Introducing Copyright: A Plain Language Guide to Copyright in the 21st Century
http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/Introducing_Copyright_online_edition.pdf
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to
encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.
© Julien Hofman and Commonwealth of Learning, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Library Intelligencer » Introducing Copyright: A Plain Language Guide to Copyright in the 21st Century
MDPI.com: peer-reviewed, fully open access scholarly journals since 1996 « Life Sciences Info @ Imperial College London Library
MDPI.com: peer-reviewed, fully open access scholarly journals since 1996
MDPI.com is a platform providing open access to peer-reviewed journals published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI). Access is available to material published from 1996 onwards and includes:
- International Journal of Environmental Research & Public Health
- International Journal of Molecular Sciences
- Marine Drugs
- Molecules
- Nutrients
- Remote Sensing (New as of March 2009)
- Sustainability (New as of March 2009)
- Toxins
- Viruses
Visit www.mdpi.com to access these journals and more, and hook up to an RSS feed from the site too.
Librarians = Open Access and New Media Advocates : Greg Laden's Blog
Video -- HSM -- Thanks to Librarians = Open Access and New Media Advocates : Greg Laden's Blog
Librarians = Open Access and New Media Advocates
hat tip Bora, where you can find more.
Librarians = Open Access and New Media Advocates : Greg Laden's Blog
Major research institute moves publications to open-access system | News | Breaking News | Feedstuffs
Major research institute moves publications to open-access system
(5/27/2009)
The spiraling cost of subscriptions to scientific journals is fueling a movement toward web-based open access for papers detailing new scientific findings. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) formally launched an open-access (OA) system for its scientific publications on May 27.
"ICRISAT has declared the Green OA Mandate in the Institute, thereby making available a digital, web-accessible repository of pre-prints of the scientific and scholarly publications emerging from ICRISAT's research," according to a statement from the institute.
"According to the registry on global OA initiatives maintained by the University of Southampton in the U.K., ICRISAT is among the earliest agricultural research institutes to declare the green mandate," the statement noted. The University of Southampton maintains the database, which is called Roarmap.
ICRISAT noted that critical research information to researchers across the globe has been affected by the costs of the journals, and "even institutions in developed countries find it difficult to meet increasing journal subscription costs."
In recent years, the OA movement has sprung up in many developed countries, ICRISAT reported. "Champions of the OA movement believe that in spite of publisher-mandated copyright restrictions, authors of scientific and scholarly papers have the fullest freedom to share their findings with their peer community," the statement said.
ICRISAT, based in India, has research stations throughout the world in semi-arid tropical regions. It is one of the institutions of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
The OA repository of ICRISAT can be accessed at http://openaccess.icrisat.org. Most of the institute's print publications can be accessed at http://books.icrisat.org.
Teaching About Copyright and Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - Creative Commons
Teaching About Copyright and Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - Creative Commons
Teaching About Copyright and Fair Use for Media Literacy Education
Jane Park, May 26th, 2009
Last November, the Center for Social Media at AU released a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education, which followed on the heels of a Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video. These guides were aimed at clearing up many of the urban myths surrounding copyright, especially when it came to classroom use of copyrighted materials.
Now, the Media Education Lab at Temple University has produced excellent resources based on the original guide to help teachers teach about copyright and fair use in their classrooms. Resources include lesson plans, Powerpoint slides, videos, case studies, podcasts, and FAQs. The lesson plans iterate on topics from the code such as “Understanding Copyright”, “The Cost of Copyright Confusion”, and “Defining and Applying Fair Use”.
What tickles me: that in order to find out just what you can do with these resources, you get to view and use them first—Learning fair use via fair using! To use these resources in your classroom or study group (or for simply personal edification), check them all out here.
Teaching About Copyright and Fair Use for Media Literacy Education - Creative Commons
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom President Obama named as his nominee for the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning, has a background in intellectual property litigation -- as an associate and partner at the Manhattan law firm Pavia & Harcourt and as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. As a district court judge in 1997, Sotomayor heard a case brought by a group of freelance journalists who claimed various news outlets including the New York Times and Time Inc. violated copyright laws by reproducing their work on electronic databases and archives such as Lexis-Nexis without first obtaining their permission. Sotomayor ruled against the freelancers, arguing that the publishers were within their rights under the Copyright Act.
The appeals court reversed Sotomayor's decision, siding with the freelancers, and the Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling 7-2. Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer dissented, siding with Sotomayor's position. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority's opinion, saying: "If there is demand for a freelance article standing alone or in a new collection, the Copyright Act allows the freelancer to benefit from that demand; after authorizing initial publication, the freelancer may also sell the article to others. It would scarcely "preserve the author's copyright in a contribution" as contemplated by Congress... if a newspaper or magazine publisher were permitted to reproduce or distribute copies of the author's contribution in isolation or within new collective works."
National Journal Online -- Tech Daily Dose -- Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background
Conference Board report on copyright draws criticism
Conference Board report on copyright draws criticism
Conference Board report on copyright draws criticism
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 | 12:48 PM ET Comments58Recommend65
CBC News
University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist has attacked the form and content of a Conference Board of Canada report advocating tighter copyright rules.
Copyright is a contentious issue in the digital universe, and the Conservative government has had a hard time finding a way to update Canada's law without drawing stiff opposition from digital advocates, including Geist.
The last version of the bill, which could have imposed serious penalties for illegal downloading, died when the government dissolved Parliament before the Oct. 14, 2008, election. During the campaign, the Conservatives said they would reintroduce copyright reform.
The Conference Board report, published last week, came out ahead of a board conference on copyright set for Friday.
Land of illegal downloading
The board promoted the report with a news release saying "Canada's failure to strengthen intellectual property rights in the face of digital technology has given it an unwelcome reputation as the file-swapping capital of the world."
Because of "lax regulation and enforcement," internet piracy is rising in Canada, the board said. "The estimated number of illicit downloads (1.3 billion) is 65 times higher than the number legal downloads (20 million), mirroring the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's conclusion that Canada has the highest per capita incidence of unauthorized file-swapping in the world," the board said.
But in a posting on his blog Monday, Geist — a professor who writes frequently about internet copyright issues — said the downloads claim is based on extrapolated data from a 2006 survey, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development study "did not reach" the conclusion the board said it did.
Moreover, Geist said the board based its information on material previously published by the International Intellectual Property Alliance, "the primary movie, music, and software lobby in the U.S."
He said the board report was funded by pro-copyright groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network and Copyright Collective of Canada.
He also said the board had copied parts of its report from a property alliance report.
The board responded with a posting on its website Tuesday, saying it "stands behind its findings" and acknowledging a failure to attribute material in one instance. "We have corrected the missing citation in the report and we apologize for the oversight," the board said.
The report was a piece of contract research, and the board "does not disclose the terms of its contracts without permission of the client."
It also acknowledged "that some of the cited paragraphs closely approximate the wording of a source document."
The report's recommendations closely mirrored those advocated by the property alliance.
Both suggested:
- Protecting measures aimed at preventing unauthorized copying.
- Outlawing devices that enable such copying.
- Providing strong civil and criminal penalties for violations.
- Carefully defining exceptions to the rules.
Tougher rules and more enforcement are needed "to protect new knowledge and shore up Canada's poor innovation record," the board said.
Its report "reviewed the full spectrum of arguments surrounding the issue of intellectual property rights in Canada. The final report includes those arguments considered most relevant to the policy under review."
Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton vs. The Internet | Sony Insider
Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton vs. The Internet | Sony Insider
Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton vs. The Internet
Posted by Christopher MacManus on May 26th, 2009 Comments Printer-Friendly
The CEO of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, has really been the target of some intense Internet discussion lately. It all started when he attended a panel regarding the future of film making and oddly stated that he “doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.” He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.” These comments circulated quickly amongst blogs and news websites, and even Sony Insider was left wondering what the real deal is. How could someone from Sony say that?
I won’t be ignorant here and say that he’s wrong; Lynton is right in a certain sense. There is immense value in the Internet, but he speaks the truth about being able to steal content. I can use a file sharing program such as uTorrent and download any modern software I want, crack it, and use it very quickly. Using the same program, I can also download just about any song, album, or movie released in the last ten to twenty years with relative ease. Some older, more obscure content is a little harder to come by but just about everything is out there. However, Lynton stating that there isn’t “anything good having come from the Internet” is simply inescapable and will probably haunt him till the end of his career. People have attacked him incessantly regarding this statement since it was revealed last week, and with such intense scrutiny he offered further explanation at the Internet-only publication Huffington News.
While Lynton’s 10+ paragraph rebuttal is too long for us to repost, we seriously recommend you read it to understand the mindset of a person who runs one of the largest movie companies in the entire world. While there are several great points, I got this notion halfway through that Lynton is standing up for the way things used to be, before the Internet, before file sharing, before everything was nearly free. However, you can’t send society back in a time machine and forget what we have now. Lynton implies the Internet needs guardrails. There have been plenty of guardrails that have tried to curb illegal piracy - services, such as the first version of Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa have been shut down only to be replaced by the more efficient BitTorrent. Until the Internet is somehow turned off, people will find new ways to distribute content and the system to do so will become stronger and more efficient than before.
I would guess that all of the people who already are singing, writing, and filming creative content with little or nothing in the way of monetary compensation will keep on doing it. Small-budget films that were never about making a living in the first place will keep popping up - and keep being clever, creative, and redefine their genre. What may become untenable is the multi-million dollar special effects blockbuster, which makes up a huge chunk of film as an industry but often falls flat in terms of the creativity that the Lynton’s point would defend. That also applies to fiction, poetry, and music.
The pricing of the product was mostly due to the delivery medium, which is becoming irrelevant. People are stealing because its too expensive for most people to enjoy new content. I gained this perspective very quickly while on vacation visiting my father near Tallahassee (Wakulla County, Florida USA). The second edition of Wakulla News 2009 deliquent tax list is printed in a font size that is probably about 9, and is 24 pages long. These economic woes are probably a common situation in many counties in the United States. It will take time for the industry to realize that the pay scales in the entertainment business is going to be corrected by the Internet. Those millions to the actors will reduce invariably, and the profits will have to come down to accommodate customers.
The internet will not be changed by copyright, although certain countries may blast their legal minds out before they learn the lesson, copyright will change for the technology. The rational for the imposition of monopoly copyright was capital intensive industrial copy technology. With the internet, the rational has fallen, and simply asserting, as Lynton’s post does in a round about way, that copyright is a natural right or that it is responsible itself for artistic expression or that artistic expression is stymied if “other owners of copyrights” lose their monopolies, is exactly like saying the audience won’t like talkies.
It would be a great mistake to believe that the death of an industry necessarily heralds the death of an art. Will piracy mean there’s going to be less? Certainly, to some extent, but it’s not going to kill jam poets, writers’ circles, or local bands - it’s going to mean less Rambo and Britney Spears to go around, and that’s honestly kind of okay with us.
Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton vs. The Internet | Sony Insider
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
Independent study fuels debate on copyright report
By Vito Pilieci, Ottawa CitizenMay 26, 2009Comments (5)
OTTAWA — An independent study, first commissioned and then ignored by the Conference Board of Canada, is fuelling further debate over the research organization's most recent report on copyright in Canada.
University of Ottawa law professor, Jeremy de Beer, was commissioned by the Conference Board last spring to conduct independent research on copyright legislation.
De Beer delivered a working paper to the board in the fall. The working paper was reviewed by researchers at the board while they were compiling data to complete their copyright report.
De Beer's findings ran counter to many of the board's conclusions and was not mentioned in the board's final report called Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Economy, which was released Friday.
In a statement Tuesday, the Conference Board said:
"In the course of the research, the authors reviewed the full spectrum of arguments surrounding the issue of intellectual property rights in Canada, including Prof. de Beer's study. The final report includes those arguments considered most relevant to the policy under review."
The Conference Board report calls Canada "the file-swapping capital of the world" and calls for strict new copyright legislation as well as new power for border guards to deal with counterfeit and pirated goods.
The report is largely based on the findings of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) 2008 Special 301 Report.
De Beer's research debunks the 301 Report by stating, "such sources have been exposed as lacking creditability," in the working paper provided to the board called Copyright and Innovation in the Networked Information Economy.
"For example, a Canadian Government official has debunked the 'Special 301 Reports' . . . as driven entirely by U.S. Industry and lacking reliable and objective analysis," the report adds.
De Beer called the omission of his research in the board's final report "strange."
"I would have thought that they would have more carefully weighed the various perspectives that they solicited," said de Beer. "I'm not interested in picking a fight with them. If they want to commission research from me and then ignore it, that's their prerogative."
On Monday, University of Ottawa professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-commerce law Michael Geist accused the board of plagiarism and questioned the sponsors behind the Conference Board's report.
The board has admitted the copyright report was produced as "contract research," adding: "The Conference Board regularly produces custom research. Our guidelines for financed research require the design and method of research, as well as the content of the report, to be determined solely by the Conference Board."
According to the Conference Board, the report was funded by the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network, the Canadian Intellectual Property Council, the Copyright Collective of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation as well as other lobby groups who are pushing for stronger Canadian copyright legislation.
The board would not detail financial commitments from the report's backers, citing client confidentiality, but it did say that the financial backers have no say over the report's editorial content.
The board's reassurance was of little comfort to Geist, who said the revelation that the organization ignored independent research "raises even further troubling questions about the objectivity of the survey."
He is calling for the research organization to recall the report.
"The right thing to do is to say, 'this report does not meet the standards of the Conference Board of Canada," he said. "The right thing to do is to pull it. They seem to be operating on completely the opposite tack."
Geist believes the controversy surrounding the board's report has damaged its reputation. The board describes itself as "the foremost, independent, not-for-profit applied research organization in Canada. Objective and non-partisan. We do not lobby for specific interests."
"It calls into question a lot of their research and significantly damages their claims that they are somehow independent," he said.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Monday, May 18, 2009
If This Is The Sort Of Writing That Strong Copyright Creates... I'll Pass | Techdirt
If This Is The Sort Of Writing That Strong Copyright Creates... I'll Pass | Techdirt
If This Is The Sort Of Writing That Strong Copyright Creates... I'll Pass
from the let-it-go... dept
Two years ago, we were among those who piled on in response to author Mark Helprin's NY Times op-ed piece in which he argued that copyright should last forever. We explained why this showed a fundamental ignorance of the very purpose of copyright law. Of course, rather than inform himself, it appears Helprin spent the past two years fuming against those who tried to educate him. He's written an entire book bashing the "digital barbarians" who are trying to destroy society by picking away at copyright. I'm about halfway through the book, and I'd finish it faster if I didn't have to keep whacking my head against the wall wondering how someone could fail so spectacularly at basic fundamental logic and comprehension. I'm planning to write up something of a review (along with reviews of some other, much more worthwhile books) at some point soon.
