Share Your Password, Go to Jail

A law criminalizing sharing with your family or friends your password to entertainment services like Netflix and Hulu Plus takes effect July 1st and is causing quite a stir for consumers. The new law, which acts to enhance the theft of services law already on the books, is meant to thwart hackers, according to Hollywood executives. But as written, the law appears over-broad.

The law lacks language specifically targeting hackers and/or commercial users. It therefore has the capacity to capture average Americans, like family members sharing a Netflix password over multiple devices such as a Playstation, a computer and an XBox. If a family member travels a lot and takes a console or a computer on the road, s/he may then violate the law because s/he's now shared the password with family members back home. Merely leaving home could trigger criminal liability.

As with many new laws recently implemented to protect a shrinking entertainment revenue base, this one has the potential to quickly spread nationwide. Before it does, it should be narrowly tailored to address the stated issue of hacking. Otherwise, consumers should expect litigation targeting the purses of Middle Class consumers.

TN Passes Law Criminalizing Photos That Traumatize

Tennessee, the state that recently made it a crime to swap passwords on online entertainment networks like Netflix, has now criminalized posting photos that might cause viewers to become emotionally distressed.

The law makes it a criminal offense for anyone who "communicates with another person or transmits or displays an image in a manner in which there is a reasonable expectation that the image will be viewed by the victim." As for mens rea, a publisher must possess "malicious intent to frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" and must act without "legitimate purpose."

There are sure to be constitutional challenges to this law, which could have a chilling effect on many prevailing ethics in communication and entertainment, for surely establishing the 'legitimate purpose' element requires encroaching on well-established freedom of speech rights and also requires modifying or further complicating obscenity laws.

Obama's Hope Poster Creator Settles Lawsuit with AP

Earlier this moth, Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster, agreed to settle a fair use claim he filed against Associated Press (AP). The news organization, whose work-for-hire photographer in 2006 had snapped the image Fairely used to stencile his posters, took legal action against Fairey in 2009, long after the image became the symbol of Obama's campaign message and of victory, for copyright infringement in 2009.

Fairey's design was created in one day and printed first as a poster. Fairey sold 350 of the posters on the street immediately after printing them. It was then more widely distributed—both as a digital image and other paraphernalia—during Obama's campaign. The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign. This led The Guardian's Laura Barton to proclaim that the image "acquired the kind of instant recognition of Jim Fitzpatrick's Che Guevara poster, and is surely set to grace T-shirts, coffee mugs and the walls of student bedrooms in the years to come."

In January 2009, after Obama had won the election, Fairey's stenciled portrait version of the image was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its National Portrait Gallery.

Last year, the New York Times reports, Fairey admitted that he had misstated which A.P. photo he had used for the Obama image and that he had submitted false images and deleted others to conceal his actions, leading to a criminal investigation in addition to the civil case. Fairey originally said that he had used a photograph from an April 27, 2006, event at the National Press Club in Washington, where Obama was seated next to the actor George Clooney. Instead, the photograph he used was from the same event, but was a solo image of Mr. Obama’s head. The photograph was taken by Mannie Garcia for The A.P.

Fairey said that he had initially believed that The A.P. was wrong about which photo he had used, but later realized that the agency was right.

In settling the civil lawsuit, “The A.P. and Mr. Fairey have agreed that neither side surrenders its view of the law,” The A.P. said in a statement on Wednesday. “Mr. Fairey has agreed that he will not use another A.P. photo in his work without obtaining a license from The A.P. The two sides have also agreed to work together going forward with the ‘Hope’ image and share the rights to make the posters and merchandise bearing the ‘Hope’ image and to collaborate on a series of images that Fairey will create based on A.P. photographs.” The statement added that the two sides had agreed to “financial terms that will remain confidential.” More.

Call of Duty Sells Billions : Makers Head to Court

Activision's wildly popular video game "Call of Duty: Black Ops" has streaked past the billion-dollar sales mark this month, but the gaming company may not have a lot to celebrate this Christmas.

Activision has been in a pitched battled with "Call of Duty" developers since April, and on Tuesday, the company pulled another player, Electonic Arts, into the lawsuit. The developers, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, had created Activision's blockbuster Call of Duty franchise as heads of Infinity Ward, a studio Activision bought in 2003.

In the amended lawsuit, Activision names EA as a defendant, accusing the Redwood City, Calif., publisher of hatching a secret plot to "destabilize, disrupt and ... destroy Infinity Ward." The lawsuit accused EA of working through talent management firm Creative Artists Agency to "hijack" West and Zampella from Infinity Ward, based in Encino.