YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.

Anybody who thinks Free Software is anti-copyright or disrespectful of intellectual property should take a look at Mark Jaquith’s post, What a GPL’d Movable Type means. Let’s be clear, Anil Dash takes issue with Jaquith’s interpretation, but the point is Jaquith’s offense at what appears to be Six Apart’s grabbiness for any code somebody might contribute.

Freedom 0 was one thing, the willingness of a person to pour his or her sweat into something, then watch somebody else (or even risk watching somebody else) profit from it is another.

open source, free software, F/OSS, copyleft, copyright, intellectual property

From The Chronicle:

Copyright law, a constant thorn in the sides of scholars and researchers, is generating a lot of public discussion this week, thanks in part to a new 10-minute video that parodies the law. “A Fair(y) Use Tale” has been downloaded from YouTube about 145,000 times since it was posted online Friday. The video uses 400 cuts from 27 different Disney films to mock copyright law as overly protective of the interests of copyright owners — Disney among them.

Eric Faden, an assistant professor of English and film studies at Bucknell University, who produced the video with help from seven of his students, said it took eight months to make. “The most important thing is that it’s getting people to talk about these issues” of copyright and fair use, Mr. Faden said today. Worried that Disney may sue him for copyright infringement, Mr. Faden has retained Stanford University law professors.

Rather read a tale of copyright tyranny than watch one? Try “The People Who Owned the Bible.”

copyfight, copyright, fair use, disney, video, parody, Eric Faden

I wrote to C|Net, owner of TechRepublic and Builder.com, asking if I could quote their Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming in an issue of Library Technology Reports journal on open source software for libraries and got the following canned response:

Thank you for your interest in including CNET content on your website. [...] There would be licensing fee of $400.00 associated with use of the CNET logo or text excerpt on your website, or $1000.00 for rights to post the entire article on your own site. Please let me know if you wish to proceed and I’ll send you an invoice. Upon receipt of payment we will send you a document granting permission to use this material as requested.

The irony, of course, is that I wanted to introduce the commandments as an update to Gerald Weinberg’s concept of “egoless programming,” introduced in his 1971 The Psychology of Computer Programming. In reference to Builder/com’s derivative work based on Weinberg’s, the text I’d drafted began something like “in the true spirit of open source….” Well, so much for the true spirit of open source.

Even better, here’s their linking policy:

CNET News.com believes strongly in the utility of hyperlinks, which allow anyone to point directly to content, whether on the same site or an external site. CNET News.com uses hyperlinks to give the reader easy access to additional information or original source material.

So far, so good, but…

There is no charge to link to content on CNET’s sites. When linking you may not include any text or logos from the original article on your own site, with the exception of the article title or headline. You could offer your own introduction/verbiage and then direct readers to view the article by clicking the link provided.

What, no fair use quoting? Huh? Well, the following excerpt may violate their policy, it’s unknown if it violates fair use:

1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on.
2. You are not your code. Remember that the entire point of a review is to find problems, and problems will be found. Don’t take it personally when one is uncovered.
3. No matter how much “karate” you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it’s not needed.
4. Don’t rewrite code without consultation. There’s a fine line between “fixing code” and “rewriting code.” Know the difference, and pursue stylistic changes within the framework of a code review, not as a lone enforcer.
5. Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don’t reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience.
6. The only constant in the world is change. Be open to it and accept it with a smile. Look at each change to your requirements, platform, or tool as a new challenge, not as some serious inconvenience to be fought.
7. The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect—so if you want respect in an egoless environment, cultivate knowledge.
8. Fight for what you believe, but gracefully accept defeat. Understand that sometimes your ideas will be overruled. Even if you do turn out to be right, don’t take revenge or say, “I told you so” more than a few times at most, and don’t make your dearly departed idea a martyr or rallying cry.
9. Don’t be “the guy in the room.” Don’t be the guy coding in the dark office emerging only to buy cola. The guy in the room is out of touch, out of sight, and out of control and has no place in an open, collaborative environment.
10. Critique code instead of people—be kind to the coder, not to the code.As much as possible, make all of your comments positive and oriented to improving the code. Relate comments to local standards, program specs, increased performance, etc.

Those 400 or so words would cost $400, which isn’t as bad as $400 for 87 words, but still…?