In the meantime, however, the Wall Street Journal saw fit to give Helprin space to embarrass himself royally earlier this week. The piece attacks consumer rights advocates as being advocates for "thieves" (don't get me started...) and implies that those fighting against copyright extension are all part of a plot of some big tech companies to get all information for free (and destroy society at the same time). It goes on to suggest (despite the fact that copyright law has been changed in one direction and one direction only over the years) that those of us concerned about the massive expansion of copyright have been winning battle after battle with almost no opposition:So here we have a city -- the hypothetical city and New York itself -- deeply dependent upon what copyright protects but unaware of the threat it faces, even as, sector by sector, it begins to fall. Are you -- were you -- in publishing? Are you, or were you, a journalist? A screenwriter, composer, architect, designer, photographer, writer, or in a business that brings the work of these people to the public? What have you done to protect your life's blood and to guarantee the continued independence of your voice? As distressed as you may be now or not long from now, should copyright go the way of all flesh, some of you may soon be unable even to recognize your own profession, if indeed it continues to exist.As ridiculous as his book is, at least his argument there is laid out with a bit more effort. This piece is just pure tripe, backed up with nothing even resembling fact. It's odd that a publication like the Wall Street Journal would allow blatant falsehoods to be published in its pages, but if that's what it takes these days to defend copyright... I guess it shows how desperate the defenders of Big Copyright have become.
K Matthew Dames from Copycense has taken an initial stab at correcting many of Helprin's errors in great detail, citing numerous sources to show just how incredibly wrong Helprin is over and over again.
Still, the thing that struck me is that Helprin's argument does what many other "defenses" of the elitist (and purely imaginary) notion that there's some war between "professional content creators" and those weak-minded "amateurs" who are trying to destroy them seem to do: it disproves its own point. For all the talk about how copyright and other tools of "protection" against the riff raff guarantees higher quality output, all we get is totally indefensible material like Helprin's. The defense of copyright produces misleading, poorly thought out, poorly defended and flat out wrong content such as Helprin's. Meanwhile, the thoughtful, reasonable, useful analysis comes from sites like Copycense. In the end, that may be the best response to Helprin's work. His own words disprove his own thesis.
If This Is The Sort Of Writing That Strong Copyright Creates... I'll Pass | Techdirt
Friday, May 15, 2009
Share a File, Lose Your Laptop? - PC World
Share a File, Lose Your Laptop? - PC World
Share a File, Lose Your Laptop?
Antipiracy remedies are working, but Hollywood and the software industry are sponsoring a global agreement to crack down on consumers.
Bill Snyder, InfoWorld.com
You're returning to the U.S. from a quick trip to Canada. A customs official says he wants to examine your laptop. You boot it for him and he finds (gasp!) a bootlegged copy of Allen Toussaint's new CD. "Sorry, sir, we'll have to hold on to that."
Just like that, your MacBook is the property of the U.S. government and you're out $1,600. Or maybe it becomes known that you've shared music or an old version of WordPerfect online. Good-bye Internet account.
That couldn't happen today. But Hollywood and the software industry are in a lather about piracy, so they're pushing a draconian, international agreement that could make those ugly scenarios an everyday occurrence.
[ InfoWorld's Robert X. Cringely has choice words on current antipiracy measures in his blog post, "The wrong arm of the law" | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: First Look newsletter and InfoWorld Daily podcast. ]
Called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the new plan would see the United States, Canada, members of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, and Switzerland form an international coalition against copyright infringement. What's making groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation especially nervous is the veil of secrecy around the negotiations. In fact, it took some well-placed leaks and a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the most basic details of the plan. (Anything to do with regulation by the EU makes me nervous as well. Remember the crackdown on ugly vegetables?)
A year ago, Wikileaks obtained and posted a copy of an internal discussion paper that laid out some of the avenues the international bureaucrats were pursing. Check it out -- and be sure to note the section about border controls and the seizure and destruction of property.
Software piracy is a legitimate concern
Before going further, I'll stipulate that piracy and counterfeiting software are real problems. I write for a living, many of the people I write about create code for a living, and some of my friends are professional musicians. So I'm not at all opposed to the protection of content. We deserve to profit from our labor and so do our employers.Just this week, the Business Software Association, in conjunction with IDC (a research company owned by InfoWorld's parent) released a study about software piracy. It claims that losses to world economy attributed to software piracy increased by 5 percent (excluding currency fluctuations) last year to $50.2 billion.
I'm always skeptical of studies funded by organizations looking to make a point. But IDC is a reputable outfit, and even if the study's findings are somewhat inflated, a lot of money is obviously being taken off the table. Walk around a marketplace in Asia, as I did last year, or do a little shopping on Craigslist or eBay and you'll find astonishing collections of obviously pirated software applications, not to mention videos and music CDs.
Interestingly, though, the study found that in 2008 the rate of PC software piracy dropped in about half (48) of the 110 countries studied, remained the same in about a third (36), and rose in just 16. Even in China, the poster child for software piracy, the rip-off rate has dropped some 10 percentage points since 2004, 6 points in India and Brazil, and 15 points in Russia.
Clearly then, antipiracy measures are working. And working pretty well. But the BSA, which represents the software industry, still favors ACTA. And some of the worst offenders -- countries like Georgia and Zimbabwe where they say 90 percent of the software deployed is pirated (not to mention parts of Eastern Europe) -- aren't part of the trade negotiations. So why crack down so hard on people in countries where piracy is declining?
You could lose your Internet connection -- without a trial
Last September, a coalition of more than 20 organizations, including the American Library Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, Intel, and Yahoo, submitted comments to the U.S. trade representative about ACTA. The comments expressed concern that elements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) could be included in ACTA without any of the safeguards available under the DMCA.For example, while the language in the DMCA gives Internet service providers some latitude in deciding whether to terminate Internet access to online copyright infringers, ACTA could result in laws requiring ISPs to automatically disconnect infringers without any discretion, the note warned. While the DMCA leaves the decision to install traffic- and user-monitoring systems largely up to ISPs, ACTA could make such systems mandatory, they said. Seem far-fetched? It's already happening: France this week approved a law cutting off Internet accounts for people found to have made illegal downloads three times.
Great -- one more layer of intrusive, heavy-handed regulation sponsored by the geniuses of the music and movie industries, and the folks that want to protect Europeans from misshapen bananas.
I welcome your comments, tips, and suggestions. Reach me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net.
Copyrights & Campaigns: No settlement in Jammie Thomas case; retrial set for June 15 in peer-to-peer case
No settlement in Jammie Thomas case; retrial set for June 15 in peer-to-peer case
Back to Duluth!
The eyes of the copyright world will once again be focused on that northern Minnesota burg after a court-ordered settlement conference failed to resolve the Jammie Thomas peer-to-peer infringement case -- the only one of the approximately 30,000 cases filed by the labels against individual p2p users that has actually gone to trial so far.
Reports Wired:Thomas’ lawyer, Brian Toder, and RIAA lawyers met privately in a Minnesota federal court for two hours haggling over the case. No conclusion was reached (.pdf). Thomas has maintained she would never settle. A retrial is set for June 15.
“What they wanted to do, my client did not want to do,” Toder said in a telephone interview. He declined to disclose the RIAA’s financial demands.
