How Copyright Stifles New Art
Grok Headline matches for How Copyright Stifles New Art
Microsoft clause "stifles innovation"
Microsoft clause "stifles innovation"
10/30/2003 12:34 PMThe European Commission has contacted unspecified hardware
manufacturers about Microsoft's licensing policy because it suspects
anticompetitive behaviour, it said today. Describing the move as a
"preliminary fact-finding stage", the Commission said it is acting in
response to concerns from companies about certain licensing conditions
that Microsoft attaches to its Windows operating system.
With Public Safety at Stake, China Still
Stifles Free Expression
With Public Safety at Stake, China Still
Stifles Free Expression
01/07/2004 06:22 PMNY Times (reg. required): 7 at Chinese Paper Held After Articles on
New SARS Case. The police stormed the offices...
Canadian Copyright Board allows
downloads, copyright levies
Canadian Copyright Board allows
downloads, copyright levies
12/14/2003 12:27 PM
The
Copyright Board of Canada
issued a ruling on
" private
copying ", largely via peer-to-peer computing, with several
components. First, downloading is acceptable, but uploading is not
(presumably to target hyperpirates). Second, new mechanisms for
levies were described, freezing current ones, allowing new
charges.
the Copyright Board said uploading or distributing
copyrighted works online appeared to be prohibited under current
Canadian law.
However, the country's copyright law does allow making a copy for
personal use and does not address the source of that copy or whether
the original has to be an authorized or noninfringing version, the
board said.
Ads and Copyright
Ads and Copyright
02/10/2004 02:41 AMNever thought I'd say this, but the Super Bowl got me thinking.
Why shouldn't every advertiser release every print, audio, or
multimedia ad they create under a Creative Commons license? Choose
BY-NC-ND, and make clear you're protecting your trademark. Forget the
cultural effect -- I'm talking pure business: What principle drives
someone to enforce the full copyright in a work they'd normally pay
millions to get in front of people's faces? Isn't it irrational NOT to
free up distribution completely? Or am I missing something?
Copyright - what right?
Copyright - what right?
10/29/2003 12:09 AMThis slashdot posting was really interesting. its brief look at the
history of copyright, and the misuse of it. Slashdot: Copyright The
scary stuff for...
The FCC wants out of copyright
The FCC wants out of copyright
08/06/2004 06:18 PMThe Broadcast Flag regime is, I think, something of an embarassment
for the FCC. Many of the commissioners came to the FCC to deregulate
telecommunications law, not to regulate the electronics industry. Yet
they find themselves in mission creep mode, issuing
command-and-control rules for the design of consumer products,
surely...
The Copyright Gap
The Copyright Gap
08/01/2004 03:20 PMHere's the hypothesis: Today's telecom and copyright laws often
regulate similar subjects, but with a big difference. The telecom laws
slightly favor market entrants, while the copyright laws favor the
incumbent disseminators. The result is a "copyright gap" that grows
larger every day....
Copyright chill
Copyright chill
12/25/2003 11:20 PMCNET Asia Dec 25 2003 10:35PM ET
"US Copyright Office"
"US Copyright Office"
06/03/2004 12:21 PM3G Copyright Heavyweights
3G Copyright Heavyweights
02/10/2004 06:56 AM3G Feb 10 2004 9:46AM GMT
Camping out for copyright
Camping out for copyright
04/07/2005 10:12 AMCanadian Press via Canada.com Apr 7 2005 1:58PM GMT
Are you a Copyright Criminal?
Are you a Copyright Criminal?
09/20/2004 09:08 PM
Xeni Jardin:
BoingBoing reader
Robert
Daeley says, "Came across this picture on the wall just behind a
copy machine. All the hackers I know wear ski masks when they commit
their crimes. Oh, and big thick leather gloves are great for typing."
Link<
/a> to blog post with pointer to full size image. Mwuhuhahahahaaaaaaa.
Iraq's copyright law
Iraq's copyright law
05/21/2004 02:14 PM
Jamie Knox sent along Iraq's newly amended copyright law (as if THIS
was where we needed to worry about rule of law in Iraq). I've just
begun going through it, but there are favorite tidbits so
far: collections of data can be protected; readings of the Koran are
protected; and collections of government documents can be protected.
But significantly, the term is life plus 50! More disharmony...
on a 95 year copyright
on a 95 year copyright
03/06/2004 01:51 AMDouglas Keenan has a
nice short
piece about "limited times" and a 95 year copyright.