0, Builder.com, copyfight, copyright, fair use, licensing, techrepublic

People hate DRM. It prevents law abiding folks from enjoying the music and movies they’ve purchased, and it does little to prevent crackers from making illegal copies.

In response, somebody’s created I Hate DRM, “a site dedicated to reclaiming consumer digital rights.”

I created this site because, as a consumer, I am fed up. I feel like all of the entertainment that I love is slowly being eroded away by overly greedy companies. This website is meant to be a platform to capture how DRM is changing the way paying customers are receiving content. I want to hear your complaints, your horror stories, your whatever…even your good stories if you have one.

And on the content creator’s side: Creative Remixes For The People.

CRFTP is dedicated to helping foster a community of people interested in musical collaboration in the open source tradition. We bring together Mash-up artists, progressive labels, and musicians to create an environment where creative potential is not limited by copyright control.

artists against copyright, consumer rights, copyfight, copyright, creative remixes for the people, crftp, drm, i hate drm, intellectual property law

Alan Wexelblat in Copyfight poses a question from a reader about the future of entertainment:

what rights do you purchase/license/contract for in creating such a reproduction of a real person? Rights to the “likeness?” Performance rights? Do either of these cover things the actor never physically did or said? Is there an exclusivity clause? There are clearly some issues around the ownership of a character, if that character has appeared before (e.g. Connery’s Bond) but usually the character rights reside with the studio. But if you want the Connery Bond instead of a generic James Bond you also have to incude Connery in the deal, as well as whatever studio or estate has the Bond character rights.

The question apparently stems from a story in Slate, but I wonder how long this will remain an issue. Wexelblat notes that the technical limitations to “true-to-life, fool-an-audience reproductions” are high…for now. While flesh and blood talent rule the silver screen today, the time when they may be replaced is near. But once we cross that threshold, what’s to keep the animators from creating their own characters? And how long before animators and modelers like belaljimez, whose rendering appears above, wrest control of the screen from today’s pretty faces?

Alan Wexelblat, animation, character rights, copyfight, copyright, digital actors, digiwood, hollywood, licensing, selling yourself, synthespians

A friend got his own cease and desist letter the other day. His ISP forwarded the notice from a copyright enforcement agency along with five pages of content intended both to stop those that know they’re sharing and help out parents (or others) who may not be aware of what all is going on with the computers attached to their cable modem.

Of course you’re a valued customer, and of course it wasn’t your fault, just stop it is the message.

It’s nothing like the major raid that shutdown a big piece of the eDonkey network this week, but it’s apparently scary enough.

bit torrent, c&d, cease and desist, copyright, copyright violation, edonkey, enforcement, filesharing, isp, letter, mpaa

Michael Sauers pointed out Q-Unit, a mashup of Queen and 50 Cent. They’re sure to have Disney (the rights owner for Queen’s catalog) on their back soon. At least, it didn’t take Disney long to shut down The Kleptones, whose “A Night At The Hip-Hopera” has a spot on my iPod.

And that’s where the story comes around, are we at the point where we can say Queen’s music has taken on the status of a modern fairy tale? And are these artists — The Kleptones and Q-Unit — the new Disneys, remaking old tales for new times?

disney, queen, mashup, copyfight, copyright, copyright law, q-unit, music, rock, rap, hip hop, remix, remake

Back when I was looking things up for my Digital Preservation and Copyright story I found a bunch of info the University of Texas System had gathered on issues related to copyright, libraries, and education. In among the pages on copying copyrighted works, A/V reserves, and electronic reserves I found a document titled: Educational Fair Use Guidelines for Digital Images.

It’s some interesting stuff — if you get excited about copyright law. Beware, however, that they cite Texaco a bunch, and Laura Quilter has issues with that.

tags: copyfight, copyright, copyright law, copyrighted works, digital preservation, edu, electronic reserves, fair use, laura quilter, libraries, copyright and libraries, university of texas

With all the talk about Google scanning or not scanning copyrighted books, I was happy to see Laura Quilter talking about Google as a library.

The Internet Archive is certainly a library. [...] Libraries may be private, semi-private, public; for- or not-for-profit; paper or digital. Why is Google not a library?

