Intellectual Property Law

Where is the Copyright War in Glee-land?

Posted on June 09, 2010
Guest blogger Christina Mulligan has a brilliant post up at Balkinization on the popular TV show "Glee" and copyfight issues. She calls copyright "The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club" and she's absolutely right. The show's cast commit copyright violation after copyright violation and yet the topic isn't part of the show - the word isn't even uttered...

Digital Tickets Raise Ownership Questions

Posted on June 08, 2010
The New York Times reports on the latest rounds in the battles between ticket vendors and resellers (or scalpers depending on your point of view). The challenge is that a "ticket" is often no longer a physical object whose transfer can easily be monitored...

Brief Administrivia for Commenters

Posted on June 05, 2010
I have what I consider to be a very loose policy on what I'll accept for comments. Opinions are not censored and I certainly have no problem with people telling me I'm wrong. If you want to advertise your event or publication, please send me a mail and I'll look at it...

ACTA May Affect Physical Products, Too

Posted on June 01, 2010
Canadian law professor Michael Geist remains the go-to man for keeping track of what's going on with ACTA. Public Knowledge also has a good page of reference information and links Geist's blog entry from this morning links ACTA with a topic that has been of recurring interest to me here, the ability of countries to produce generic versions of life-saving, but patented, medicines...

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Typekit, Bad Language, and Good Fonts

Posted on May 27, 2010
Last August I wrote about Typekit, which was supposed to help us untangle some of the mess around licensing and use of fonts on the Web. Then a friendly reader pointed me to a story about Typekit on Readable Web. In the blog entry from March, Richard Fink points out some clear evidence that Typekit either isn't working as designed or is putting up misleading copyright information...

It's a Fine Tradition, Charlie Crist

Posted on May 26, 2010
Following in the footsteps of the US Air Force and before that Presidential candidate John McCain, the Republican Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, is using the Talking Heads' song ?Road to Nowhere? in an ad for his Senate campaign. And David Byrne is going to sue him for it...

Walking On Eggshells

Posted on May 21, 2010
Boingboing pointed me to this really excellent example of how the new generation feels about the remix culture it is bringing to live. The example comes in the form of a three-part video posted to YouTube (under a Creative Commons license of course)...

It's In The Times, So It Must Be Respectable Now

Posted on May 20, 2010
Back in January, Seth Fischer dropped by to point out that if you want to escape the slush pile, small press is where it's at. Self-publishing has always had the taint of untalented egotism on it - they don't call it 'vanity press' for nothing. But as Virginia Heffernan explains in a New York Times Magazine piece from last month, the size and quantity of self-published material is now more than double that produced by traditional (big) publishing houses...

For There Will Be Musicians

Posted on May 12, 2010
...even if the (current) music industry dies the death it seems so richly to deserve. So assures us Marc Weidenbaum , publisher of the online electronic 'zine Disquiet. Normally, Disquiet only has things to say about its musical topics, which are primarily ambient and electronic music...

Cartel Thinks Child Porn "is Great"

Posted on April 29, 2010
No, really. I can't make this stuff up. Back in June of last year Sweden elected an MEP (Member of the European Parliament) from the Pirate Party. The party's platform included a focus on protecting copyrights from over-regulation and abuse. The MEP, Christian Engström, now has published on his blog site comments from the Danish anti-piracy group lawyer Johan Schlüter at a Stockholm meeting a couple years ago...

Sita vs Netflix

Posted on April 26, 2010
Back in January of last year I wrote about the indie film Sita Sings The Blues, which had gotten tangled up in some hairy ridiculous amount of copyright snarl. Since then the film's maker Nina Paley has gone on to settle most of her copyright troubles, line up major distribution (despite copylefting the film itself) and generally enjoy what I'd say is the happy ending kind of possible in the current Copyright War regime...

The Urge To Share

Posted on April 22, 2010
Boingboing pointed to this video called "When Copyright Goes Bad", a 14-minute discussion of what's gone wrong in the copyright wars at this point. Fred Von Lohmann features heavily, as do a few other Copyfight heros like Michael Geist, who points out that probably the entirety of remix culture is based on a natural human tendency to want to share...

Agruments Against Gene Patents

Posted on April 22, 2010
A couple weeks ago I posted that I was undecided on the question of gene patents. A recent commenter took me to task on the issue and reminded me that I'd meant to read more on this. I have a query in to my local library to see if they have a copy of Genetics in Medicine, which recently did an issue on the topic...

Arguments Against Gene Patents

Posted on April 22, 2010
A couple weeks ago I posted that I was undecided on the question of gene patents. A recent commenter took me to task on the issue and reminded me that I'd meant to read more on this. I have a query in to my local library to see if they have a copy of Genetics in Medicine, which recently did an issue on the topic...

