Disney Does Us a Favor

Here is a great piece of work describing copyright by using Disney animation spliced together. It is incredibly informative and could not be more creative.



Now, does anyone want to take RIAA music and splice a lecture together about copyright?

University DMCA Policies

Yesterday, Ray Beckerman, one of the attorneys behind the Recording Industry vs. the People, posted the new Stanford DMCA policy. The new policy has been criticized for assuming the RIAA is correct: following a primary DCMA take-down notice, Stanford will send an email to the allegedly offending student which must be answered within 48 hours to avoid paying a $100 network reconnection fee. Subsequent notices will result in automatic disconnection from the Stanford network and fines of $1,000.

After naming the supposed 25 top piracy schools and unleashing a storm of pre-litigation letters, the RIAA has received both acquiescence and backlash. The University of Nebraska has decided to bill the RIAA for the effort of tracking down supposedly infringing material. This is the job which Stanford alleges takes 3 employees; it just seems Stanford disagrees over who to charge. Ohio University has taken the most drastic action and banned all peer-to-peer networks on campus.

Needless to say, this should be particularly worrying for Free Culture members. Does your school have an amenable DMCA policy? Have you run into any particularly draconian ones?

[Cross posted on Free Culture Blog]

How Would You Fix the Patent System?

Wired News asked its readers to suggest ways to fix the patent system. We've recently covered the patent threats by Microsoft.

The Wired suggestions are here. I think a public battle over software patents might be what is necessary to change the current system.

How would you fix the patent system?

One Size Fits All Intellectual Property

James Surowieki of the New Yorker has a nice, short article about how America forces its current intellectual property regime on nations seeking to trade with America. The effect is a one-size fits all IP system which (marginally) benefits American firms and disregards local or traditional customs and legal practices.

AG Gonzalez Wants to Make Sure You Know Who's Boss

Today, recently chastised Attorney General Gonzalez introduced a new intellectual property legislation. The proposal as it was forwarded to Speaker Pelosi is here. The most worrying provisions include:

• Criminalizing attempted copyright infringement. In what the Wall Street Journal sister-site is equating with Orwellian "thought crime", you could face 10 years in prison for not actually infringing copyright. Who is harmed if you are forced to buy the DVD because your illegal download fails?
• Provide for forfeiture and seizure of personal property used for copyright infringement. Say good bye to your Mac. And your iPod. And your work PC. And definitely your camera. You know what, I doubt your library computer will even last very long...
• Expand the FBI's ability to wire-tap and spy on Americans who may be infringing copyright. I understand the need for protection of lives and how that may mean certain, measured curtailment of liberties for temporary periods, but the tenable threat to economic growth is by no means worthy of such a gross invasion of privacy.
• Require the Department of Homeland Security to work for the RIAA by alerting them to cross-border infringement. Do I need to convince you this is a bad idea?

More on this soon...

Linux Violates 235 Patents, Says Microsoft

Fortune Magazine has a lengthy article about the coming patent war between Microsoft and Linux users/distributors. As former Microsoft employee Robert Scoble points out, Microsoft has historically not used patents offensively (ie: sued for infringement), but this allegation and the recent deal between Novell & Microsoft suggests that Microsoft will use the courts to attack Linux.

Subscribe to Copyrightings for more information.

NPR on Stanford's Fair Use Project

NPR has a good piece on Stanford's Fair Use Project which has had some big wins as of late. Link

Question of the Day

Is censorship the inability to speak or the inability to be heard?

A Digital 'March on Washington'

Prof. Randy Picker has a thought-provoking post on the University of Chicago Law Faculty blog about the diggstorm of May 1st, 2007. He analyzes the disregard for the law which was evident as digg users, and eventually digg itself, willfully publicized a rather clear violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause.

That takes us to the question of civil disobedience. My operating assumption is that there are some laws that individuals will appropriately conclude that they should disobey, laws that while enacted pursuant to the extant applicable procedures, are nonetheless beyond the scope of what should be law in a well-constituted society. In those circumstances, civil disobedience will be appropriate and we should be grateful to those who are willing to suffer the consequences of disobeying illegitimate law.

I wouldn’t think that not being able to play an encrypted high-definition DVD on your platform of choice would fall into that category. I understand fully that people disagree about whether digital rights management and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are good copyright policy. I also understand that users can be frustrated by limitations imposed by DRM (I’ve run into those myself). But I think the DMCA (and the DRM that it makes possible) is a long, long way from the sorts of laws for which civil disobedience is an appropriate response. Simply not liking the law is not enough. There must be more, something that recognizes the nature of reasonable disagreement over law, and the range of possible legitimate variations about those laws.

Prof. Picker dances around it, but I think that there should be a deep moral or ethical disagreement with a law to act in civil disobedience.

Tuesday night, I spent more time on digg than I had in months. After staring incredulously at the screen as it filled with innumerable stories involving the now famous string of numbers and letters, I began to digg every one. I was among thousands who, with a single click of the mouse, registered their disapproval with the DMCA. The hexadecimal key was obsolete - new DRM will take its place - but the restriction to knowledge and information it represents is still very much the law.

A law which I feel is deeply unethical and treads an unimaginably thin line of legality. In a world where people can, for the first time, access information on an enormous scale, the DMCA's provisions which prohibit fair use are something which I feel should be overturned as much as I feel segregation should have been outlawed.

Education is terribly important to me. Equality is terribly important. Often the two go hand-in-hand. Ignorance breads discrimination. Diggs users, sitting individually in thousands of homes were clicking for access to information and in support of fair use. They were Marching on Washington in the way my generation does - digitally.

Digg.com In Open Revolution

After a recent story on Digg.com, the popular social news site, was deleted due to a DMCA take-down notice, the community has risen in full revolt against censorship.

A story with the hexadecimal code which decrypts the DRM on HD-DVD was reportedly the 3rd most dugg story of all time (>10,000 individuals voting for it). The removal of the story was noticed and an incredible deluge of stories promoting the numbers have been voted. Every story on the popular homepage is about the numbers.

Don't try to copyright numbers or silence the Internet. We will win. Every time it matters.