The first Thomas trial ended in late 2007 with a verdict for the plaintiffs and a $222,000 statutory damages award against Thomas for infringing 24 songs. Thomas claimed that a mysterious lurker had used her wireless network to download the songs, but, as Wired deadpanned at the time:
Expert testimony from an RIAA witness...showed that a wireless router was not used, casting doubt on her defense that a hacker lurking outside her apartment window with a laptop might have framed her, he said.One juror called Thomas a "liar" in a post-verdict press interview, and 2 wanted to impose maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work before the jury settled on the figure of $9,250. However, the court threw out the entire verdict after determining that his jury instruction on the so-called "making available" theory of liability was foreclosed by Eighth Circuit precedent.
June could be an awfully busy month for the labels' litigators; Judge Nancy Gertner in the Joel Tenenbaum case has told the parties to expect trial date as early as late June, though I suspect that delays produced by the webcast imbroglio will necessitate pushing that out.
How much did piracy hurt 'Wolverine' boxoffice?--THR, Esq. Entertainment & Media Law Blog
How much did piracy hurt 'Wolverine' boxoffice?--THR, Esq. Entertainment & Media Law Blog
How much did piracy hurt 'Wolverine' boxoffice?
By Matthew Belloni
The opening weekend numbers are in, and the hottest question in the anti-piracy community has been answered...sort of..OK, not really.
As THR's Carl DiOrio reports, Fox's "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" pulled in an estimated $87 million domestically this weekend, making it a solid hit. Now the query that was first raised when the unfinished workprint of the film leaked on March 30th is center stage: what could have been?
The answer is unknowable, of course, and the file-sharing community will no doubt point to the big total as proof that piracy doesn't really hurt the studios, at least not when it comes to theatrical boxoffice. But a close look at the numbers suggest the leak indeed might have cost Fox. How much? Tons of variables are at work here; everything from mixed reviews to swine flu. But here are a couple purely speculative piracy loss scenarios:
$7.18 milllion -- Reports following the leak suggested that about 1 million people viewed at least part of the workprint. That number seemed low to us, given the publicity, the Web savvy of the film's core audience and how easy it is now to access torrent sites via Google. But accepting that number and multiplying it by $7.18, which is the average North American movie ticket price, the early availability might have shaved about $7.18 million off the opening weekend numbers. Caveats: Sure, many of those who cared enough to look at the leaked version no doubt donned their muttonchops and plastic claws to see the finished film on opening night. And plenty of lookie-loos never would have seen the film anyways. (Plus, the 1 million presumably refers to views worldwide, not just North America.) But the leak also contributed to some negative buzz about the film, which--like with Universal's leaked "Hulk" in 2003--reverberated beyond the pirate community ("Wolverine's" RottenTomato rating ended up at a splattering 38%).
$15.75 million -- That's the difference between the opening weekend domestic gross of "Wolverine" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." Brett Ratner's 2006 contribution to the series opened to a more impressive $102.75. Granted, that benchmark seems unfair because "X-3" opened over the Memorial Day weekend (its 4-day total was $122.9 million) and was riding high on fan support of Bryan Singer's well-received "X-2: X-Men United." But an argument could be made that a prequel about the series' most popular character, released as the summer kickoff in a year of recession-supercharged boxoffice, would have reached $100 million without piracy.
$14.1 million -- A better comparison for "Wolverine" might be the $102.1 that "Iron Man" pulled in over the same weekend last year. That comic book adaptation launched without the built-in franchise power that "Wolverine" has and without the recession boost but still managed to outgross it by an estimated 14.1 million. (Good reviews helped the Jon Favreau pic, but these movies are review-proof, aren't they?)
$00 -- What if the copyleft is right and piracy doesn't really impact opening weekends at all? Maybe the unfinished print acted as a massive tease for the final cut, something that primed the core audience and served as free publicity for everyone else. Or maybe audiences separate the experience of watching pirated movies online from the fun of seeing a big summer movie in the theater. We doubt it (and we never believed those rumors that Fox actually leaked the film itself to stoke buzz or create an excuse if the film fizzled). But look for the pirates to point to "Wolverine" and say the studios are crying, um, wolf, when they beat their drums about leaks hurting the bottom line.
As we said, this is all just speculation. That's the frustrating part about rampant piracy: there's no way to know how sharp "Wolverine's" boxoffice claws might have been.
RELATED: THR's Steven Zeitchik looks at the "mutating force" of piracy over at the Risky Business blog.
POST UPDATED WITH LINKS
How much did piracy hurt 'Wolverine' boxoffice?--THR, Esq. Entertainment & Media Law Blog
RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek
RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek
RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood
The media player software maker's lawsuit reads like a conspiracy plot as it's impossible for any organizations other than the studios to sell DVD-copying software.
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
May 14, 2009 06:07 PM
RealNetworks, which is waging a court battle against several Hollywood studios over its DVD-copying software, has filed antitrust claims against the movie studios, accusing them of trying to prevent other companies from building products that let consumers legally copy DVDs for personal use.
RealNetworks filed the accusations Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, where it's battling an attempt by the studios to extend a court order barring the company from selling its DVD-copying RealDVD until after the legality of software is settled. The Motion Picture Association of America has sued RealNetworks accusing it of copyright violations. In addition, the DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses copyright-right protection technology for the MPAA, has joined the suit, accusing RealNetworks of violating its license with RealDVD.
RealNetworks filed its latest allegations in preparation for closing arguments in the current court battle over the temporary restraining order against RealNetworks. Closing arguments are scheduled for May 21.
Within the 36-page court document, RealNetworks claims the studios and the DVD CCA have conspired to make it impossible for any organizations other than the studios to sell DVD-copying software. "Without this illegal cartel, Real and others would be able to compete to provide consumers with products to enable them to gain more value from their DVDs, without having to pay again to make a fair-use copy of the DVDs they have already purchased," a RealNetworks spokesman said in an e-mail.
Under the fair-use segment of the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act, people can legally copy movies and music for personal use. RealDVD, which costs $30, makes it possible to copy a DVD onto the hard drive of a laptop, but does not strip the copyright-protection technology on the DVD, according to RealNetworks. In addition, RealDVD adds another layer of protection that prevents the movie file from being opened on any device other than the one it was originally copied to.
As part of its latest filing, RealNetworks is asking the court to bar the movie studios and the DVD CCA from anti-competitive activity and for monetary damages that would be determined later.
RealNetworks Files Antitrust Claims Against Hollywood -- Hollywood Studios -- InformationWeek
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Not Enough Time in the Library - Chronicle.com
"Research Literate -- so much better than information literacy -- IMHO -- HSM"
FIRST PERSON
Not Enough Time in the Library
Just because your students are computer-literate doesn't mean they are research-literate
As an academic librarian, I hear an awful lot of hype about using technology to enhance instruction in colleges and universities. While the very word "technology" — not to mention the jargon that crops up around it, like "interactive whiteboards" and "smart classrooms" — sounds exciting and impressive, what it boils down to is really just a set of tools. They're useful tools, but they don't offer content beyond what the users put into them.
Today we have hardware and software that facilitate communication, resource-sharing, and organization. We have computers attached to projection systems for lectures and demonstrations; social-networking and messaging sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter; virtual spaces like blogs and wikis in which to collaborate; course-management software like Blackboard/WebCT, Sakai, and Angel to supplement or even take the place of the physical classroom; and programs such as RefWorks, Endnote, and Zotero to keep track of and format bibliographies.
Oldsters tend to associate those tools with youngsters. Many faculty members, especially senior ones, believe they are less adept at using those tools than their students are. While that much may be true, the assumption that follows — that when it comes to technology, today's students need no faculty guidance — most certainly is not.
While college students may be computer-literate, they are not, as a rule, research-literate. And there's a huge difference between the two.