Whereas Cory Thinks We're At War

Posted on April 16, 2010
Unlike Fred Von Lohmann's optimistic take on things, over at The Guardian (UK) Cory Doctorow's latest column rails about the fact that we're at war. Which is, yanno, more or less what I've been saying for the last 5+ years in this blog. Cory's pissed that the Cartel just won a big battle in the Copyright Wars over in the UK...

In Which Dear Fred Shows Himself A Hopeless Optimist

Posted on April 16, 2010
The Copyright Clearance Center recently posted a podcast containing its interview with the EFF's Fred Von Lohmann in which (they claim) he expresses confident that that in 5 - 10 years, the kinks in copyright law will all be worked out. Considering that it took 12 years to go from smashing Napster to...

Nutriset Responds

Posted on April 16, 2010
Rémi Vallet, who gives his URL as Nutriset's site in France, responded at length to my call for engaging the moral dimension of intellectual property issues. He doesn't list himself as a spokesperson for the company nor give any title he might hold with them, so I can't actually say it's an official response, but he does raise points that I felt were worthy of bring up to the front page rather than being behind a comment link...

iPad Lovers Just Skip This

Posted on April 15, 2010
After the flap I created in the comments by implying that Apple would (and does) continue to treat the iPad like a gated Disney-esque community, I figure at least half my readers have already decided I'm too heretical, or offensive. Which, in a very small way, puts me in excellent company...

Everything You Need to Know About ACTA (to this moment)

Posted on April 14, 2010

Another Step in the IP/Lifesaving Debate

Posted on April 13, 2010
This time it's not just medicine. At the end of last year, a couple of US non-profits filed a challenge to US patent No. 6,346,284 which describes a food product currently marketed as "Plumpy'nut." Despite the cute name, the product has a serious use - it is what is called an RUTF, a ready-to-use therapeutic food...

Should Genes Be Patentable?

Posted on April 05, 2010
In response to my posting a couple weeks back on more IP that kills, a reader suggested I cover the recent decision invalidating a patent on two genes linked to breast cancer. I was undecided then and I remain undecided. The situation gets unpleasantly complex...

iPad Does What the Cartel Dreams Of

Posted on April 05, 2010
Produce a totally locked platform, with no legal way to download or produce your own content, modify it, claim ownership of anything on it, be totally dependent on the Father for every droplet of updating? Cartel's wet dream, and Steve Jobs has made it real...

In Need of UK-resident Readers

Posted on March 24, 2010
Just a quick signal boost to the effort to find a UK resident or (tv) license payer who can support the campaign to keep DRM off of BBC broadcast television. Corey has an excellent write-up at boingboing but time is short so please boost this signal in your own blogs and twitter feeds.

OK Maybe Bottled Water Wasn't Such A Great Analogy

Posted on March 22, 2010
Periodically I've enjoyed pointing out that the Cartel, in attempting to sell a product (digital music) that is now available for free, faces much the same dilemma as the soda companies faced when they created the demand for bottled water. After all, most of us get essentially all the high-quality water we want for next to nothing, so why are we so hooked on paying thousands of times as much for the stuff in bottles? Well, the answer isn't particularly pretty for the bottled water people, either, as you can see at "The Story of Bottled Water...

More IP That Kills

Posted on March 18, 2010
Long-time readers may remember that I have a particular problem with the use of intellectual property rules in ways that lead to more real tangible harm. In particular, the use of patents around drugs for life-threatening illnesses presents problematic cases and seems to lead to bad behavior...

Living Your Own Philosophy (remix)

Posted on March 18, 2010
One of the music blogs I really enjoy reading is Audioporn Central. APC's Simon Iddol is not only a remixer but he's a zealous poster and he seems to know everyone in the European DJ/remix scene. Today they've announced a remix competition, in which the readership is given a set of song "seeds" and encouraged to make their own mixes from these seeds...

Guterman Makes "Sandinista Project" Free Again

Posted on March 11, 2010
Jimmy Guterman is once again making his "The Sandinista Project" freely available for download, at least through this Sunday at midnight. His blog post links back to his reflections on the earlier limited-time offer and some of the data gathered around it...

Apple to Developers: "Und You Vill LIKE IT!"

Posted on March 10, 2010
The EFF have posted an updated version of the agreement that all Apple iPhone developers must sign in order to get their apps into the official App store. I particularly like the no compete clause - if you sell in the app store you can't sell your app anywhere else...

Apple to Germans: Und NO NIPPLES!

Posted on March 10, 2010
Apple is requiring app publishers to expunge all nudity from all apps. This particular bit of US-centric prurience isn't going over well in Germany, where Bild has a popular naked-woman tabloid feature that it turned into an iPhone app. According to the Guardian (UK) the Association of German Magazine Publishers has asked the International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP) to make a complaint about Apple and its censorious ways...

Recording for People Who Want to Listen

Posted on March 08, 2010
Last month I noted that Blizzard were creating the World of Warcraft magazine purely for people who had already subscribed. In effect the publication was done for people who had already said (by virtue of plunking down money) that they wanted to read it...

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