Remember when you were a kid and you could say things like, “I call first turn on the Atari when we get back home from Putt-putt!” And the rest of your nine-year old crew would respond, “Awww, man! But I guess we gotta give it to him. I mean, he called it first.”
Apparently patent law has devolved nearly to the point of “calling” things, as evidenced by the report that Netflix now has a patent on subscription-based DVD rental, as opposed to per-unit DVD rental. [link via Slashdot]
Sheesh. Somebody needs to take James Rogan out back and whup his ass.
I call the patent on ass-whuppin’!!!
Intellectual Property
Speaking of copyright, here’s a disturbing graph that indicates the number of creative works that have been prevented from entering the public domain by changes in copryight law over the last 30 years. [link via Lessig's Blog]
In 1992 Congress retroactively applied the copright extension to works back to 1923. What had been a 28 year term became the life of the author plus 70 years (or 95 years for work owned by a corporation).
By extending the copryight term, Congress has robbed the public of over more than half the works that would have entered the public domain in our lifetime.
Simply put, that ended growth of the public domain.
Don’t kid yourself that all of that stuff not in the public domain is “promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts” (the Constitutional mandate for copyright). Only 2% of that work lost to the public domain has any continuing commercial value. The other 98% of those creative works are out-of-print or out-of-publication material that is locked away behind copyright, languishing, never to see the light of day again in all likelihood. That lost 98% provides no revenue for the copyright holder and is prevented from providing any value to the public.
Intellectual Property
The online version of PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer published a Q&A on copyright with Stanford law prof and copyright activist, Lawrence Lessig, and Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president of business and legal affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America.
Definitely well worth a read. I know I’m biased toward Lessig’s position, but even trying to take that bias into account, it seemed to me that Lessig’s responses were so much more carefully thought out and specific, while Oppenheim’s seemed to simplistic and repetitive.
Intellectual Property
An Education in ©opyright Law: A Primer for Cyberspace:
“Some recent copyright legislation such as the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and TEACH Act concern web-based education. This work provides an overview of U.S. copyright law including the new legislation and related issues.”
From the recent issue of LIBRES. Interesting that a good overview on U.S. copyright law comes from an Australian library journal. [link via Free Online Scholarship News]
Education, Intellectual Property
The President of Michigan Technical University, Curtis Tompkins, sticks it to the RIAA in a letter responding to their lawsuit over file- (aka song-) sharing. The suit asks for damages against a Michigan Tech student at the rate of $150,000 per song, which, by some estimates, could equate to $97 billion dollars in damages.
Apparently, though, the RIAA didn’t follow their own notification procedures that they have asked universities to comply with. Kudos to Tompkins for calling them out.
Intellectual Property