Intellectual Property Law

"Radical Extremists" and Canadian Copyright

Posted on October 14, 2010
Also available for those who can't get enough reading about copyright (also free to download) is a collection of essays edited by Michael Geist and dealing with the Canadian Bill C-32, the debate over which back in June prompted Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore call opponents 'radical extremists'.

"Pimps and Ferrets" and U.S. Copyright

Posted on October 14, 2010
Long-time Copyfight reader Eric Anderson has been working for years on the history of copyright within the U.S. with a particular focus on the 19th century. He recently sent me a note to let everyone know that he's put his book Pimps and Ferrets: Copyright and Culture in the United States, 1831-1891 up on archive...

George Lucas Pirated Chewbacca's Image

Posted on September 23, 2010
...but that's OK. This is the conclusion of a long essay in The Binary Bonsai blog. The blog has extensive source material but the gist is that the visual representation of the character we saw on-screen as Chewbacca in 1976 was taken quite directly from an illustration for a George R R Martin story that was published the previous year...

Russia Uses Microsoft IP to Suppress Dissent

Posted on September 14, 2010
Microsoft caught in bed with the Russian FSB; this stuff just can't be made up. The NY Times reported this weekend that Russian authorities are making bogus raids on NGOs. The supposed purpose of these raids is to find pirated copies of Microsoft software and NGOs are reporting their computers are seized and not returned...

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NY Times Weighs in on Plumpy'Nut

Posted on September 10, 2010
Back in April I had a pleasant exchange of views with M. Rémi Vallet of Nutriset, who responded to my original posting pointing out that the ready-to-use therapeutic food marketed as Plumpy'Nut was another situation in which the interests of intellectual property and protection of commercial profits was coming into conflict with clear lifesaving needs...

Doctorow v eBook Publishers

Posted on August 31, 2010
Cory's latest Publisher's Weekly column describes his most recent round of struggles around publishing his latest book online. In particular, he's trying to get the book available without extra DRM attached, and to have an electronic copy sold under the same terms and conditions as are attached to a sale of a physical book...

A Historical View of the Cultural Commons

Posted on August 24, 2010
My father sent me a pointer to Robert Darnton's review in the NY Times titled "A Republic of Letters". The review discusses the new book by Lewis Hyde (see also http://www.lewishyde.com/) called Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership. As you can guess from the title and my interest, the topic of the book includes ownership of things that have come to be called intellectual property...

Experimental Derivative Art

Posted on August 20, 2010
Xeni Jardin at Boingboing pointed at an experimental film by François Vautier that is a great example of the way digital technology is enabling new forms of (derivative) art. For this project, Vautier took every frame of the film Blade Runner and laid them out on a vast plane...

This is Remix Culture Courtesy of Sunday Girl

Posted on August 09, 2010
As part of my music listening I came across Sunday Girl, covering the old Laura Branigan song "Self Control." And there on her MySpace page is an open invitation - want to remix? Here, have a free download of the a capella version. Like so many other artists out there, her biggest problem isn't worry that someone will do something bad with her music; it's worrying that nobody will notice her music in the first place...

Remix Age Youth and Plagiarism

Posted on August 05, 2010
A story in the New York Times from earlier this week examines the challenges of defining and educating around plagiarism for remix-culture youth. Trip Gabriel's story notes that what we might call inadvertent plagiarism is on the rise - students copy material that has no obvious author and don't feel they've done anything wrong...

The Revolution Will Have Permission

Posted on August 03, 2010
Iranian trio Blurred Vision are getting some notice for their remake/update of the Pink Floyd classic "Another Brick in the Wall." What caught my eye was the notice that Floyd founder Roger Waters had green-lighted the release of the video which, as of this writing, is approaching 150,000 views on YouTube.

Is Wikileaks the Napster of Confidential Information?

Posted on July 28, 2010
Boingboing's Xeni Jardin was on the Rachel Maddow show earlier this week making an interesting point. Xeni suggests we look past Wikileaks itself to the question of who owns secrets. She and guest host Chris Hayes discuss the idea that this is a transformative moment similar to the mass emergence of Napster for music sharing, or BitTorrent for movies/games/software/television...

Breaking DRM Gets New Protections

Posted on July 27, 2010
In yesterday's post about the 5th Circuit decision, I noted that most other courts have not agreed with this interpretation of the DMCA. Well, that may be about to change largely due to the strenuous efforts of the EFF and its allies in pushing the US Copyright Office and the Librarian of Congress...

DMCA, Dongles, and Breaking DRM

Posted on July 26, 2010
Over the weekend both Slashdot and Boingboing pointed to a story about GE and the DMCA. Formally, the case is known as MGE UPS Systems Inc. v. GE Consumser and Industrial Inc. What drew the blogs' attention was that in this case a 3-judge panel of the 5th circuit has ruled that using a hacked security key to get access to a work is not itself a violation of the DMCA...

Killed by Code?