The fact that some professors do not recognize the distinction means they effectively assume that their students find themselves as much at home in the complex and daunting world of information as when they upload 25 photos from their iPhone to Facebook and text their friends to announce the latest "pics."
Academic librarians are eager to offer sessions for students on what we call "research education." But the mistaken assumption that students don't need it means that many professors don't ask us to meet with their students, or even respond to our enthusiastic offers to lead such sessions. Students don't need to be taught anything about working online, because they were practically born digital, right?
Research education is not tools education. Research education involves getting students to understand how information is organized physically in libraries, as well as electronically in library catalogs and in powerful, sometimes highly specialized commercial databases. It means teaching students to search effectively online to identify the most relevant and highest-quality books, articles, microform sets, databases, even free Web resources.
Students do not come to college armed with those skills, nor are they likely to be acquired without guidance. Yet students desperately need such skills if they hope to function effectively in our information-driven economy. As Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams opine in The Craft of Research: The "vast majority of students will have careers in which, if they do not do their own research, they will have to evaluate and depend on the research of others. We know of no way to prepare for that responsibility better than to do research of one's own."
Professors may need to be reminded that online searching requires a set of skills that are the strong suit of academic librarians — and that we are eager to impart those skills to students. Faculty members may also need to be reminded that developing those skills takes practice. Would professors assume that students possess the critical-thinking skills necessary to make sense of an early-17th-century document related to the Plymouth Bay Colony just because they grew up in Massachusetts?
Here, then, are some tips for faculty members on how to augment students' research skills.
Spend a class period on search strategies. Show students how to find their way around the library's electronic catalog (for books) and a few general databases such as Academic Search Premier, those in the WilsonWeb platform, and LexisNexis Academic (for articles). A librarian can conduct a session with your students on those sources and, more important, demonstrate effective search strategies to avoid frustration and wasted time. Make the session mandatory, hold it during class, and be sure to attend it, to show you mean business. Even better, teach the session with the librarian, or at least chime in to stress key points.
Take a tour. Introduce students to the physical spaces of the library, especially the reference desk, the reference collection and its contents, the periodical reading room, and the stacks — including how to read a call number. Believe it or not, many students' familiarity with their college or university library stops at the study spaces.
Reinforce the lesson with an assignment. Devise a for-credit assignment that echoes what you and the librarian have shown the students. It should emphasize key distinctions that they often forget, such as the need to search the online catalog for books but library databases for articles. You might also incorporate a component that challenges students to evaluate the quality of information they find, such as comparing the top results returned by a keyword search in Google with those returned in Academic Search Premier with the peer-reviewed box checked. Which results are more authoritative, and how can students tell?
Take it a step further. Perhaps you want to do more than require a single assignment, such as encouraging students to use library materials in support of arguments in their term papers. It would be good to assign them Chapter 3 (pp. 40 to 55) of the second edition of The Craft of Research (available for library purchase as an e-book, so students don't have to shell out extra). The chapter covers how to turn interest in a topic into a research question that's worth trying to answer. It should reduce the likelihood that students will set out to write a paper on "the history of rowing on U.S. college campuses" and move them instead toward an argument supported by convincing data about, say, "the role that athletics plays in U.S. college admissions."
In an ideal world, students should have multiple encounters with librarians, not just the standard 60-to-90-minute session that is most common now.
Faculty members in Yale's English department clearly recognize the growing importance of research education: They have just agreed to increase fivefold the number of undergraduates who will attend library sessions as an integral part of their introductory writing and literature courses (from 350 to roughly 1,900). Add to that our new "personal librarian" program, which pairs every Yale freshman with a Yale librarian, and you see the students themselves begin to be repositioned to value learning the craft of research. Let's hope this example encourages others to follow suit.
The more time students spend with us, the further they can go beyond the basics into larger conceptual issues. Once they have determined what makes a good research question in the first place, they can move on to ask themselves (and the librarian) what is needed to answer specific questions they want to explore, developing the confidence that comes from knowing they are looking in all the right places for answers, and actually finding what they seek.
Todd Gilman is the librarian for literature in English at Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Q&A: Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance - 2009-05-09 18:52:00 | Multichannel News
Q&A: Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance - 2009-05-09 18:52:00 | Multichannel News
Q&A: Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance
Public Knowledge President Weighs In On Cablevision's Court Case
Public Knowledge has frequently taken aim at cable operators over network management issues. But the group is squarely in Cablevision's corner when it comes to legal wrangling over the operator's plans to roll out a headend-based digital video recorder service. The U.S. Supreme Court is awaiting advice from the solicitor general on whether or not to hear content creators' - studios and programmers - appeal of an earlier ruling that found Cablevision's plan to provide DVR functionality in centralized servers does not violate copying and performance restrictions in copyright law. The studios say that fundamentally distorts copyright law. Cablevision, meanwhile, has yet to roll out the service. Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn wants the last decision to stand, enabling Cablevision to roll out the "cool, consumer-friendly technology" and reinforcing fair-use rights established in the Sony Betamax case over video cassette recording. She spoke with Multichannel News senior Washington editor John Eggerton about the issue.
MCN: Could you briefly explain the case?
Gigi Sohn: Cablevision has a remote storage digital video recorder service which is just like a TiVo or any other DVR except there is no hard drive. The copies of the shows are stored on Cablevision servers. But for all intents and purposes it operates like a TiVo. You use your remote controls to pick what programs you want to record, you record those programs and you play them back But you don't have a box with an expensive hard drive.
The studios and some cable networks sued for copyright infringement based on three theories. They said the little, temporary buffer copy that it made before digital transmission violated the right of reproduction. The fact that the copy of the show resided on the server was also a violation of reproduction rights, they argued. And third, they said that when Cablevision provides the recorded show violates the right of public performance.
MCN: So why wouldn't that violate the public performance restrictions. A cable operators has to get a separate right for VOD, doesn't it?
GS: Yes, but the court differentiated between VOD and this because for video on demand, the cable operator makes certain movies available. The consumer isn't the one doing the choosing. In that situation it is the cable operator who chooses what library of shows will be available to the consumer. With the DVR, the only choosing the cable system does is what networks to put on its system. It doesn't choose the programming available for the DVR. You choose that. That is the big differentiation.
MCN: But in the original lower court decision, which went against Cablevision, the judge saw it differently?
GS: Yes, he basically looked under the hood of these technologies and said they were more like video on demand and less like the TiVo. It is really Cablevision that is making the copy. But the Second Circuit [U.S. Court of Appeals] reversed on all grounds, finding that the buffer copy is temporary and that in order to violate the copyright it had to be more than transitory duration. The Second Circuit determined that the customer is doing the copying and, on public performance, that Cablevision was only providing the show to one person. The studios had said you had to look at the potential audience for the work. So if it went to more than one person, it was a public performance.
MCN: Where does the case stand now?
GS: The studios sought Supreme Court review, but we don't think this is a case that is worthy of the Supreme Court taking for a variety of reasons. Number one, there is no conflict in the circuit. It is also a very narrow decision. It is only about one cable remote DVR technology. Conversely, if the case were reversed there could be some serious damage done to technology.
The Second Circuit crafted a narrow decision and left a lot of doors open. For instance, they left the door open if companies wanted to assert contributory liability, saying that maybe Cablevision was inducing infringement. I don't think they would win, but the point is they didn't decide that. They frankly took pains, maybe in a way I might not have done if I was one of the judges, to make this as narrowly construed as possible.
MCN: What serious damage would result if the Supreme Court reversed the appeal decision and found for the studios?
