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Google+From thepublicdomain.org comes this interesting and revealing series of excerpts from the legislative history of the 1909 Copyright Act.
intellectual property
New law journal launches that focuses on open source
There’s a new law journal in town: “The International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSS L. Rev.) is a collaborative legal publication aiming to increase knowledge and understanding among lawyers about Free and Open Source Software issues. Topics covered include copyright, licence implementation, licence interpretation, software patents, open standards, case law and statutory changes.”
Openness and the social web
A recurring theme for me is the difficulty of keeping markets “open,” in the sense of empowering customers and users with information and choice, while still permitting businesses to grow and innovate.
WordPress and the GPL
Any WordPress theme is so entwined with the main WordPress code as to make it a “derivative work,” and thus subject to WordPress’ copyright and licensing (which is the GPL).
Should ringtones count as a "public performance"?
Should someone — either you or your carrier — have to pay additionally for a “public performance” of a song when your phone rings?
BlawgIT's introduction to "fair use"
Brett Trout has a useful introduction to “fair use” up on BlawgIT. The goal is to help you “spot the issues” and avoid some common urban legends. Recommended.
The myth of "original creation"
Techdirt has an interesting article up about the myth of the “original creator” – the idea that copyright protects individual creators working in a vacuum come up with new, unique ideas that are not based on anything that precedes them. This is, as any author, musician, or inventor knows, not the way it works in practice.
Patent simulation study concludes current patent system hampers innovation
A recently published law review article concludes that experiments with “PatentSim,” “a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems,” do not support the general justification of our current patent system.
Judge Posner: Expand copyright to protect newspapers?
Judge Posner recently suggested that copyright law might need to be expanded to protect the news industry, including barring linking to copyrighted content or paraphrasing it.
"Copyfraud" and Google Books
The Register and Slashdot have picked up a theme from a 2006 law review article by Jason Mazzone on “copyfraud,” extending the idea to explain a new incarnation of it emerging in relation to Google Books.
Amazon's Kindle and digital rights management
There have been several stories over the last week about issues related to digital rights management (DRM) on Amazon’s Kindle.
Unravelling the Canadian Copyright Lobby
Especially important to everyone in Canada – but important to everyone, since copyright and IP are increasingly international issues due to attempts at harmonization (WIPO, for example) – comes this expose by Michael Geist on the undue influence pro-copyright lobbyist organizations have had on Canadian policy documents.
File sharing and "fair use"
Latoicha Givens writes: In the case of RIAA vs. Joel Tenenbaum, the court is currently accepting an argument that peer to peer file sharing is a Fair Use exception to Copyright Infringement Laws. Essentially, the argument is that file sharing … Continued
The Thomas file-sharing retrial
The almost two million dollar award is $80,000 per song. $80,000. Damages are supposed to be, well, damages, even if statutory. It strains belief that the record labels really were harmed to the tune of $80,000 per song, even based … Continued
Third-party copyright liability & freedom of speech
Alfred C. Yen of Boston College recently posted A First Amendment Perspective on the Construction of Third Party Copyright Liability on SSRN: The relatively high risk of chill associated with third party copyright liability suggests that the First Amendment is … Continued
Study on file sharing and copyright: weaker protections benefit society
There are many who disagree, but the study appears to raise interesting issues regarding the benefit to society of copyright protections. As Mike Masnick writes, copyright is about balancing benefits (incentives to create with the benefits of distribution).