Copyright in Eight Years
Copyright in Eight Years
08/05/2004 01:50 AMSo today copyright scholar Joe Liu at Boston College asked a room full
of law professors an interesting question. What did we think copyright
would look like in 8 years? Here were some of the main categories of
predictions (some contradict):...
Copyright and attribution
Copyright and attribution
12/17/2004 06:33 PMCrooked Timber has a post today on
copyright and
attribution that cites Creative Commons:
In short, the informal economy of academic attribution is
much more like the kind of alternative economy that, say, Creative Commons
is trying to create than it is like the copyright industry. Academics
are usually happy when others rip, remix or even parody their work -
as
long as the remix artists acknowledge them by name. Similarly, the Creative
Commons licenses now include a requirement for attribution as standard
(it used to be optional, but 97-98% of Creative Commons users wanted
it
in their licenses, so that the CC crowd decided that it was easier to
make it the default). The requirement that people not plagiarize (i.e.
that they not use others’ work without attribution) presents no
problems whatsoever for ‘free culture.’
"The Tyranny of Copyright?"
"The Tyranny of Copyright?"
01/26/2004 10:21 AMThe Tyranny of Copyright?
The Tyranny of Copyright?
01/24/2004 02:49 PMRSS feeds and copyright
RSS feeds and copyright
02/01/2005 08:40 PMThis dumb ass (also known as Martin Schwimmer of Trademark Blog, has a
problem with Bloglines picking up his public RSS-feed and
redistributing it. Because they might at some stage serve ads together
with the content. For those of you...
Can you copyright a typeface under US
law?
Can you copyright a typeface under US
law?
12/26/2004 06:33 PM
Xeni Jardin:
[
NSFNLG warning: Not Safe For Non-LawGeeks.] A
recent post on BoingBoing sparked debate among some readers about
whether or not U.S. copyright law makes it possible to protect
typefaces. Digital music guru
Jim Griffin maintains that
the answer is no. He points to Volume 37 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (
Link) as one
of several portions of US law that back his assertion. Snip from the
text of the law, with his comments:
"The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and
applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained:
(...) typeface as typeface" 37 CFR 202.1(e).
House of Representatives report accompanied the new copyright law when
passed in 1976:
"The Committee has considered, but chosen to defer, the possibility of
protecting the design of typefaces. A 'typeface' can be defined as a
set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are
related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a
notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose
intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other
cognizable combinations of characters. The Committee does not regard
the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable
'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this
bill and the application of the dividing line in section 101." H.R.
Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted
in1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668.
It's also in accordance with a court case that has considered the
matter: Eltra Corp. V. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294, 208 USPQ 1 (1978, C.A. 4,
Va.).
The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more
than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not
copyrightable:
"The [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision [published at 53 FR 38110]
based on the [October 10,] 1986 Notice of Inquiry [published at 51 FR
36410] reiterated a number of previous registration decisions made by
the [Copyright] Office. First, under existing law, typeface as such is
not registerable. The Policy Decision then went on to state the
Office's position that 'data that merely represents an electronic
depiction of a particular typeface or individual letterform' [that is,
a bitmapped font] is also not registerable." 57 FR 6201.
Link to previous BB post.
Copyright Out of Balance
Copyright Out of Balance
02/01/2005 09:12 PMCory Doctorow on the disappearance of important documentary films
because filmmakers can't come up with continuing payments for rights
to archival footage. Case in point: The legendary Civil Rights Era
documentary "Eyes on the Prize". Footnote: When I was the CEO of Lotus
in the mid-1980's, the company provided critical...
Wagner on copyright
Wagner on copyright
02/13/2004 03:58 PMMitch Wagner's written a very lucid essay about DRM and file-sharing
that strikes me as one of the better formulations of the problem that
I've seen to date.
It's rather appropriate that the logo for Disney is a mouse, because
The Walt Disney Company this week announced its intention to throw
money down a rathole. Disney became the latest company to license
Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. DRM doesn't work and
consumers don't want it, so of course it's very appealing to big
business, who are also in a big rush to sell other, equally practical
products, such as anchovy flavored ice cream and bicycles with square
wheels.
LinkI Piss On Your Copyright
I Piss On Your Copyright
05/06/2004 12:57 PMA joke that never gets old here in the Deep South: Putting a sticker
of Calvin or someone else peeing on something as a gesture of
disrespect. (05-06)
How not to be a copyright putz
How not to be a copyright putz
08/11/2004 05:14 PMDan Gillmor lists the ways his book is making its way into our
intellectual bloodstream. Go Dan! Go We the Media! Here's an interview
of Dan by Xeni Jardin....
