2009 October :: Copyright Reform

Sketching is copying; copying is stealing. Coming soon: no breathing.

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/sketching_is_stealing
Posted by kfogel | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) October 2009

pa href=/sketching_is_stealing img class=node-image-right src=/cm/images/qco-icons/qco-icon-artists-100x100.png alt=artists //a/p pThis may be old news for art students, but for the rest of us it's still kind of amazing to see cultural institutions like museums buying into the copying is stealing myth by prohibiting sketching./p pIn some cases, the copying restrictions are imposed by a lendernbsp;mdash;nbsp;it would be interesting to know how often the lender imposes restrictions on works that are not under copyright, or that would not otherwise be restricted./p p style=clear: both;a href=/who#nina-paley Nina Paley/a collected some examples after the jump. Know any others?/p pa href=http://questioncopyright.org/sketching_is_stealing target=_blankread more/a/p

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EFF Hall of Shame Highlights Copyright Used as Censorship

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/eff_hall_of_shame
Posted by kfogel | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) October 2009

pa href=http://www.eff.org/takedowns img class=node-image-left src=/cm/images/eff-hall-of-shame.jpg alt=EFF Hall of Shame //aimg class=node-image-right src=/cm/images/qco-icons/qco-icon-civil-rights-100x100.png alt=censorship //p p style=clear: both;The a href=http://www.eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation/a has just unveiled their a href=http://www.eff.org/takedowns Takedown Hall of Shame/a, which highlights examples of copyright law being used to suppress political commentary and creative expression. Many of the examples involve abuses of the a href=fooo Digital Millenium Copyright Act/a (DMCA), whose takedown provisions encourage Internet hosting companies to remove content on the mere assertion of infringement by a copyright holder./p pThe EFF's list focuses on corporate takedown notices, but it's important to understand that it's not only corporations that suppress speech via copyright law. The copyright monopoly system encourages people to do it to each other too; we've a href=/censorship_examples_wanted collected some examples/a of that too./p pSo what's the solution?/p pThe emreal/em solution is radical reform of copyright law (there are a href=/balanced_buyout plenty/a a href=/creator_endorsed of/a a href=/shorter_better alternatives/a). But even without that, there's still an easy solution: fix the DMCA to have a penalty for delivering improper takedown notices. Say, a penalty of five years off the copyright term of the covered work, for each wrong notice sent about that work. Content monopolists would start being a lot more careful if they had something to lose when they get a takedown notice wrong./p pa href=http://questioncopyright.org/eff_hall_of_shame target=_blankread more/a/p

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At the Association of Moving Image Archivists Conference, Nov. 5-7

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/amia_2009
Posted by kfogel | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) October 2009

pa href=http://www.amiaconference.com/ img class=node-image src=/cm/images/amia-conference-2009-360x99.jpg alt=AMIA Conference 2009 //a/p pAny copyright reformers in St. Louis? I'll be attending the annual conference of the a href=http://amianet.org/ Association of Moving Image Archivists/a (AMIA) in St. Louis from Nov. 5th-7th, as will QuestionCopyright.org board members Jeff Ubois and Brewster Kahle./p p style=clear: both;On Saturday, Nov. 7th, from 10:45-11:45am, I'll be on a panel entitled strongemThe Problem of Open Media/em/strong, organized by Jack Brighton of Illinois Public Media, with Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Library amp; Archives), Suzanne M. Fischer (the Henry Ford), and Peter Kaufman (Intelligent Television)./p pIt might be clarifying to call the panel emThe Problem of Closed Media/em or emThe Problem of Monopolized Content/em... but then, perhaps that's exactly the sort of discussion to save for the panel! It should be a good session. Here's the description:/p pa href=http://questioncopyright.org/amia_2009 target=_blankread more/a/p

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CC-PRO: Proposing A License For Professionals

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/cc-pro
Posted by kfogel | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) October 2009

pemAllow us a little fantasy, just for a moment... we'll explain at the end:/em/p div style=background-color: #CCCCCC; div style=white-space: nowrap;img src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc_webpageheader-slice.jpg /img src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc_webpageheader-left.jpg alt=CC_webpageheader /img src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc_webpageheader-slice.jpg height=64 width=55% //div div style=margin-top: 0%; margin-left: 2%; margin-right: 2%; margin-bottom: 2%; pimg src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc-pro_logo-210x104.png alt=CC-PRO logo //p p h2strongProfessional work deserves to be recognized./strong/h2 /p blockquotepstrongCC-PRO/strong is a Creative Commons license that meets the specific needs of professional authors, artists, and musicians. strongCC-PRO/strong uses Creative Commons' strongmost powerful/strong license to ensure high-quality work goes further and is recognized more. It offers the strongstrongest protection/strong against both plagiarism and censorship. It invites attention, collaboration and recognition from your most important audience: other professionals./p blockquotepstrongStrongest protection against:/strongbr / plagiarismbr / censorshipbr / abusive exploitation/p/blockquote blockquotepstrongPromotes:/strongbr / name recognitionbr / incomebr / archiving and preservationbr / distributionbr / collaboration with other professionals/p/blockquote/blockquote blockquotepProfessional work deserves to be recognized. Use CC-PRO./p /blockquote blockquotepstrongimg src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc-pro.png width=86 height=18 alt=CC-PRO //strong/p /blockquote pnbsp;/p pa rel=license href=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/img class=node-image border=0 src=/cm/images/cc-pro/cc-pro_icons-86x30.png alt=CC-PRO Icons 2 //a/p pThis page is licensed under a a rel=license href=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ class=subfootCreative Commons Professional 3.0 License/a (with thanks to a href=http://creativecommons.org Creative Commons/a for encouraging remixes of their site)./p /div /div hr/ pSo what's CC-PRO?/p /hr/pa href=http://questioncopyright.org/cc-pro target=_blankread more/a/p

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Criminalizing the normal normalizes the criminal.

Permalink: http://questioncopyright.org/infringement_the_new_business_model
Posted by kfogel | Posted in: Syndicated Articles | Comments(0) October 2009

pa href=http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/copyright-holders-might-prefer-piracy-now-641996img class=node-image src=/cm/images/copyright-holders-prefer-piracy.jpg alt=Copyright Holders Might Prefer Piracy //a/p pThere's a very interesting article over at a href=http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/copyright-holders-might-prefer-piracy-now-641996 TechRadar/a about how draconian copyright infringement penalties actually give rights holdersnbsp;mdash;nbsp;that is, monopoly holdersnbsp;mdash;nbsp;an reason to encourage infringement:/p blockquote style=clear: both;pemIn a somewhat cynical table-turning exercise, a German anti-piracy body seems to be encouraging illegal downloading of music and other media in an effort to strong-arm money out of lawbreakers./em/p pemDigiRights Solutions (DRS) from Darmstadt has circulated a presentation to potential clients explaining how they might make more money by pursuing illegal filesharers than from regular, legal sales. .../em/p /blockquote pa href=http://questioncopyright.org/infringement_the_new_business_model target=_blankread more/a/p