TechCrunch reports today that the Megaupload crackdown cut the site off at the knees just before it planned to launch a disruptive and legal music player. Another popular boogeyman for copyright holders, The Pirate Bay, announced a new, legitimate direction yesterday: It's going to host physibles, downloadable models for constructing 3D objects. Are the "pirate" sites actually Big Content's worst nightmare for legitimate reasons?

A "physible" is a digital plan for an object that can either be designed on a computer or uploaded with a 3D scanner. Those plans can be downloaded and used to assemble real, tangible objects using a 3D printer. Printers are getting more affordable, but they're still limited by the kinds of materials they can use. But that just means it's the dawn of this technology, and The Pirate Bay is getting in early. "We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare [parts] for your vehicles," TPB writes on its blog. "You will download your sneakers within 20 years."

"The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We'll be able to print food for hungry people. We'll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We'll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one."

As a renowned hub for trading files, The Pirate Bay is in a perfect position to be the go-to place for free physibles, which it can facilitate while making money from ads. "We're thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay," the announcement jokes, but hopefully it's half-serious.

It's a perfectly legitimate business, and it blows the 2012 conception of intellectual property to smithereens. There's competition, too; Shapeways and Thingiverse are already on the market, and there's even a Google Warehouse for 3D models. Lobbyists for Old Media love to bang on sites like Megaupload and The Pirate Bay, but those very sites have hatched plans to usher in the future of digital media. When we can download a drum set, pirated MP3s will be the least of the copyright lobby's worries.

Check out The Pirate Bay's physibles category, but it's not our fault if you click on porny spam links.

But in YouTube's words, "copyright law can be complicated," and so rather than just banning without recourse or reform, the service has redesigned its copyright help center and made a few changes to its policy.

For those unfamiliar with Happy Tree Friends, these adorable cartoon animals have their own series which involves a lot of gibberish and mayhem. The short episodes (yes, you can find them on YouTube) often end violently. Really violently. Now I'm a huge fan of cartoon violence, don't get me wrong. And I can immediately see the appeal of using these characters to appeal to a certain demographic that may well be apt to upload infringing material.

The Happy Tree Friends video does take a quick, four-minute stab at explaining how copyright law - and YouTube's policies - work, but I'm just not convinced that Copyright School is the smartest educational tool.

The video starts with a pretty clear explanation of how copyright works. (And it helps that this time, the Happy Tree Friends have narration and not just gibberish.) But when the video gets to the issues that most people probably do have questions about - fair use and mashups - the narration runs into high speed, brushing over legalese like it's a joke. "Contact a copyright attorney" if you have questions or doubts about the legality of a piece of content, the video suggests.

Well that's not helpful. Here's another cartoon that I think explains things better (ironically, yes, posted without the author's permission):

Now sure, some of the changes that YouTube announced today are an improvement with how it deals with copyright issues. It's good to move away from a one-size-fits-all punishment policy and give users the ability to erase blemishes they might have on their permanent record.

While it's good to see a proactive approach in terms of educating users about copyright, it's a shame that YouTube glosses over the legalities of some of the most interesting content online - mashups - and some of our most important rights as creatives and educators - fair use.

Works are part of the public domain when their copyright expires or when the artist designates the work as such. This means that people can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work - even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.

"The Public Domain Mark is a further step on the path towards making the promise of a digital public domain a reality," said American University law professor Michael Carroll, a founding board member of Creative Commons. "Marking and tagging works with information about their copyright status is essential. Computers must be able to parse the public domain status of works to communicate its usefulness to the public. The metadata standard underpinning the Public Domain Mark and all of CC's licensing and legal tools are what makes this possible."

Labelling works as part of the global public domain is challenging as different countries have different intellectual property laws. Creative Commons says it is working on a system for identifying works that are in the public domain, but in only a limited number of countries.

The patent was on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's list of top ten most bogus patents because it claimed nothing more than a system using natural language processing to select and send responses to customers' online or email inquires.