Hallowe'en and copyright
Hallowe'en and copyright
10/31/2003 09:37 PMErnie sez, "On Halloween, what is more scary than copyright law? For
example, did you know that the famous vampire movie 'Nosferatu' was
almost lost forever due to copyright? On the other hand the makers of
a Michael Myers Halloween mask won a lawsuit by proving they took the
idea from the movie. Maybe someone can figure out how to get around
pumpkin carving DRM. If not, some ghost pirates (or is that pirate
ghosts?) have a solution for the file sharing problem."
Link
(
Thanks, Ernie!)
The Copyright WebQuest
The Copyright WebQuest
09/07/2004 05:15 AMThe Copyright WebQuesthttp://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/artifacts/consulting/copyright/To develop an understanding of copyright law and how it
applies to you, you need to develop a thorough understanding of what
you are allowed to do under copyright, and, what you are not allowed
to do. One way for you to get there is to critically analyze a number
of copyright scenarios and discuss them from multiple perspectives.
That's your task in this exercise. If you're short on time, patience,
or want to try a different way, you may want to review the
presentation and then take the online
quiz. This has been added to
Reference Resources
Subject Tracer™ Information Blog and
Student Research Subject
Tracer™ Information Blog.
Moving and Copyright
Moving and Copyright
07/16/2004 01:53 AMWe're moving our offices to San Francisco tomorrow. I'm packing
boxes. Just noticed that our Fellowes brand cardboard file boxes carry
a copyright notice: (c) Copyright 2001 Fellowes, Inc. Sure am glad
they included that. Was about to pirate.
U.K. copyright law goes into effect
U.K. copyright law goes into effect
10/31/2003 11:41 AMZDNet Oct 31 2003 11:05AM ET
Facing the Copyright Rap
Facing the Copyright Rap
09/09/2004 05:18 AMIncluding snippets of another artist's song in your work -- a popular
rapper technique known as 'sampling' -- may violate copyright law, an
appeals court rules.
Copyright Basics
Copyright Basics
07/01/2004 07:02 AMa good introductory reference
Copyright messages
Copyright messages
12/02/2002 01:17 PMVW car-bomber ad: dispute about more
than copyright?
VW car-bomber ad: dispute about more
than copyright?
02/01/2005 08:38 PMXeni Jardin:
Following up on
this previous Boing Boing post, reader
raging red says,
I've been doing a tiny bit of research into the German crime of
"public incitement" in response to your post about the fake VW ad.
This is not simply a copyright infringement issue. The theory here is
that this ad could provoke someone to commit a car bombing. Under
German law as I read it, even if the ad does not in fact incite
someone to commit a car bombing, the two men who produced the phony ad
are still subject to a maximum penalty of five years in prison, simply
for creating the ad.
Link
Update: raging red says:
Some people [in the comments section of my blog] have
corrected me. Apparently the translation from German in the Reuters
article is a little off. The crime they may be charged with is a
different kind of public incitement. It's called "Volksverhetzung,"
which apparently means agitation of the public or incitement of
hatred. It's basically a hate speech statute. The punishment is 3
months to five years. I haven't verified this information myself yet,
but the people in my comments sound like they are correct, and one
person has given the text of the statute in my comments.
Feed usage and copyright
Feed usage and copyright
02/01/2005 09:34 PMMartin Schwimmer, a trademark lawyer, has asked
Bloglines to remove his feed from their service, partly on the
grounds that Bloglines plans on eventually selling advertising on
their site. Scoble&#
8217;s got a number of links to reactions to the news.
The complaint is that his feed is licensed under a “no
commercial use” Creative Commons license and he claims that
Bloglines, being a commercial service, is violating that license by
allowing their users to subscribe to his feed.
There are a number of products and services that are advertising
supported and rely on content generated by others. Although search
listings contain only excerpts of web pages, search engines regularly
place advertisements alongside those excerpts. Gmail puts ads next to
email created by other people. Eudora does the same. Opera puts their
own ads next to every page I view.
Would Mr. Schwimmer demand that Google block Gmail addresses from
receiving his email? Or that Opera refuse to display the pages on his
web site?
RSS is designed to
to allow for easy republication and consumption of content. Bloglines
isn’t taking a feed and claiming that content as their own.
They’re only showing feeds to people in direct response to their
request. I’d have to subscribe to Mr. Schwimmer’s feed in
order to see it in Bloglines. Is this a commercial use?