GS:Every time you make a digital copy of anything, an audio stream, a video stream, you have to make a buffer copy first. Can you imagine what that would do to the cost of digital transmission or to the consumer if you had to pay a licensing fee? Think about cloud computing. If all remote storage is a copy and the host is liable, cloud computing is dead.
MCN: So how did the Solicitor General become involved?
GS: The court asked the Solicitor General to give his opinion about the case. She is planning on filing at the end of this month with an opinion on whether this case should be taken or not.
MCN: So what has been going on for the past few months is both sides have been trying to convince the Solicitor General by enlisting various and sundry agencies to weigh in on their behalf. Lobbying is the wrong word, but there has been a lot of advocacy in the relevant agencies. Who is on the side of Cablevision and Public Knowledge?
GS: Let's not put it that way. I'll tell you who is on the side so far of the Solicitor General telling the court not to take the case. The White House and the FCC.
On the other side so far [are] the Patent and Trademark Office and the Copyright Office. The civil division of the Justice Department has not weighed in yet. I don't know whether one agency has more weight than another. Both the parties, Cablevision and the studios/cable networks, if they haven't already met with the Solicitor General or assistant Solicitor general, will be doing so.
MCN: You have historically been concerned about concentration of control with cable operators. Is there no concern about Cablevision controlling content on its centralized servers?
GS: I'm more concerned about the concentration of control of copyrights and that a handful of powerful copyright holders are trying to sue a cool, consumer-friendly technology out of existence. If I want to try to convince the antitrust department of the Justice Department is that the competition concern is more than copyright.
MCN: But if it is easier or cheaper for Cablevision to provide this service, aren't they getting an extra, commercial, benefit from using copyrighted material in this way? The studios argue the technology is "fundamentally distorting" copyright laws?
GS: I would say it is the exact opposite. The Sony case is now 25 years old. And the Sony case says it is fair use to record a program for later viewing. Tell me how this is any different from a VCR.
MCN: Cablevision doesn't get a benefit if I buy a VCR and record, but if they provide me a service that is faster and cheaper, that is a value added for me?
GS: You have to look at my rights as a viewer. It doesn't matter whether Cablevision is getting some money out of it. The argument that the studios made in the Sony case is that Sony is making money off of my copyright. Here, instead of the hardware company making money you have the software company making money. It is my right to record that is really being affected here.
MCN: Cablevision won't pin the delay in its rollout of the service on this case. What do you think?
GS: Of course it is about this case. If, God forbid, this case is reversed, they are liable for what could be millions if not billions of dollars. Every single work under the copyright law you can be liable for damages of up to $150,000 in infringement. If they willingly continued to run this service and were found to be in violation of copyright laws it would bankrupt Cablevision. It would probably bankrupt Time Warner and Comcast. You would be insane to take that risk.
Copyright is a strict liability law. There is no such thing as a person who thought they were acting legally. If you violate copyright laws, it doesn't matter what your intentions were, you will be punished with very large damages.
Q&A: Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance - 2009-05-09 18:52:00 | Multichannel News
MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs - Ars Technica
MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs
MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs - Ars Technica
Teachers don't need to rip DVDs to get clips for classroom use—they should just use a camcorder to record the DVD playing on a TV screen! So says the MPAA in a video it showed to the US Copyright Office in an attempt to argue that nobody should be ripping DVDs, even for educational use.
By Jacqui Cheng | Last updated May 7, 2009 9:44 PM CT
The Motion Picture Association of America has put itself back into the limelight as the DMCA exemptions hearings wraps up, thanks to a video circulating online suggesting teachers should use camcorders to record video instead of ripping DVD clips for classroom use. Though this suggestion has been floating around for some time now, the MPAA's attempt to push such a convoluted (and more costly) process into the classroom only highlights the industry's desperation to keep people away from DVD ripping—even when what they're doing falls into the category of fair use.
The video, posted on Vimeo, is actually of MPAA execs showing another video (meant to instruct teachers) to the US Copyright Office. The MPAA was showing the video as part of the triennial DMCA exemptions review, when all sides of the copyright debate whip out as much ammo as they can in an attempt to get the law extended to allow certain behaviors (or disallow, as the case may be) for the next three years.
In the video, the MPAA suggests that teachers who want to use movie clips as part of their curricula should use a camcorder to record the movie off of a TV set, and that this is an acceptable way to use video clips without breaking a DVD's copyright protections.
Nevermind that this solution results in video of questionable quality and requires teachers to learn even more tech in order to get the job done. It also requires schools (or, given the way most schools are run, the teachers themselves) to incur additional costs to purchase camcorders and videotapes if they don't have them already. Add in the extra time involved, and this "solution" is a laughably convoluted alternative to simply ripping a clip from a DVD.
Granted, teachers who want to rip DVD clips may still have to learn a bit in order to create a finished product, but that process still involves less equipment and fewer steps, not to mention a better-quality video. And, let's not forget that US copyright law already offers exemptions to teachers who want to use copyrighted clips for educational use—they shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get those same clips just because the MPAA insists on continuing to fight the already lost battle to keep people from ripping DVDs.
MPAA: teachers should videotape monitors, not rip DVDs - Ars Technica
WERF | WERF Adopts Open Access Policy for Research Reports
WERF | WERF Adopts Open Access Policy for Research Reports
WERF Adopts Open Access Policy on Final Reports
The Water Environment Research Foundation today announced a new open access initiative that will bring its wastewater and stormwater research results to the forefront of scientific and technical innovation. The new policy, which was vetted with all subscribers through an initial survey and then with a follow-up invitation to comment on the proposal, will go into full effect on July 1, 2009.
Recognizing that its subscribers benefit when elected officials, regulators, and the public have accurate information on which to base funding and regulatory decisions, WERF intends to improve access to its objective research results.
The open access policy has two primary components:
First, all WERF final research report PDF files and hard copy reports remain available exclusively to subscribers, or available for sale to the public, through WERF and its publishing partners for two years. After the initial two years, all WERF final research report PDF files will be “open access,” free to the general public, from the WERF website. (Tools are not part of the open access initiative.)
Second, if the WERF Board of Directors, Research Council, Communications Advisory Committee, or executive director determine that an earlier release of a final research report is in the public’s and subscribers' interest, they will need a majority vote in the affirmative to enact “open access” for that report before the 2-year open access date. Once WERF designates a report as open access, a PDF version of the report will be available, free of charge, on the WERF website.
The new policy went through several months of comments and considerations.
In November, WERF sent an advisory survey to all subscribing organizations, asking if WERF should make its research reports freely available to the public. Subscribers were generous with their comments.
“There was a recognition that subscribers would benefit from accurate scientific information being made available to the public,” explains WERF executive director Glenn Reinhardt. “They pointed out repeatedly that oceans of misinformation exist in cyberspace and that WERF should be a reliable repository of good science.”
Many subscribers voiced strong support for a timed-release of information to open access, although the timing differed.
Armed with the survey results, the WERF Board of Directors engaged in a lively debate on how best to interpret the outcome. They crafted the compromise solution, and approved a resolution in December. Before implementing the policy, however, they asked Reinhardt to ask again for subscriber input. Based on that input, the Board gave the go-ahead at their April 30 meeting.
“This significant step is one more way that WERF helps its subscribers improve services, meet fiscal responsibilities, promote public health, and protect the environment,” Reinhardt says. “Improving access to scientifically valid information supports the development of reasonable public policy and aids more rapid technological development.”
Open access policies are becoming the new standard for research organizations that want to provide objective and peer-reviewed information to an increasingly interconnected world.
