Book Review: The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

31 12 2008

James Boyle’s The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind is an excellent overview of the complexity of the modern intellectual property system. This book builds upon the works of the popularizers of copyright scholarship, including Lawrence Lessig, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Yochai Benkler.

This would be an excellent book to teach a survey class (or for self-study) on IP issues, considering it touches on many cutting edge legal and public policy issues (and does not shirk on patent law). There are more distinguished reviewers who will be able to critique the substance of the argument — therefore the remainder of this review will focus on this book as a knowledge provider.

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http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2008/12/31/book-review-the-public-domain-enclosing-the-commons-of-the-mind/
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Categories : Copyright, IP Philosophies and History

Intellectual Property IV: Public Domain

31 12 2008

What do Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14 (also known as the “Moonlight Sonata”), Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope have in common? In case the title wasn’t a giant clue, these are all works in the public domain.

Property in the public domain belong to, well, the public. Anyone can use content in the public domain and could create new protected materials from them. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks, once the protection ends, enter the public domain. In addition, works by the United States government (and several other governments) automatically enter the public domain.

Works created based on public domain content can have their own shiny new intellectual property protections (same as if the work were made from scratch). For example, modern productions of Hamlet are protected under copyright laws despite the play being in the public domain.

And, seeing as the protections are already covered, here’s a list of places to get public domain content:

LibriVox for audio recordings of books.
Open Clip Art for clipart.
Project Gutenberg for text of books.

(Also see Wikipedia’s list of public domain resources

Intellectual Property Series:

Copyright
Trademark
Patent
Public domain

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Categories : Copyright, Public Domain

Dear Warner Bros. (drm letter from Max Berry)

30 12 2008

Dear Warner Bros.

You remember me. You bought the film rights to my novel Jennifer Government, for Steve Soderbergh and George Clooney. Didn’t work out, but that’s not your fault. These things happen. I hope we can work again some day. That’s not why I’m writing.

I’m writing because yesterday I rented The Dark Knight, and I couldn’t watch it. I tried. But when I popped that DVD into my home theater PC and snuggled up on the sofa with my wife, it wouldn’t play.

At first I thought the disc must be damaged. I tried it in my laptop: no dice there, either. So I took it back to the video store and swapped it for a new one. They were very apologetic, by the way, Warners. I guess they understand that physically traveling to a bricks-and-mortar store is kind of a pain, and when you’re in business against digital downloads, you don’t want to make your transactions more difficult than they already are.

Home with my fresh DVD, I tried again. But still: didn’t work. A little Googling later, I discovered the disc was indeed damaged, and by who: you.

The content in this post was found at
http://www.maxbarry.com/2008/12/29/news.html
and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

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Categories : Copyright, Digital Rights Management

"Online Piracy Menaces Pro Sports"

29 12 2008

In combating piracy, one method of enforcement is off limits, executives say. They will not, like the music industry did, sue individual fans who are uploading games to peer-to-peer platforms.

“I’d like to think we’ve learned some cautionary lessons from the music industry,” said Mr. Mellis of M.L.B. “What is the utility in suing individuals who are part of a larger chain of events?”

The content in this post was found at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/business/29piracy.html?_r=2
and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

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Categories : Copyright, DMCA

RIAA appeal in Jammie Thomas case refused

29 12 2008

The judge overseeing the RIAA case against Jammie Thomas has refused to allow the music industry to appeal his order; the RIAA will instead need to go through a complete new trial before an appeal is possible.

The content in this post was found at
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081229-riaa-appeal-in-jammie-thomas-case-refused.html
and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.