I received this notice from NBC forwarded to me by my ISP. It was sent to every e-mail address on my account. They seem to think I downloaded a movie called "Role Models" and are threatening to disable my account unless I delete that and bittorrent from my computer.
I just thought I'd share this.
Dear Customer,
This message is to advise that [ISP] has received a notice claiming that you are using your [ISP] service to post or transmit material in violation of U.S. Copyright law. We have included a copy of the complaint, which identifies the party raising it and the material claimed to be infringing.
We ask that you review the complaint and, if it is valid, promptly remove or disable access to the infringing material. If you disagree with the claims in the notice, you should contact the sender, and not [ISP], to resolve the matter.
As an Internet Service Provider, [ISP] is responsible, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), to advise when we receive a notice asserting infringement by you. We are also required to take appropriate action if further claims are received that you do not resolve. The material that you post or share online is your responsibility. [ISP] encourages responsible Internet use, but we do not monitor nor control the information you share. We have a duty, however, to take progressive steps when we received complaints of infringement.
If we continue to receive infringement claims such as this one, concerning your use of our service, we will suspend your account and disable your Internet connection until you confirm you have removed the infringing material.
To learn more about your responsibilities concerning copyrighted material, please refer to our help article at: http:// - [ISP]
You are being contacted on behalf of NBC Universal and its affiliates ("NBC Universal") because your Internet account was identified as having been used recently to illegally copy and/or distribute NBC Universal copyrighted movies and/or television shows ("NBC Universal Property"). The infringement details are set forth below, including the title(s) infringed, the date and time of the infringement, and the IP address of your account at the time.
This notice provides you with the information you need in order to take immediate action that can prevent serious legal and other consequences. These actions include:
1. Stop downloading or uploading any film or TV shows owned or distributed by NBC Universal without authorization; and
2. Permanently delete from your computer(s) all unauthorized copies you may have already made of these movies and TV shows.
These actors wont be able to feed their kids now, ass!
The illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted works are serious offenses that carry with them the risk of substantial monetary damages and, in some cases, criminal prosecution.
Copyright infringement also violates your Internet Service Provider's terms of service and could lead to limitation or suspension of your Internet service.
An industry website, http://www.respectcopyrights.org, offers step-by-step instructions to ensure that your Internet account is not used to violate the copyright laws. The site also can point you to an array of legal choices for enjoying movies and TV shows online. You can also learn there how movie theft damages our economy and costs thousands of Americans their jobs.
If, after visiting http://www.respectcopyrights.org you still have questions, or if you believe you have received this notice in error, you may contact NBC Universal by email at antipiracy@nbcuni.com or by calling (818) 777-4876. Please cite the Reference ID noted at the top of this letter in the subject line of any email or voicemail you may leave. You should take immediate action to prevent your Internet account from being used for illegal activities. Today, there are many ways to enjoy movies and TV programs legally.
The undersigned has a good faith belief that use of the NBC Universal Property in the manner described herein is not authorized by NBC Universal, its agent or the law. The information contained in this notification is accurate. Under penalty of perjury, the undersigned is authorized to act on behalf of NBC Universal with respect to this matter.
This letter is not a complete statement of NBC Universal's rights in connection with this matter, and nothing contained herein constitutes an express or implied waiver of any rights, remedies or defense, all of which are expressly reserved.
Sincerely,
Mark Ishikawa CEO, BayTSP inc. c/o NBC Universal Anti-Piracy Technical Operations 100 Universal City Plaza Universal City, CA 91608
** For any correspondence regarding this case, please send your emails to antipiracy@nbcuni.com and refer to Notice ID: ************. If you need immediate assistance or if you have general questions please call the number listed above.
Title: Role Models Infringement Source: BitTorrent Initial Infringement Timestamp: *************** Recent Infringement Timestamp: *************** Infringing Filename: Role.Models[2008][Unrated.Edition] Infringing File size: 735537456 Infringers IP Address: *************** Infringers DNS Name: *************** Bay ID: *************** Port ID: 49448
Although the Cunningham living legacy plan aims to preserve its founder's vision intact as custodian of his intellectual property, that does not mean the choreography will be frozen forever, like an artifact of the past. As a choreographer, Cunningham always welcomed new technology and pioneered countless innovations. Collaboration, chance, and change were the very cornerstones of his approach.