Posted on July 23, 2010
Slashdot and Boingboing both pointed this week to a publication by the Software Freedom Law Center titled "Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices". The page at that URL has the full text and you can download PDF and Postscript versions if you want...

CCC Promoting its "Rightslink" Tool Upgrade

Posted on July 20, 2010
The Copyright Clearance Center sent out a blurb announcing that they've upgraded their Rightslink tool, a set of software and services that is designed to help creators figure out what they want to license, to whom, and on what basis. There are a variety of tools that creators need if they're going to get their content out inside of a for-pay infrastructure...

Pistols at Dawn, Sir!

Posted on July 15, 2010
Jane Park, Communications Coordinator for Creative Commons wrote to let me know that Lawrence Lessig has thrown down the gauntlet on behalf of CC against the accusations made by ASCAP. Lessig has challenged Paul Williams, the president and chairman of ASCAP, to a debate...

"So Transparent It Has To Be Leaked"

Posted on July 15, 2010
I generally love reading Nate Anderson's work on ars technica. He covers many areas of interest to this blog including ongoing IP cases and new business practices in content areas. He's at his best when he cuts loose with the snark, as he does in a recent post about ACTA, the still-not-really-secret-but-can't-be-openly-discussed copyright revision treaty...

Maybe They Think Tenenbaum Will Cover Their Legal Bills

Posted on July 14, 2010
Ray Beckerman of Recording Industr vs The People offers up a sarcastic handful of statistics in yesterday's blog post. Drawing together a bunch of numbers published by p2pnet, Beckerman points out that the RIAA has recovered about two cents for every dollar spent on lawyer fees to sue its customers...

Content vs Image

Posted on July 13, 2010
In a blog post yesterday, Jason Sanford put forth an interesting idea: maybe the problem some creators have with the 'net isn't really about control of their content . Maybe the issue is control of their image. It's true that the two are often inextricably linked...

RIAA Gets Slapped; Tenebaum Still Can't Pay

Posted on July 12, 2010
Almost two years ago I made the prediction that the Cartel would settle its suit against Joel Tenebaum - WRONG! Instead, Tenenbaum ended up admitting on the stand that he had shared music files, the judge directed a verdict, and the jury came back with a massive judgment against him...

RIAA Gets Slapped; Tenenbaum Still Can't Pay

Posted on July 12, 2010
Almost two years ago I made the prediction that the Cartel would settle its suit against Joel Tenenbaum - WRONG! Instead, Tenenbaum ended up admitting on the stand that he had shared music files, the judge directed a verdict, and the jury came back with a massive judgment against him...

How A Real Musician Responds

Posted on July 01, 2010
Back in May, I noted that Marc Weidenbaum was making the assertion that even if the current record industry structure went away there would still be music, still be musicians and there would be things like this. Go ahead and watch; I can wait. What you have there is a real musician, Lenny Kravitz, coming unexpectedly on a group of people performing his music ("Fly Away")...

Dizzee Rascal and the Live Remix

Posted on June 30, 2010
If you're bored by my theme this year of trying to walk the border between remix culture and the copyright wars you can skip this entry, too. There was a video (now sadly removed by a copyright violation notice from the BBC) that showed Dizzee Rascal joined by Florence of Florence and the Machine live on stage at the Glastonbury Festival that just concluded...

Who Owns Your Android Apps?

Posted on June 29, 2010

This Looks More and Moore Sciento-illogical

Posted on June 24, 2010
Remember when I said yesterday that watching Minister Moore rant about radical extremists reminded me of Tom Cruise's infamous Scientology defense video? The one where he doesn't blink for, like, nine minutes? Yeah, that one. Anyway, remember how that video got more or less disappeared from the nets? You can find it, but you have to search hard...

Michael Geist, Radical Extremist

Posted on June 23, 2010
This is like the Copyfight equivalent of Tom Cruise's infamous Scientology video. Here we have a supposedly even-handed minister in the Candian government (Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore) nearly foaming at the mouth in his extensive effort to warn of the dangers of people who oppose copyright treaties...

Cory Doctorow, Radical Author

Posted on June 23, 2010
Coming in hard on the heels of Michael Geist's post, Cory Doctorow has a long and direct challenge to Minister Moore. Cory reminds us that he is a well-published Canadian author, one of those whose life and livelihood ought to be improved by these copyright reforms...

The Fat Lady Has Sung, Taken Her Bows, and Now Exits

Posted on June 15, 2010
The short form: SCO lost. Judge Stewart granted Novell's request for declaratory judgment and that should put to last the final vestiges of this awful abomination. You can read lots of dry news stories on the topic, but instead I recommend you head over to Groklaw and read one of the best schadenfreudian blog postings you're likely to see in a long time...

A Systemic Threat to the Rights of Legitimate Traders

Posted on June 11, 2010
About 10 days ago I noted that Michael Geist was predicting that India would come out against ACTA. And hoo boy have they ever. Yesterday's blog entry from Geist notes some sharp language from India against the ACTA treaty and the very secretive process that produced it...

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