "publicity, privacy, and/or other similar personality rights", yet the licensor agrees not to assert such rights to the extent necessary to support the rest of the license. However, previous versions of this or other CC licenses probably apply to many photos in the data set, and not all of the other licenses contain this language. For the Cre...

The Second Circuit recently published its decision in Cariou v. Prince , a case involving appropriation artist Richard Prince's use of photos from photographer Patrick Cariou's book Yes Rasta . Both the art and copyright communities were watching closely, with the decision having potential implications on everyone in the art food chain (collector and gallery owner Larry Gagosian is also a defendant), technology companies and others. An analysis of some of the amicus briefs can be found here . OK, let's draw some lines. Consider whether you think Prince's Graduation (right) should be considered a fair use of Cariou's original: Now, how about James Brown Disco Ball , which takes from multiple Cariou photographs among other places: After a detailed description of Cariou's and Prince's works, the court begins its discussion of fair use and rejects the District Court's rule: "The law imposes no requirement that a work comment on the original o...

Earlier today, Carl Malamud tweeted a link to a fascinating paper about the evolution and reasons for Gandhi's prescient views and use of copyright law during his life. The combination of historical narrative, interdisciplinary research and discussion, and copyright was enough to take over the start of my Sunday afternoon. Read the abstract and download the full paper by Professor Shyamkrishna Balganesh here . The paper traces Gandhi's views during his most prolific writing periods, and anchors its analysis with examples showing three key phases: personal rejection [of copyright], reluctant engagement and strategic deployment. The first phase largely coincides with Gandhi's rejection of utilitarian philosophy primarily out of concern that minority voices would be drowned out or ignored, along with other reasons. The second is illustrated by the example of granting US and UK rights to a publisher for an autobiographical work, which Gandhi perceived as an appropriate compr...

Last week, the California Supreme Court decided a case ( pdf ) involving application of the  Song-Beverly Credit Card Act, California Civil Code 1747 , to the collection of telephone numbers and addresses by Apple during the sale of iTunes downloads. The majority reached a narrow, fact-based holding that there's no support in the legislative intent or statutory scheme to apply the Act to electronic transactions involving downloads. Three justices signed on to two written dissents expressing myriad concerns with the majority's difficult reading of the statute. Section 1747.08 of the Act prohibits retailers from collecting "personal identification information" or requiring it to be written on transaction forms for credit card transactions. The Act defines PII as “information concerning the cardholder, other than information set forth on the credit card, and including, but not limited to, the cardholder’s address and telephone number.” The majority acknowledges a...