“The amount of misinformation readily available on the internet compels WERF to make its work, among the best that exists, available to all interested parties,” noted one subscriber in his response to the November survey.
One responder’s comments set the tone for the compromise policy ultimately adopted by the Board. “It might be reasonable to limit access for something like two or three years and then to have open access,” this subscriber wrote. “For documents where WERF wants wide distribution, open access should start from publication.”
A complete copy of the WERF Open Access Policy, adopted by the Board of Directors at their meeting on December 16, 2008, is on the WERF website.
May 4, 2009
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It
Having written about copyright issues for so long, we've started to notice some trends. For instance, many people try to twist copyright law to the point where it only applies when it helps them, and suddenly doesn't apply when it helps them not to have it apply. In fact, this is so common that many people falsely assume that the same is true of us -- claiming that we'd be pissed if people copied our content (it's the usual retort to those who are unsure of copyright's benefits). Of course, for us, it's not true. If people want to copy our content for fun or for profit, they're free to do so. Yet, it is true that we often see people who should know better freak out when it's "their content" being used. These scenarios never make anyone look good.
You may recall the group NOM, an advocacy group fighting against gay marriage, that we talked about on this site a few weeks ago because of a bogus takedown notice it sent to YouTube on content that it almost certainly did not own the copyright on. NOM also seemed to have no sense of fair use.
How quickly things change.
NOM had no problem then taking 3 seconds of a clip from the blogger known as Perez Hilton and putting it in an advertisement. Perez Hilton the played the role of the copyright bully, sending a highly questionable takedown notice, claiming the 3 seconds was copyright infringement. Except, as pretty much anyone would tell you, the use was almost certainly fair use, and if anyone should know that, it's Perez Hilton. Yet, it was rather amusing to see NOM, just weeks earlier a staunch questionable takedown notice issuer, suddenly finding themselves on the flipside, defending fair use against a DMCA takedown.
And, how quickly things change again. Because just as Hilton is claiming that using 3 seconds of his own video is copyright infringement and not fair use, Ben Sheffner notes that Hilton has posted a 10 minute video of CNN footage, including his own Perez TV overlay and his own pre-roll ad at the beginning, along with a single sentence beneath the video.
Personally, I think both uses should be perfectly fine (the law, as it currently stands, is more likely to accept NOM's use, but not Hilton's), it's still illustrative of the way many people view copyright. It's an issue to protect you, but it's a hindrance when it gets in your way. Of course, we see this quite often with politicians. It's why Nicolas Sarkozy, who is pushing for incredibly strict new laws relating to copyright in France was found to have ignored copyright law when it suited him. We saw the same thing last year when a Canadian politician who was pushing for the Canadian DMCA was caught infringing on copyright himself.
While some claim it's just hypocrisy, I think it actually represents one of the fundamental flaws of copyright itself (or, really, any monopoly system). Monopolies aren't being used to create incentives to create. They're used to stifle others and to "protect." These days, almost everyone uses them and views them as tools of protection rather than an incentive to create. When you get so far away from the entire purpose of copyright law, you have a system ripe for widespread abuse.
Everyone Assumes Copyright Only Applies When They Like It | Techdirt
Law.com - Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Law.com - Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
Robert Kunstadt
The National Law Journal
May 11, 2009Technology lets Google scan books. It does it because now it can. But authors and publishers sued -- and a class action settlement is now pending in the Southern District of New York. The settlement would authorize Google to scan copyrighted books and maintain an electronic database of books. Google will be able to sell access to individual books and subscriptions to the database, place advertisements on any page dedicated to a book and make other commercial uses of books. Google will pay the copyright owner 63 percent of revenue. The settlement should be rejected.
I studied copyright law under the late Professor Melville B. Nimmer, author of "Nimmer on Copyright," at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. I was fortunate to win a national prize in The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers's "Nathan Burkan Competition" for law student papers on copyright law in 1975. My paper was published in the ASCAP Copyright Law Symposium. I was amazed to see online that Google scanned and published large sections of that paper (even though it was about protecting artists' copyrights).
Nimmer used to say "Ownership of a physical object [a book] is not ownership of the copyright in it." That is Copyright Law 101. But Google thought, "We can." The author's fundamental right is to control his or her work. Google's verbatim reproduction of scanned pages exceeds all bounds of "fair use" by abstracts or summaries. That the entire work is not reproduced is an aggravation, not a mitigation, since it violates the author's moral right under the Berne Convention to bar truncation of the work.
Google will argue that author/publisher class representatives and attorneys arranged this settlement. But these self-appointed "guardians" seem worse than no guardians at all. The class needs attorneys who will work harder for injunctive relief -- and contempt-of-court penalties if Google persists in copying. (But injunctive relief to stop Google's infringement would not create an evergreen settlement fund from which class attorneys may seek a share.)
PARTIES MAY NOT AMEND IP LAW
Authors should not be forced to comply with the proposed settlement's nonstatutory formalities to protect the author's rights. The author need only comply with U.S. copyright law. The parties may not amend the copyright law, creating an ad hoc alternative regime. The copyright law needs to be enforced, the settlement rejected and Google's willful infringement enjoined. Google, as a willful actor for profit, is punishable for copyright infringement the same as any software-pirating street peddler. To overcome the public perception that infringers are "Robin Hood" benefactors, IP law needs to be applied even-handedly to litigants large and small so that the public will see it in their own interest to support IP enforcement.
Google pursued its copying project in calculated disregard of authors' rights. Its business plan was: "So, sue me." To approve the proposed settlement would vindicate Google's street ethics: that the law is whatever you can grab and get away with. Google's added twist -- its update on the Dickensian street pickpocket -- is that if you take very little property from very many people, with a technological efficiency unimaginable to Fagin, you have some real money.
The settlement would reward Google's massive unauthorized online reproduction of copyrighted works, by making Google a "shadow copyright office" with a revenue percentage -- unlike the real Copyright Office, which collects a flat fee.
Google took from the authors first -- and belatedly now seeks to legitimize its misconduct by this settlement. Instead, Google should be punished hard, to deter such schemes. Otherwise, Google will succeed where Napster failed. Respect for IP law -- as well as the rule of law in general -- will decline. If an enterprising homeless person pitches a tent in Google's corporate parking lot for a "Thomas Jefferson Used Book & CD Flea Market," will Google let it stay there (since it only occupies part of the lot)? How about for a profit percentage as sweetener to induce "settlement"?
Google's conduct fits the definition of a public nuisance, and may be enjoined as such. It imposes a small harm on a large number of authors. The harm, copying only a portion of each work, is calculated so as not to make it worthwhile for an author to incur the expense of suing for injunctive relief. Google, despite its cute slogan "Don't be evil," is like a large paper mill releasing noxious gas over a wide area, sufficiently diluted that you smell it but faintly. Like those banks that are now "too big to fail," is Google really "too big to infringe"?
Robert Kunstadt is an IP trial attorney in New York. He submitted an opposition to the proposed settlement in the case against Google.
With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books - NYTimes.com
With E-Readers Comes Wider Piracy of Books - NYTimes.com
Print Books Are Target of Pirates on the Web
- By MOTOKO RICH
Published: May 11, 2009
Ursula K. Le Guin, the science fiction writer, was perusing the Web site Scribd last month when she came across digital copies of some books that seemed quite familiar to her. No wonder. She wrote them, including a free-for-the-taking copy of one of her most enduring novels, “The Left Hand of Darkness.”
Cory Doctorow offers some free electronic versions of his books.
