Internet, mobile phones, social media, and editing software exponentially increased the supply of content. An previous article We talked about the difficulties of the streaming platform Twitch to handle the increase of complaints from record companies.
The claim of the record companies has legal support, although it is still ridiculous since the use of music is not done for commercial purposes, but there are others that make even less sense.
The most absurd claims of copyright infringement
Without a doubt, one of the most absurd claims dates from the pre-Internet era. The Marx Brothers planned to release a movie called A Night in Casablanca. Years before, Warner Bros had released its famous film Casablanca and believed that this gave it absolute rights to the word. This was Groucho Marx's response.
Dear Warner Brothers,
… You claim your Casablanca and claim that no one else can use that name without permission. What about Warner Brothers? Is it your property too? You probably have the right to use the Warner name, but what about the Brothers? Professionally, we were Brothers long before you. We were already doing the round of the footlights as The Marx Brothers when the Vitaphone was still a simple flash in the inventor's eye, and even before us there have been other brothers ...
I sense that everything is a mistake of the horrible and sad legal department of the company, controlled by some of those guys with school problems, a climber in need of fame and admiration, and too ambitious to respect the natural laws of promotion.
Warner eventually dropped the claim, but, taking advantage of the fact that most people do not have the means or the will to engage in litigation, legal departments continue to do their thing in the days of the Internet. Here are some examples;
Do not photograph food
If the mothers of before reprimanded us when we played with food, those of Germany must do it when their children take pictures of them.
A 2013 law establishes that in the case of a carefully presented meal, the chef is considered as the creator and permission must be asked to upload it to the networks
It appears that several chefs have complained that people taking photos of their food are stealing the restaurant's intellectual property.
The Forbidden apple
Louis Rossman is a youtuber who on his channel he teaches people how to repair their own hardware. One day he had no better idea than to show MacBook users how to do it.
Apple sent Rossman a letter filled with veiled threats, accusing him of violating his copyright by allowing people to view his computer schematics. Rossman strongly hinted that Apple had threatened to raid the repair shop it owned, put it out of business, and shut down its YouTube channel.
Thanks to the repercussion of the claims of Rossman Apple ended up dropping the charges, but other lesser publicists were not so lucky.
You look at yourself and you don't touch
If the Apple thing seems abusive, next to the tractor manufacturer John Deere, the Manzanita company is the Free Software Foundation.
Your new tractor models They come with built-in computers that monitor the engine, and they don't let the owners repair them themselves. Computers have a digital lock that requires you to put a key in before doing any type of repair, of course there are ways to bypass the lock, but the company considers that a theft of intellectual property and threatens with $ 500.000 in fines and five years in prison to anyone who dares to fix a tractor without calling an authorized technical service.
Reporting the original owner
In one of the episodes of the show Family Guy iThey included a YouTube video with the characters talking over it.
Not content with using the video without permission, Fox filed copyright infringement charges against the person who originally uploaded it. Although the video had been uploaded seven years before the episode of Family Guy, Fox managed to get it removed.
All of these stories have a moral. LThe companies speculate that the defendant will not react. As far as this generates some kind of response, either by making it public or by resorting to an entity digital rights advocates, they will most likely back down.