Intellectual Property Law

Steal This Comic

Posted on October 13, 2008
Randall Munroe, author of the xkcd comic, and one of the few people I know who is making a living through his Web comics, has had enough of DRM. His most recent published comic contains a simple four-step "you will be a pirate anyway" argument. Or, if you don't like it, demand DRM-free content in the first place.

Apple Gets a Dock Patent

Posted on October 09, 2008
Apple was finally granted a patent, for which it first applied in 1999, on the user interface construction that has come to be called the "dock". The patent calls it "a userbar" but Apple's own documentation calls it a dock (this image also comes from Apple's site) and that's the term it's generally come to be called...

Rowling Wins Against Lexicon

Posted on October 08, 2008
In a not-at-all-surprising decision, Judge Patterson has ruled to block publication of the print version of Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon." The judge's decision noted that the proposed Lexiconcopies distinctive original language from the Harry Potter works in excess of its otherwise legitimate purpose of creating a reference guide...

Royalties on Digital Tunes Stable Through 2012 - DRM in Doubt

Posted on October 03, 2008
I've been so busy with the mess on Wall St that I totally missed Apple's threat to close down iTunes if royalty rates went up. There were several proposals on the table, including one to lower fees, which are formally known as "mechanical royalty rates"...

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Orphan Works and Emphatic Words

Posted on September 30, 2008
Once again I'm finding myself trying to make sense of something and hoping others can help me out. I got a pointer from a freelancer friend to a page posted by the Illustrator's Partnership of America. This page contains a harsh critique of The Orphan Works Act of 2008...

Burn (DVD) to Hard Drive

Posted on September 23, 2008
I got a pointer to a forthcoming program from Real, to be called RealDVD, that is supposed to be the first legal way to rip DVDs to hard disk. It's kind of that, kind of not. Of course, we've had DVD rippers forever; the problem is that they're technically a no-no, since they tend to strip off the copy protection...

Politics and Song Rights

Posted on September 22, 2008
This isn't another political song remix, or even a political song parody. This is about the use of (usually American pop) songs in political ads and campaign appearances by candidates for a political party. In this case, McCain for the Republicans. First off, we have the candidate's use of the song "Barracuda" by the band Heart, even though the band has asked them to stop...

Public Art Commentaries

Posted on September 17, 2008
Interesting AP piece on Geoffrey Raymond's art form: he paints a large picture of a public figure (e.g. Barack Obama or Lehman Brothers' ex-CEO Richard Fuld) then takes that picture out into the public and invites people to annotate it. Most people seem to sign their names or leave text comments...

Disney and the Copyright on Mickey Mouse

Posted on September 15, 2008
Disney is famous for getting copyright-term legislation passed that extends protection on old materials and thus protects their interest in Mickey Mouse, their iconic character. One of the first appearances (Wikipedia claims it's the third appearance) of this character is in the cartoon short Steamboat Willy...

Google Backs Up On Chrome EULA

Posted on September 04, 2008
Well, that didn't take long. Google has admitted that putting Clause 11 into its EULA was a mistake. Frankly, it's a cut-and-paste error as I had guessed. As reported in a number of places (see, for example, CNET). Google has pulled the unnecessary language...

Google, Chrome, and Copyright

Posted on September 03, 2008
I'm filing this under "IP Abuse" because I'm starting to think Chrome, Google's new wonder-browser, is a tool for (potential) copyright abuse. I was first tipped to this by Edward Champion, who blogs under the title "Reluctant Habits." In a post dated September 3, he picks apart the Chrome EULA and does not like what he sees...

More Free (Online) Books

Posted on August 27, 2008
Linked to me by a friend: 25 Places to Read Free Books Online. It's not a comprehensive list by any means; for example, they left off Baen's Free Library, which is an excellent SF resource. That said, I think it's excellent someone can compile a list of 25 such places, referencing many thousands of titles.

In Which Our Hero TriesTo Comprehend EU Copyright Issues

Posted on August 21, 2008
OK, I'm in need of help here. Have I got this right? I got an interesting pointer from a European Copyfight reader indicating that I should take a look at the growing controversy over the European Parliament's proposed new telecoms package. As far as I can tell the source of this controversy is here: http://www...

DMCA Takedowns Must Consider Fair Use

Posted on August 21, 2008
For years (and I mean YEARS - remember this report from 2005? Or Diebold's abuse of takedown notices from 2003?) copyfighters have been complaining about the abuse of the DMCA's takedown notice provisions. In the ongoing saga of Universal Music versus a dancing baby, we have finally gotten a ruling stating that copyright holders must take fair use into account...