Patent owner Polaris/Bright Response LLC had successfully invoked the patent in 2006, suing Kana Software, Sirius Satellite Radio, Priceline, Capital One, Continental Airlines and E*Trade and settling for undisclosed terms.

A year later the company sued AOL, Google, Yahoo!, Borders, Amazon, and others for infringing 6,411,947, which claims automated email message classification using "a combination of a case base knowledge engine and rule base."

The company was widely criticized for attempting to extract money from its questionable patent.

"It looks like Polaris IP is in the business of licensing patent rights and has no desire to enforce its requested injunction," Dennis Crouch, associate professor of law at University of Missouri School of Law and the author of the law blog Patently-O, told Information Week. "I expect that Polaris IP will be willing to settle these cases for what it believes is a reasonable six- or seven-digit figure."

A jury in the Eastern District of Texas found three of the patent's claims invalid based on the public use bar (method is already in public use at the time of filing), obviousness, and for lacking written description. The jury also found that neither Google nor Yahoo! infringed those claims.

Finally, the jury found the entire patent invalid due to improper inventorship. Nine of the EFF's top ten most bogus patents have been invalidated or are being re-examined.

The abstract describing the now-invalid patent for "Automatic message interpretation and routing system:"

A method for automatically interpreting an electronic message, including the steps of (a) receiving the electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and (c) classifying the electronic message as at least one of (i) being able to be responded to automatically; and (ii) requiring assistance from a human operator. The method for automatically interpreting an electronic message may also include the step of retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source.

What do you think? Patentable? Or total sham?

Bloomberg reported this morning that Google "has agreed to meet demands from a local writers' group that it stop scanning and uploading books to the company's online library without authors' permission."

This certainly isn't the first time Google has run into complaints over its practices with the project. Last month, the company was convicted of violating France's copyright laws. A Globe and Mail report on Google's practices stated that over 80% of the French books offered were still under copyright. The company has also faced criticism in Germany over its Google Books service, where today the German minister of Justice warned that the company may be reaching monopoly status, requiring government intervention.

The Bloomberg article notes that in China, Google trails behind the search engineBaidu. This is in a country with more Internet users than the entire population of the United States. But is the problem of supposed copyright infringement a public relations issue in a country where the average consumer sees counterfeit products in nearly every storefront window? While we stand on the side of writers getting paid for their work, we're not sure this issue would really stand in the way of Google gaining popularity in China.

The terms include a section giving Google "a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." That seems pretty extreme for a browser, doesn't it?

Update: Since this controversy has erupted, Google has removed the offending section of the Terms of Service. It seems that the default Google service TOS includes these kinds of claims, even though they may not be as appropriate in some circumstances as in others. We're not sure when such claims would be justified but we're glad they've been removed from Chrome. Here's the original version of the End User Licensing Agreement.

We're hoping that this section of the TOS will be changed quickly. Such terms might make sense for user uploaded video sites, for example, but language like this always raises concerns. In the context of an entire browser it seems absolutely absurd. Passwords, financial information, you name it - these kinds of things Google can't be given any right to, can they? Though it's framed in terms of "promoting Google services," we don't think that condition is a clear enough limit on the rights being claimed.

We've long voiced concerns about Google and privacy. We'll be watching to see when this changes, though, and we assume it will promptly.

UPDATE: The wording on Chrome's TOS is very similar to the TOS of Google Docs, which caused a similar outcry in Aug 07. At the time a Google Docs rep replied in our comments: "As we state in our terms of service, we don't claim ownership or control over your content in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, whether you're using it as an individual or through Google Apps. Read in its entirety, the sentence from our terms of service excerpted in the blog ensures that, for documents you expressly choose to share with others, we have the proper license to display those documents to the selected users and format documents properly for different displays. To be clear, Google will not use your documents beyond the scope that you and you alone control. Your fantasy football spreadsheets are not going to end up shared with the world unless you want them to be."

Below is the full section of the Chrome Terms of Service in question. Thanks to the anonymous commenter who pointed this out to us - we love you commenters!

11. Content license from you

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.