folder_open iconHelp Wanted — We’re Launching the Ghost Works Survey

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/ghost_works_survey
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) June 2008

We're launching the "Ghost Works Survey", and you can help.

The Ghost Works Survey is a project to demonstrate one of the hidden harms of copyright: that it often prevents artists from making new derivative works. In the article "Seen Any Ghost Works Lately?", we defined a ghost work as a creative work that never got made, or was made but not released, because copyright concerns prevented it from being started or from being distributed. Since then, informal conversations with artists, publishers and others have made it very clear that such suppression is a common event, much more common than most people think. But the public rarely hears about it, because no one does publicity for a work that doesn't exist.

The purpose of the Ghost Works Survey is twofold: to demonstrate the scope and scale of this phenomenon by gathering and organizing as much data about it as we can, and to highlight compelling individual stories of artists and other creators who had their work thwarted by copyright restrictions. The survey will not attempt to catalogue every ghost work — there are likely far too many, given that almost every artist we've talked to so far has a story of a work they had to alter or lay aside due to copyright concerns. Rather, we'll focus on qualitative results: we want to collect enough stories to discern large-scale patterns, so we can understand and publicize the effects of copyright suppression. For more information, see the projects page.

If you want to help, or are interested but want to know more before committing, please send an email to:

The time commitment will only be as great as you want it to be — we'll need help with tasks both large and small. Since much of the project involves receiving and processing stories from artists, our capacity is directly proportional to the number of volunteers: the more people are involved, the more we can do! QuestionCopyright.org can provide technical infrastructure and planning, but there is no substitute for human minds.

We'll also need some volunteers willing to take on specific responsibilities: for example, a maintainer for a MySpace page and a maintainer for a Facebook page (because we need to make it as easy as possible for people to send us stories).

And we welcome ideas, of course — please leave suggestions as comments on this article.

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folder_open iconCongress just voted to allow the RIAA to sue for $30,000 *per song* as opposed to the current $30,000 per album limit.

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/72
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) June 2008

This week, members of the House Judiciary Committee introduced the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act of 2007,” a bill that ratchets up the federal government’s role in dealing with intellectual property infringement. While portions of the bill seem legitimately targeted at combating mass, commercial counterfeiting operations, other parts are devoted to little more than protecting the entertainment industry’s obsolete business models.

Going after commercial pirates is a good idea, but copyright law often fails to distinguish between commercial counterfeiters and regular folks — like those caught up in the RIAA’s anti-downloading litigation dragnet. If the entertainment industry wants to pile on extraordinary penalties for the commercial pirates, it also seems like a good time to make adjustments that recognize that lesser penalties are appropriate for noncommercial, personal copying. People who reasonably believe that what they are doing is a fair use, for example, shouldn’t face ruinous liability if a court doesn’t agree with them. Similarly, the thousands of music fans arbitrarily singled out for file sharing shouldn’t have to risk their homes just to have their day in court. And, of course, technology companies shouldn’t be put out of business just because their multi-purpose products are misused by their customers.

Unfortunately, the PRO IP Act is just another in a long line of “one-way ratchet” proposals that amplifies copyright without protecting innovators or technology users. One provision, entitled “Computation of Statutory Damages in Copyright Cases,” seems aimed at allowing the music industry to threaten even higher statutory damages in its campaign to sue filesharers. Copyright law currently allows the RIAA to seek statutory damages per album, while the new law would allow them to seek damages per song. Under the new limits proposed by the PRO IP Act, someone who downloads each individual track from Guns N’ Roses’ 12-track Appetite for Destruction album could face a maximum statutory penalty of $360,000; as opposed to the current limit of $30,000 for the album.

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folder_open iconH.R. 4279 Would Establish Federal IP Cops

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/71
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: External Articles | Comments(0) June 2008

“H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from ‘dubious origins,’ e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to ‘prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.’”

Source: Slashdot

This is why we need a constitutional amendment separating the corps from state like we’re supposed to have a separation of church and state.

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folder_open iconHelp tell Obama what you want his technology policies to be!

Permalink: http://www.CopyrightReform.us/archives/70
Posted by Bryan Andrews | Posted in: Articles | Comments(0) June 2008

Likely to be the next President of the United States of America, Barack Obama has this to say about the current US copyright situation…

Protect Intellectual Property at Home: Intellectual property is to the digital age what physical goods were to the industrial age. Barack Obama believes we need to update and reform our copyright and patent systems to promote civic discourse, innovation and investment while ensuring that intellectual property owners are fairly treated. [1]

Now is a great time to write in and let him know the copyright and patent systems are obviously horribly broken and no longer serve their purpose.

Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680

*[1] http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/

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