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Jessica Litman was right, part eleven million

By Rebecca Tushnet

This month?s Self magazine illustrates how incomprehensible copyright law is to ordinary people, including those in a position to give information to lots of other people. The story says, ?If Hulu.com isn?t giving you what you want, here?s your backup.? FastPassTV.com (a link provider and popup ad nightmare), SurfTheChannel.com (link provider, with prominence given to authorized sites like Hulu), and TV-Video.net (streaming video; no contact information, including no DMCA information, and text suggesting that the author?s primary language is not English) do not appear to me to be the sites that the copyright owners would prefer you use, to put it lightly. Self says FastPass offers ?every episode from the current season of shows like True Blood, often as soon as the night the show airs,? while SurfTheChannel ?allows you to watch about 90 minutes before shutting you out? (I infer that this is because the writer of the story followed links to Megavideo, which behaves in this way for nonpaying customers), and TV-Video.net ?may claim that the site is hosting last night?s episode, but many shows are missing the most recent two seasons.?

Tell me again: what?s a red flag for infringement?  Also, what's Self's exposure here?

Full post as published by 43(B)log on December 22, 2010 (boomark / email).