Copyrights & Intellectual Property

trying to quote lyrics for his book, Planet Simpson to understand how current copyright law is already limiting legitimate work.

Lots more stories of copyright law gone amok in the MaisonBisson Copyrights & Intellectual Property index.

To round out my week of quoting stories from lquilter.net, today I’m putting forward this one about intellectual property (originally from Critical Montages):

Ever notice the Waffle House menu’s insistence that Double Waffle is for <a href=“www-wafflehouse-com-whmenu.pdf” title=““dine-in only, no sharing”">“dine-in only, no sharing”? A common prohibition at low-end restaurants, it’s also a small-print reminder of what capitalism is all about.

From enclosure to enforcement of intellectual property rights, capital’s message is always No Sharing.

Products of intellectual labor, unlike land and waffles, can be shared by all without diminishing their use value for anyone, however. “Copies” are as perfect as “originals” for the most profitable products — such as drugs and software — in the age of mechanical production, withering the aura of private property and making the revolutionary act of sharing and sharing alike irresistible. Capital, of course, tries to stop it, but, in doing so, it makes visible the “invisible hand” of the market, demonstrating that it is not scarcity but state power at capital’s disposal that prevents us from having what we want — even what we need to save our lives.

David Rothman at TeleRead echoed the following:

“Buried inside the massive $388 billion spending bill Congress approved last weekend is a program that creates a federal copyright enforcement czar.” – Lawmakers OK antipiracy czar, via CNET.

Krispy Kream, the donut folks, are itching to get Krispy Kream Drive In on Route 422 in Belsano to change their name. I’ve no idea where Belsano is, but ower Christina Hoover says “we’re an ice cream fast food stand. It’s a drive in.” It’s been the Hoover’s bread and butter since 1968.

What Krispy Kreme is really arguing is dilution of their “famous” brand. Since going IPO a few years ago, Krispy Kremes have popped up everywhere across the county, from SBC Park in SF to the Excaliber in Las Vegas. So yes, within the last few years, one could argue that they are a “famous” tradermark like McDonalds or Kodak and should be protected from dilution (e.g. someone selling McDonalds backpacks or Kodak bicycles). The problem with this argument is that you can only sue someone for diluting a famous mark after its become famous. Since the Hoovers’ ice cream stand has had the name “Krispy Kream” since 1968, they are quite safe from a dilution attack. (emphasis added)

Ericka Jacobs at Copyfutures found my Fear the Takedown story about Bits of Freedom’s takedown study. She over-stated my effort; all I really did was quote text from Copyfight, which they quoted from Doom9, but that’s how blogs and the web work. More importantly, Erika explained a lot more than I did, including detailing takedown proceedures and safe harbor provisions under US and European copyright law. Finally, she ends by quoting a report by Chilling Effects, a copyright resource center maintained by the “Electronic Frontier Foundation and six law school clinical programs.”

…cease and desist letters sometimes — but not always — have chilling effects on speech that might qualify as fair use.

Copyfutures appears to be the class blog for Professor Solum’s Intellectual Property Seminar: The Future of Copyright at the University of San Diego, and those posting appear to be students in the class. I’ll have to carve out some time to view the PowerPoints, as it looks like an interesting class.

Copyfight points me to Doom9 which reports on Bits of Freedom‘s recent project:

Dutch civil rights organization Bits of Freedom has run an interesting experiment: They put up a text by a famous Dutch author, written in 1871 to accounts with 10 different ISPs. Then they made up an imaginary society that is supposed to be the copyright holder of the author in question, and sent copyright infringement takedown notices to those 10 ISP via email (using a Hotmail account). 7 out of 10 ISPs took down the material, sometimes within hours and without even informing the account holder. One ISP doubted the legitimacy of the claim and asked for some proof that the alleged plaintiff was in fact the copyright holder. Yet another ISP actually realized that copyright had long since run out on the work. That’s real scary, don’t you think? Made up society, Hotmail addresses and a website is gone.

• Disney thieves Peter Pan from copyright-holding childrens’ hospital charity
  

  Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson and published by Disney’s Hyperion Books is billed as a prequel to the children’s classic, Peter Pan. […] But the hospital charity says [it] is getting nothing from Peter and the Starcatchers — which has been on the New York Times best seller lists, has had an extensive author tour and has its own Web site. They say the book has been published without its permission. A spokesman for the hospital told CNN that Great Ormond Street held the copyright to Peter Pan in the United States until 2023.

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      <a href="http://www.engadget.com/entry/2241460825857893/" title="Sony claims RetroPod will confuse consumers">Sony claims RetroPod will confuse consumers</a><br /> <blockquote>
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          Consumers likely will be misled and deceived into believing that Sony is somehow connected with the iPod personal stereo when in fact it is not.
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Kembrew McLeod’s story about How Copyright Law Changed Hip Hop in Stay Free! Magazine is an interesting tale of how copyright kills culture.

In the mid- to late 1980s, hip-hop artists had a very small window of opportunity to run wild with the newly emerging sampling technologies before the record labels and lawyers started paying attention. No one took advantage of these technologies more effectively than Public Enemy, who put hundreds of sampled aural fragments into It Takes a Nation and stirred them up to create a new, radical sound that changed the way we hear music. But by 1991, no one […] sampled without getting sued. They had to pay a lot.

Remember: CopyFight.

Get the word out. The fight is on to create sensible limits to the DMCA. Read ArsTechnica’s DMCRA argument. Copyfight, of course, is covering DMCRA, and arguing for it. TeleRead is swinging for DMCRA too. Heck, they’ve even endorsed a congressional candidate based on his stand on fair-use.

Read those and act. Tell your congressperson you support fair-use and the DMCRA. Now say it again with the EFF: “I believe in fair-use.”

UK markets first reported it, then Australia’s record industry tried to suppress it, now US sales figures suggest the trend has spread here: record sales are up. Yes, despite the RIAA’s whining and lawsuits (and P2P’s continued growth despite those lawsuits), record sales are up in the US.

BBC News reports US record sales up 9% after a claimed four year slump.

This story deserves more attention, but for now I’ll just have to link to my earlier stories about music industry wackiness:

Music industry using P2P to drive sales

The coming copyright war (it’s actually already here, you just don’t know it)

P2P, DMCA, RIAA, lawsuits

Why somebody should bitch-slap the record industry