Forget about digging a hole with a spoon to escape from prison. Four
federal inmates are accused of going above and beyond that call. The
four were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their
names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using
the names without authorization.
On 10/19/05, one of my MIT friend's daughter shadowed me for a day at work as part of a school project. One of the good things about spending time with children is that it forces you to explain this in simple terms. That day, I drew lots of drawings. So here is another installment Erik explaining things with drawings.
What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale,
or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every
book—a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.
Otto von Bismarck quipped, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." I've seen sausages made. I've seen laws made. Both processes are pleasant in comparison to the way anti-copying technology agreements are made.
The optimal level for copyright has been a matter for extensive debate
over the last decade. This paper contributes several new results on this
issue divided into two parts. In the first, a parsimonious theoretical
model is used to prove several novel propositions about the optimal
level of protection. Specifically, we demonstrate that (a) optimal
copyright falls as the costs of production go down (for example as a
result of digitization) and that (b) the optimal level of copyright will, in
general, fall over time.
I spoke with a friend at the CBC, and he was very sympathetic to my
concerns. The BBC -- producers of Dr Who -- insisted on the region-
locking and streaming only, as well as the four-week window
(significantly, this is a much better deal than the BBC gives to Britons,
who are required by law to pay a hefty annual fee to support the BBC --
they only get seven days to see old episodes, and have to use a DRM-
crippled product called iPlayer that only runs on Windows).
undergraduate course at the University of Southern California called
PWNED: Everyone on Campus is a Copyright Criminal. The class was
open to anyone on or off campus, and we podcasted the lectures. The
students edited a class blog and were expected to improve Wikipedia
posts relevant to the class. For the end of semester, each student turned
in a final project that related the course material to their lives and major
areas of study.
The Sony Betamax Supreme Court decision was one of the most
important "fair use" decisions of the last 25 years, but it's been a
constant source of frustration for Marybeth Peters, the Register of
Copyrights in the US since 1994. As head of the Copyright Office, Peters
is in charge of the triennial DMCA anticircumvention review process.
BBspot has obtained secret documents which RIAA lawyers use to determine whether to file a lawsuit against a copyright violator. These documents give insight into the RIAA's decision-making process, and could help people avoid lawsuits in the future. We offer these documents as a public service.
RSS for Tags: intellectual property
A "Schoolhouse Rock" style program that teaches about copyright law.
Forget about digging a hole with a spoon to escape from prison. Four federal inmates are accused of going above and beyond that call. The four were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization.
What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.
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