More interestingly, she casts a critical eye on the Texaco decision that everybody points to as the guiding law on fair use. This, and the rest of her blog are good reading.

tags: agu, agu v. texaco, american geophysical union, copyfight, copyright, fair use, fairuse, google, google print, internet archive, laura quilter, library, private/public, texaco

Donna Wentworth is now saying what I’ve been saying for over a year now. Digital Rights Management (DRM) isn’t about preventing copyright violations by ne’er-do-wells, it’s about eliminating legal me2me fair use and locking in customers. In Your PC == A Toaster, Wentworth quotes Don Marti saying:

Isn’t it time to drop the polite fiction that MSFT and other incumbent IT and CE [CE = consumer electronics -- Casey] vendors are only doing DRM because of big, bad Hollywood? …[Having] “Hollywood” clamoring for harsh DRM (based on technical facts from the IT industry) actually helps the current market leaders…

With DRM, MSFT and Apple can keep their customers from switching back and forth (or maybe to Linux), and CE vendors can’t lock out $39 Chinese DVD players, but can at least collect a tax on them.

What could have been said is that DRM is like a toaster that only toasts Pepperidge Farm bread. You’ll pay full price for both the toaster and the bread, but they’ll sick the FBI on you if you figure out a way to toast a Thomas’ brand english muffin in the thing.

Okay, so I’m not claiming priority over Wentorth, but here are two related stories: What Does Proprietary Mean, Anyway? and Hilary Rosen: Sock Puppet.

tags: big money, copyfight, copyright, digital rights management, donna wentworth, drm, drm’d toaster, drmed toaster, hollywood, microsoft, proprietary, toaster, toaster drm, toaster hacks

We’re struggling with the question of what to do with our collection of vinyl recordings. They’re deteriorating, and we’re finding it increasingly difficult to keep the playback equipment in working order — the record needles seem to disappear. We’re re-purchased much of our collection on CD, but some items — this one might be one of them — are impossible to find on CD.

So we’re considering digital preservation, capturing the audio of the records and scanning the dust jackets. I’m no lawyer, but it looks like Section 108 of the copyright code allows us to make preservation copies of works that are or were originally in our collection, but are damaged, deteriorating, lost, stolen, or if the existing format of the work has become obsolete. (It’s a little easier to read Cornell Law School’s version.)

Subsection C appears to specifically allow digital preservation under the following conditions:

• the library or archives has, after a reasonable effort, determined that an unused replacement cannot be obtained at a fair price; and
   
• any such copy or phonorecord that is reproduced in digital format is not made available to the public in that format outside the premises of the library or archives in lawful possession of such copy.

Thoughts?

tags: copyfight, copyright, copyright code, copyright law, digital preservation, libraries, library, records, section 108, vinyl, vinyl recordings

The news came out last week that the biggest music consumers — the ones throwing down cash for music — are also the biggest music sharers. Alan Wexblat at Copyfight says simply: “those who share, care” (BBC link via TeleRead).

Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said.

Lawsuits against customers go hand in hand with DRM in limiting community buzz for a particular artist or song. It would seem that music is subject to the rules of the Google Economy too, but losing evangelists for the latest Britney Spears song wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Her record company is going to spend millions promoting the album anyway and teenage girls will buy it because it’s obvious. The problem, as Bob Frankston explains, is the non-obvious:

DRM is a way of assuring that the “content owner” can maintain control. That seems innocuous in itself but it has the effect of limiting the marketplaces’ ability to change. This makes sense in limited cases as it allows investors to recoup the cost of their investment and make a profit but if DRM works too well it prevents growth. A marketplace is a dynamic system that keeps changing. Why doesn’t the marketplace simply devolve into chaos? The reason is that it is an evolutionary process — one that provides opportunity for creating new results. We can think of this opportunity in terms of Chris Anderson’s long tail — it represents the value to be discovered rather than what is obvious.

Marketplaces that work can capture the results that are viable while surviving those that don’t work. They renew themselves dynamically. Without this process of renewal marketplaces stagnate and fail. While the goal of DRM may be noble, if taken too far it leaves us impoverished.

(via CopyFight).

In short, the value of these music publishers’ back catalogs is dependent on passionate individuals sharing their love and creating a buzz. Hip hop culture was created by sampling music that the record companies had largely forgotten. That sampling renewed interest in the original works and created a huge market for material that would have otherwise sat on the shelf. Artists can ask to try such things now, but the fact is that content owners just say no. DRM and overbearing copyright law eliminates the power of fans to spread the joy.