Although the sun has set on his career, a new dawn inspired by his achievement may follow. "Ideas," as the artist Robert Rauschenberg, Cunningham's collaborator, said, "are not real estate."
Neither is intellectual property. It could be a site where past art is not just preserved but fertilizes future growth.
"Dancing is a process that never stops," Cunningham said when announcing his living legacy plan, "and should not stop if it is to stay alive and fresh."
There was a mention of Creative Commons in the article's discussion of copyright issues. Cunningham was one of the few major choreographers to have licensed his work under a Creative Commons license. As an advocate of Creative Commons licenses, I applaud Cunningham's generosity to our collective artistic heritage. However, I should also note as a comparison that in most folk dancing traditions, sharing and open collaboration are the norms– the idea of ownership is fluid and oftentimes forms and techniques are owned and transmitted collectively.
<tangent>Another scenario to consider: Michael Jackson "owned" the moonwalk in the sense that it is a dance move popularly associated with him. But what if he literally owned it as intellectual property? Would the Jackson estate be going after the unauthorized moonwalkers in the Eternal Moonwalk tribute site? </tangent>
The CSM article did not mention Cunningham's life partner and frequent artistic collaborator, composer John Cage. The two men's work similarly combined demanding detailed instructions with indeterminacy and chance operations such as the rolling of dice. The Cage estate has recently gone after what it considered copyright infringements against Cage's (in)famous 4'33" ("The Silent Piece").
The big Zen koan question then becomes, is randomness and silence copyrightable?
The score of 4'33" instructs the performer(s) to not play their instruments for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. But the piece is not really silent. As I have previously written:
The piece is made up of the hum of the air-conditioning in the hall, the ruffle of programs, the coughing of an audience member; it is an invitation, an invocation, to listen to the ambient sounds all around us. Cage rejects the distinction between musical and non-musical sounds, and embraces all sounds, regardless of the performers intent, to be potentially musical. In doing so, Cage completes the break from the history of classical composition and offers up a new model for music in which the primary act of for the composer and for the performer is not to make music, but to listen.
When a critic told Cage that anybody could have written 4'33", Cage responded with his usual charming wit, "but nobody else did." There is no doubt that the provocative and performative nature of 4'33" is an act of creativity, if not genius. At the same time, one could also argue that because the piece is about listening to the sounds that exist in the performance space even if no instruments are being played, then David Tudor's "non-playing" of the piano at the premiere, as well as the noises generated by the audience members present, were all integral parts of the piece. In that sense, the performer and the audience share a kind of authorship of the piece. They all 'performed' 4'33" and made it what it was. By elevating the role of listeners, Cage was in effect bringing back a participatory, interactive element that had been lost in Western "classical" music.
Cage's 4'33" also represents a break from the idea of Romantic authorship, where "an author is perceived to be the source of original ideas, transforming the world around him through his own genius" (Authorship Collective). Romantic authorship would claim that the roll of the composer is to create music out of silence. But Cage's point is that silence does not exist.
One of the inspirations for 4'33" was Cage's experience in an anechoic chamber at Harvard University. An anechoic chamber is a soundproofed room designed in such a way that all the surfaces in the room will absorb all sounds made in the room, rather than bouncing them back as echoes.
Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he "heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation." Cage had gone to a place where he expected there to be no sound, yet sound was nevertheless discernible. He stated "until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music." (Wikipedia)
Composers cannot create music out of silence because silence does not exist. Even if it did, unless we are deaf, it is impossible to perceive it. Cage's 4'33", like Duchamp's ready-mades, is a kind of "found art," comprised of environmental sounds that already exist. We are all constantly surrounded by sounds, they are unavoidable elements of our environment. The role of composers and musicians is to organize and present those sounds, which is exactly what remix and mash-up artists do today when they create new music from the found sounds and cultural artifacts found in our environment. In a way, the "found-sound" composition 4'33" is an Ur-remix, a remix of (non)silence and of reality itself, and John Cage an avant la lettre master of the mash-up.
All of this has inspired my latest composition: 433 trees falling in the forest with nobody to hear the sound. (C) 2009 LEESEAN. All Rights Reserved. Try anything and I'll SUE YOUR ASS LIKE THE RIAA (39,069)
As an Internet Service Provider, [ISP] is responsible, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), to advise when we receive a notice asserting infringement by you. We are also required to take appropriate action if further claims are received that you do not resolve. 
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