This is a sticky question. Bloglines is providing a product to
consumers and they have to make money somewhere. Feeds are designed to
allow people to read the content of the site without visiting the
actual site. So the Bloglines service is letting people use the feed
that Schwimmer is publishing in the way that it was intended to be
used. A product like MyRSS that scrapes sites, turning them into feeds
and inserting ads is a much more clear issue. They’re
re-purposing content, republishing it in a way that it wasn’t
intended to be used, and inserting their own ads into it.
The question is where do we draw the line? Is reading the feed in a
reader like FeedDemon a commercial use? I had to buy a copy. What
about an aggregated list of posts on a site? Mt-Plugins.org used to
have the latest posts from a number of plugin authors (including me)
on their site. Would this be an acceptable use? Syndic8 publishes a list of random feed items as RSS. Is that okay? Would your answer change if
Syndic8 started selling ads in that feed? There are a number of
services that will send you feed contents by email. If I subscribed to
Schwimmer’s feed with such a service and had those emails go to
my Gmail address, is that a commercial use of his content and who is
responsible for it?
I don’t have an easy answer to any of those questions. Up
until now when faced with the question of commercial use of my feed
(which I also prohibit), I’ve treated it on a case by case
basis. I know a commercial use when I see it but I’d be hard
pressed to offer up a definition of it.
A side note: Schwimmer is concerned that Bloglines doesn’t
display his contact information alongside his feed. That’s
because he doesn’t provide it in the feed. Feed readers can only
display what he actually publishes. He also doesn’t include his
Creative Commons license (or any other) in his feed, simply stating
“Copyright 2005 Martin Schwimmer.”
How Copyright Policy Gets Twisted
How Copyright Policy Gets Twisted
06/26/2004 10:52 AMThe Register's Andrew Orlowski analy
zes the latest, and perhaps most serious, threat from the
copyright cartel. The legislation,
sponsored by senators from both major U.S. political parties (here's
my previous posting about this horrid bill), is aimed
at peer to peer technology but has a much wider application.
As Andrew notes, citing warnings from critics of this legislation, "It
may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an
iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the
iPod."
He asks how this could be happening, given that Orrin Hatch, the key
sponsor, once seemed to be on the side of fair use and other users'
rights. Part of it is money, no doubt.
Andrew aims a well-deserved barb at the technology community for not
taking its case to Congress in a more organized way, and this is also
true. But I think he underestimates two things.
First, the tech industry's leaders have not just stopped fighting
Hollywood and the record companies. They've embraced the
cartel. This spectacular piece of cowardice, driven by a warped sense
of what's in the tech moguls' best business interests, means that
technology innovation must essentially be approved by the cartel or
modified so as not to annoy the copyright industry.
Second, technologists have a remarkably short attention span. They
flit from idea to idea, changing products and business models at the
drop of a hat because they live in an ever-morphing universe where
rapid change is the norm.
The copyright cartel has, if nothing else, a deep and abiding
motivation to maintain control. It is relentless. It has basically one
issue, and pockets deep enough to stay with the fight.
I tend to respect Hollywood and the music companies for their
single-mindedness, even though I have little respect for their
position on this matter. I have growing distaste for the technology
industry, which seems to have few principles of any kind.
And the public interest gets squashed.
What Should The Copyright notice on UK
Website Be?
What Should The Copyright notice on UK
Website Be?
12/19/2004 03:08 PM"... a lot of websites offering copyright notice "templates", but
these all seem to cover US copyright. Are there any similar services
for the UK?"
Parody of copyright billboard
Parody of copyright billboard
09/09/2004 10:29 AM
Cory Doctorow:
While in Boston for WorldCon, I spotted these
copyright warning
posters in the lighted advertising podium. Trevor points to a much
better parody.
Link
(
Thanks, Trevor!)
Updated Copyright Chart
Updated Copyright Chart
07/13/2004 08:19 AMPeter Hirtle has a copyright chart available at
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm.
Not only does it cover US copyright but also copyright information for
the US about books published in other countries. Also...
The On-Line Battle Over Copyright
The On-Line Battle Over Copyright
01/04/2004 09:34 PMMacleans Online Jan 4 2004 8:13PM ET
Google sued over copyright
Google sued over copyright
03/23/2005 11:01 PMGlobe and Mail Mar 24 2005 3:21AM GMT
Grok Description matches for How Copyright Stifles New Art
GrokA matches for How Copyright Stifles New Art
How Copyright Stifles New Art