Besides cutting off the tail that feeds them, DRM just plain gets in the way. Technosmart Jenny Levine has been stung by DRM more than once, and former RIAA chief Hilary Rosen says she can’t stand DRM either (though she’s been accused of sock puppeting). Heck, DRM can even make the US Constitution — a public domain document — unusable.

The problem is that DRM goes beyond copyright and blocks activities that we used to take for granted as fair use. In a world where it’s increasingly difficult to differentiate between creator and consumer, DRMed content risks being isolated and ignored.

Considering how easily most DRM can be cracked, one has to wonder what the real purpose is. If determined crackers can always break it, but it gets in the way of average honest users, why bother? The cynical answer is that record companies want to use DRM to force you to re-buy your music regularly. That’s certainly what HBO is doing with television.

Mac users beware: A lot of reports are coming in that Apple has added “trusted computing” to their Intel developer builds. This was a fear of mine when Apple announced the Intel switch.

tags: consumers, content, content consumers, content owners, content producers, copyfight, copyright, downloaders, drm, evangelists, fair use, fairuse, lawsuits, legal alternatives, marketing, music, music consumers, music industry, music marketing, music sharing, owners, producers, share, sharing

Donna Wentworth, over at Copyfight pointed out a JD Lasica piece detailing the responses from seven studios to his requests to use short (10-30 seconds) clips of their films in a non-commercial project he was working on with his child.

…four of the studios refused outright, two refused to respond, and the seventh wobbled.

This is the quandary millions of us face today: The Hollywood studios demand that we ask for permission to borrow from their works — and then they deny our requests as a matter of course.

One studio acknowledged the the “worthwhile intentions” of the project and seemed to understand that it would be shown only to family and friends (not on the internet), but refused as a matter of policy:

we have had to establish a general policy of non-cooperation with requests of this nature.

There’s nothing new in this, of course. Writer Chris Turner had to pay over $4 a word to quote a few lines from some Radiohead songs in his book about The Simpsons. Hip hop, once emblematic of “remix culture,” one example of voices and venues squashed (here’s what happens when artists try that today).

Anyway, Wendy Seltzer tells me it’s the EFF’s 15th birthday and they’re doing a blog-a-thon. This isn’t really about why I joined the “fight for my right to fair use and a vibrant public domain,” but it says a lot about why I’m still in it.

Related: The People Who Owned The Bible and Orphaned Works — when you can’t even find the people to ask for permission.

tags: copyfight, copyright, darknet, denied, deny, eff, eff15, hollywood, hollywood studios, home video, orphaned works, permission, permission culture, refuse, refused, remix, remix culture, studio, video clips

Copyfight is pointing to the EFF’s new Legal Guide for Bloggers. Most of the content is about liability, but it also addresses issues of access and privilege that are generally granted to journalists, election law, and labor law. From the introduction:

Whether you’re a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you’ve been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post.

Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don’t want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that’s under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.

The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you’re doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn’t help – in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven’t yet decided how it applies to bloggers.

But here’s the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn’t use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That’s why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.

To be clear, this guide isn’t a substitute for, nor does it constitute, legal advice. Only an attorney who knows the details of your particular situation can provide the kind of advice you need if you’re being threatened with a lawsuit. The goal here is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.

Continue reading the EFF’s Legal Guide For Bloggers…

Technorati Tags: blogger, bloggers, blogging, copyright, court, eff, free expression, free speech, freedom, law, legal, legal guide, liability, stifle

At least that’s the only thing a person can conclude from the stories at Copyfight earlier this week. This post reports on two stories where the photo services concluded that the photos to be printed were too good to have come from an average customer. Upon trying to order prints of her child, one Ofoto user found the following:

Your order has been cancelled because it appears your order contains one of the following… 1. Professional images.

And Wal Mart told another mother:

We can’t release the pictures to you without a copyright release form signed by the photographer.

At least Ofoto gave the mother the opportunity to sign an affidavit warranting that she was the photographer or had permission from the copyright owner. Wal Mart wouldn’t even accept that.

So, like I noted in the headline: Professionals apparently don’t use Ofoto or Wal Mart. I wonder if they promote that as a selling point…

Seltzer’s post notes the new copyright warning that Canon is putting in their camera manuals and the trouble that the developers of the open-source Gallery image management software project found themselves in recently.