A CBLDF Benefit Mashup Thu Aug 21, 7:30P

Posted on August 19, 2008
Cory Doctorow and DJ Spooky on stage together in NYC to benefit the CBLDF. Details here: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000367.shtml Two very interesting and thoughtful people. Benefiting a great charity. What more could you ask? (except to be in NYC this Thursday night)

An End To A 'Reprieve' - Bye Bye Web Radio?

Posted on August 11, 2008
A little over a year ago I was writing about negotiations between SoundExchange and Web streamcasters. The issue was a set of exorbitant new fees authorized by the US Copyright office. Back then it appeared that Congress might even pass some kind of legislation...

Future of Music Coalition Events (Fall 2008)

Posted on August 06, 2008
Our friends at the FMC sent me a couple pointers to upcoming events, primarily their fall seminar series. Here are the pointers of interest: Monday, September 22, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL: http://www.futureofmusic.org/events/Chicago08/ Monday, October 6, Public Theater, New York, NY: http://www...

People Want to Pay - Sort Of

Posted on August 05, 2008
Kevin Kelly - who a few months ago put out the notion of "true fan" - has another interesting assertion in his blog: people want to pay for stuff. Why, then, is copying - and not paying - so prevalent? Kelly says that people want to pay if they perceive that the exchange is fair, if it's easy enough, and if they understand some sort of benefit that comes from the paying...

Tooting My Own Horn - MPAA vs The People

Posted on July 16, 2008
Back at the start of June, I was interviewed for a story that has finally appeared in Infotech and Telecom News. The story is mostly pull quotes from people talking about the MPAA's recent wins against Web sites that post links to copyrighted material...

Pi-Con 3

Posted on June 25, 2008
I've been invited to be a panelist/guest at the 3rd annual Pi Science Fiction Convention being held in West Springfield, MA this August. Given that the guests include Cory (boingboing) Doctorow and Randall (xkcd) Munroe I doubt most anyone will notice I'm there...

The War on Photography

Posted on June 23, 2008
Bruce Schneier has an update on his article for the Guardian describing the "movie plot" efforts to link public photography and anti-terrorist work. The gist is that there is no credible evidence linking public photography - even of public buildings, infrastructure, etc - to terrorist acts...

Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on June 20, 2008
Microsoft wished for a new trial, but must not have asked nicely enough this time. Last time it was accused of infringing Alcatel-Lucent (digital music) patents it won, getting a negative verdict and large judgment thrown out. This time, however, Judge Marilyn L...

The 21st Century Version of the Copyright Notice

Posted on June 18, 2008
I had a nice chat last week with Mike O'Donnel of iCopyright about their new service for small and independent publishers. The company has a large for-pay service that is used by large publishers, including news wires, to track the digital progress of copyrighted materials and they're reusing some of that technical infrastructure for the new offering...

Future Writers, Future Books

Posted on June 16, 2008
The Futurist online has an interesting think piece by Patrick Tucker on the possible future of writers, books, and writing in this century. Riffing primarily on a talk by Tim O?Reilly from earlier this year, Tucker visits interesting notions such as "the book as souvenir...

Tracking the Trackers

Posted on June 13, 2008
The CS Department at University of Washington have released a report with this title reporting on an investigation of copyright enforcement as it currently exists on P2P networks. The report's site contains a summary of the report's findings, a downloadable PDF of the full report and an online FAQ describing their research methods and key findings...

FMC Releases "Rock the Net" Compilation CD

Posted on June 04, 2008
Our friends at the Future of Music Coalition are announcing a CD compilation to benefit their Net Neutrality campaign. Featured names include Wilco, Bright Eyes, They Might Be Giants, Aimee Mann, Guster and more. The CD is set for an end-of-July release.

Who Pays MediaDefender to Disrupt Peer to Peer Networks?

Posted on May 30, 2008
Could it be? Say it with me. That'd be... The Cartel. OK, so I'm not about to start a new career as a singer-songwriter. Which is probably good since I'd probably be foolish enough to give away my own recordings of my own performances for free and if I used BitTorrent for that then I could be the one getting DoSed...

Did Microsoft (over)Implement the Broadcast Flag?

Posted on May 23, 2008
Sherman, set the wayback machine to 2005! No, I'm not talking about the Internet Archive's Wayback machine. I'm talking about traveling back in time to late 2005 when the 'net was buzzing - angrily - about a Cartel proposal to require DRM to be embedded in every broadcast signal...

Does the RIAA Have Legal Legs?

Posted on May 14, 2008
I don't blog much about the minutae of the cascade of digital music-related lawsuits in part because there are people who obsessively blog these things and I've lost patience with it over the years. One place that hasn't lost patience and generally does a very good job with the details is Recording Industry vs The People...

Help Cory Help Others

Posted on May 05, 2008
Cory Doctorow has structured an interesting...something around his book Little Brother. I don't know what to call this - it's part charity, part pay-for-value-received, part experiment. The idea is that Cory gives away this book - it's online for free...

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