Ursula K. Le Guin was irked to find copies of her work online.
Neither Ms. Le Guin nor her publisher had authorized the electronic editions. To Ms. Le Guin, it was a rude introduction to the quietly proliferating problem of digital piracy in the literary world. “I thought, who do these people think they are?” Ms. Le Guin said. “Why do they think they can violate my copyright and get away with it?”
This would all sound familiar to filmmakers and musicians who fought similar battles — with varying degrees of success — over the last decade. But to authors and their publishers in the age of Kindle, it’s new and frightening territory.
For a while now, determined readers have been able to sniff out errant digital copies of titles as varied as the “Harry Potter” series and best sellers by Stephen King and John Grisham. But some publishers say the problem has ballooned in recent months as an expanding appetite for e-books has spawned a bumper crop of pirated editions on Web sites like Scribd and Wattpad, and on file-sharing services like RapidShare and MediaFire.
“It’s exponentially up,” said David Young, chief executive of Hachette Book Group, whose Little, Brown division publishes the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer, a favorite among digital pirates. “Our legal department is spending an ever-increasing time policing sites where copyrighted material is being presented.”
John Wiley & Sons, a textbook publisher that also issues the “Dummies” series, employs three full-time staff members to trawl for unauthorized copies. Gary M. Rinck, general counsel, said that in the last month, the company had sent notices on more than 5,000 titles — five times more than a year ago — asking various sites to take down digital versions of Wiley’s books.
“It’s a game of Whac-a-Mole,” said Russell Davis, an author and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a trade association that helps authors pursue digital pirates. “You knock one down and five more spring up.”
Sites like Scribd and Wattpad, which invite users to upload documents like college theses and self-published novels, have been the target of industry grumbling in recent weeks, as illegal reproductions of popular titles have turned up on them. Trip Adler, chief executive of Scribd, said it was his “gut feeling” that unauthorized editions represented only a small fraction of the site’s content.
Both sites say they immediately remove illegally posted books once notified of them. The companies have also installed filters to identify copyrighted work when it is uploaded. “We are working very hard to keep unauthorized content off the site,” Mr. Adler said.
Several publishers declined to comment on the issue, fearing the attention might inspire more theft. For now, electronic piracy of books does not seem as widespread as what hit the music world, when file-sharing services like Napster threatened to take down the whole industry.
Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online store.
“If iTunes started three years earlier, I’m not sure how big Napster and the subsequent piratical environments would have been, because people would have been in the habit of legitimately purchasing at pricing that wasn’t considered pernicious,” said Richard Sarnoff, a chairman of Bertelsmann, which owns Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer titles.
Until recently, publishers believed books were relatively safe from piracy because it was so labor-intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. What’s more, reading books on the computer was relatively unappealing compared with a printed version.
Now, with publishers producing more digital editions, it is potentially easier for hackers to copy files. And the growing popularity of electronic reading devices like the Kindle from Amazon or the Reader from Sony make it easier to read in digital form. Many of the unauthorized editions are uploaded as PDFs, which can be easily e-mailed to a Kindle or the Sony device.
An example of copyrighted material on Scribd recently included a digital version of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” a collection of fairy tales by J. K. Rowling. One commenter, posting as vicious-9690, wrote “thx for posting it up ur like the robinhood of ebooks.”
For some writers, tracking down illegal e-books is simply not worth it.
“The question is, how much time and energy do I want to spend chasing these guys,” Stephen King wrote in an e-mail message. “And to what end? My sense is that most of them live in basements floored with carpeting remnants, living on Funions and discount beer.”
Book sales are down significantly, and publishers say it is difficult to determine whether electronic piracy is denting sales. Some of the most frequently uploaded books, like the “Twilight” series, are also huge best sellers.
Some authors say they just want to protect the principle of compensating writers. “I don’t ask to get rich off this stuff,” said Harlan Ellison, an author and screenwriter. “I just ask to be paid.”
Nine years ago, Mr. Ellison sued Internet service providers for failing to stop a user from posting four of his stories to an online newsgroup. Since settling that suit, he has pursued more than 240 people who have posted his work to the Internet without permission. “If you put your hand in my pocket, you’ll drag back six inches of bloody stump,” he said.
Others view digital piracy as a way for new readers to discover writers. Cory Doctorow, a novelist whose young adult novel “Little Brother” spent seven weeks on the New York Times children’s chapter books best-seller list last year, offers free electronic versions of his books on the same day they are published in hardcover. He believes free versions, even unauthorized ones, entice new readers.
“I really feel like my problem isn’t piracy,” Mr. Doctorow said. “It’s obscurity.”
How to create an open scientific culture? « Be openly accessible or be obscure
How to create an open scientific culture?
Doing science in the open, Michael Nielsen, physicsworld.com, May 1, 2009. Excerpts:
The adoption of the journal system was achieved by subsidizing scientists who published their discoveries in journals. This same subsidy now inhibits the adoption of more effective technologies, because it continues to incentivize scientists to share their work in conventional journals and not in more modern media.
…..
To create an open scientific culture that embraces new online tools, two challenging tasks must be achieved: first, build superb online tools; and second, cause the cultural changes necessary for those tools to be accepted. The necessity of accomplishing both these tasks is obvious, yet projects in online science often focus mostly on building tools, with cultural change an afterthought. This is a mistake, for the tools are only part of the overall picture. It took just a few years for the first scientific journals (a tool) to be developed, but many decades of cultural change before journal publication was accepted as the gold standard for judging scientific contributions.
None of this is to discount the challenge of building superb online tools. To develop such tools requires a rare combination of strong design and technical skills, and a deep understanding of how science works. The difficulty is compounded because the people who best understand how science works are scientists themselves, yet building such tools is not something scientists are typically encouraged or well suited to do. Scientific institutions reward scientists for making discoveries within the existing system of discovery; there is little space for people working to change that system. A technologically challenged head of department is unlikely to look kindly on a scientist who suggests that instead of writing papers they would like to spend their research time developing general-purpose tools to improve how science is done.
What about the second task, achieving cultural change? As any revolutionary can attest, that is a tall order. Let me describe two strategies that have been successful in the past, and that offer a template for future success. The first is a top-down strategy that has been successfully used by the open-access (OA) movement. The goal of the OA movement is to make scientific research freely available online to everyone in the world. It is an inspiring goal, and the OA movement has achieved some amazing successes. Perhaps most notably, in April 2008 the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandated that every paper written with the support of their grants must eventually be made open access. The NIH is the world’s largest grant agency; this decision is the scientific equivalent of successfully storming the Bastille.
The second strategy is bottom-up. It is for the people building the new online tools to also develop and boldly evangelize ways of measuring the contributions made with the tools. To understand what this means, imagine you are a scientist sitting on a committee that is deciding whether or not to hire a scientist. Their curriculum vitae reports that they have helped build an open-science wiki, and also that they write a blog. Unfortunately, the committee has no easy way of understanding the significance of these contributions, since as yet there are no broadly accepted metrics for assessing such contributions. The natural consequence is that such contributions are typically undervalued.
To make the challenge concrete, ask yourself what it would take for a description of the contribution made through blogging to be reported by a scientist on their curriculum vitae. How could you measure the different sorts of contributions a scientist can make on a blog — outreach, education and research? These are not easy questions to answer. Yet they must be answered before scientific blogging is accepted as a valuable professional scientific contribution.
Recommendation: Read the entire text of this excellent post. [Found via: The Tree of Life, Jonathan A Eisen, May 9, 2009].
How to create an open scientific culture? « Be openly accessible or be obscure
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