Technorati Tags: camera, canon, copyright, copyrights, gallery, legal, legal trouble, ofoto, photo, photo services, photofinishing, photograph, photography, professional images, unintended consequences, wal mart, wendy seltzer

I’m not sure what to think about Steve J’s WWDC announcement (video stream) of Apple’s switch to x86 processors. Coverage at MacNN, Mac Rumors, Ars Technica, etc. I’m not sure, but it would be easier to take if I wasn’t the only one who saw conspiracy in it. Does this relate to Intel’s recent shoehorning of DRM onto the CPU?

It wasn’t long ago that I was praising Apple for making devices that served the remix world that exists in the void between fair use and copyright infringement, but moves since then have concerned me. I live with iTunes DRM, but can I tolerate DRM throughout the OS all the way down to the hardware? Can I tolerate something that eliminates the (entirely legal) me2me sharing that I expect (and is revered in the analog world)?

Anyway, there’s some mixed news about PPC on X86 emulation that will be part of the next OS release, and I expect the jabbering about the effect of this announcement will last all summer. Here’s some now from MacNN, and PowerPage. And here’s something I can laugh at.

Technorati Tags: apple, arstechnica, copyright, cpu, drm, emulation, guinea pigs, intel, itunes, macc, macintosh, macnn, macrumors, pcworld, ppc, tomshardware, wwdc, x86, x86 emulation, x86 processors

I had just sat down to post a note about an interview with J.D. Lasica in On The Media (listen to MP3) this week when I found David Rothman beat me to it. The interview was one of the better treatments of copyright issues that’s I’ve heard/seen in the (relatively-) popular media.

Here’s the summary from the OTM site:

For every move that media industries have taken to protect their copyrights, there has been an equal and opposite countermove by consumers. In Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation, J.D. Lasica explores the realm in which so-called pirates operate – slicing, dicing, and sharing media to their hearts’ content. Lasica talks to Bob about how Hollywood is driving consumers further into the shadows and under the radar.

One of the best features of OTM interview, is the way they ran it along side a story about Backstage BBC, the new developer interface/API for the worlds most popular news website. How’d it work? It worked because — just like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and others — they saw value in opening up their copyrighted material to see how others might “remix” it.

But because Rothman reported on the Darknet/Lasica interview first and better, I’m taking the easy way out by throwing down a few links and calling it good:

Lasica’s book: Darknet.

Lasica on Darknets –“private, encrypted spaces where social groups can communicate with each other and exchange files.” His concept, ten examples, and Wikipedia’s take.

Lasica on digital libraries: top 10 assaults on digital liberties.

Technorati Tags: api, bbc, bbc backstage, copyright, copyright issues, copyrights, darknet, david rothman, developer interface, on the media

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer did another one of his monkey acts when he went ape about music and DRM.

Most people still steal music…We can build the technology but there are still ways for people to steal music.

The most common format of music on an iPod is ’stolen’.

It could just be a picture of what happens when Microsoft wakes up and realizes it doesn’t own and can’t control everything, but it also reveals a lot about where the company is going. Ballmer could have said that the shifting of purchased music from one device or format to another is a legally protected form of fair use (at least for now). Instead, he argued something like “Microsoft’s DRM is the only solution to piracy.” Anyway, it’s a crock of shite. Teleread (always an anti-DRM advocate) has picked up on it.

– And –

tags: arstechnica, content, content consumer, content creator, copyfight, copyright, copyright law, drm, ipod, piracy, shite, steve ballmer

Copyfight’s Donna Wentworth reports on an article by Laura Murray about copyright law in Canada. Here are some items quoted from that work:

Spend more than a few minutes browsing Canadian court rulings, policy materials, or public hearings on copyright, and you will come across somebody seeking or promoting “protection.” “Protection” seems to be a good thing, and somehow copyright provides it, or should be providing it. But protection of what? Protection from what? … Only a few argue for protection of consumers or those whose creativity builds on copyrighted works, and fewer still the citizenry or the public domain.

How do we differentiate between “creator” and “consumer?” Are they really “distinct entities placed on either side of a fulcrum(?)”

In fact, as many have pointed out, we cannot draw a firm distinction between “creators” and “users”: every single person alive on earth is a consumer of culture, and anyone who ever puts pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) is also a creator.