Here we'll explore the nexus of legal rulings, Capitol Hill
policy-making, technical standards development, and technological
innovation that creates -- and will recreate -- the networked world as we
know it. Among the topics we'll touch on: intellectual property
conflicts, technical architecture and innovation, the evolution of
copyright, private vs. public interests in Net policy-making, lobbying
and the law, and more.
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this weblog are those of the authors and not of their respective institutions.
Gaiman included a few "final" thoughts on copyright. Given how much he's involved himself in the discussion of these issues over the years I seriously doubt this'll be his final word, but perhaps he feels he has no more to say on the Rowling case.
In this entry he's reflecting on his own copyright battles with Todd McFarlane over authorship of certain material that Gaiman wrote. He also links to the judge's decision in that case. There are no real parallels that I can see, and Gaiman says as much. Still, it does point out that he has first-hand experience of someone trying to steal things he wrote and that there is a framework within law for dealing with such things - where such framework does not include Ms. Rowling's emotional appeals to 'think of the charity'.
Speaking of the limits of fair use, do the limits of what's copyright-able at all come to bear? I recall Lexis-Nexis or some other legal scholarship source republishing opinions and then claiming copyright on the resulting work based on the page numbers or some such. Given that such a minor change as adding page numbers is sufficient to form a distinct work, it would seem obvious that something as major as reworking a book into a lexicon of the book would be likewise sufficient.
1. PJ on April 28, 2008 4:49 PM writes...
Speaking of the limits of fair use, do the limits of what's copyright-able at all come to bear? I recall Lexis-Nexis or some other legal scholarship source republishing opinions and then claiming copyright on the resulting work based on the page numbers or some such. Given that such a minor change as adding page numbers is sufficient to form a distinct work, it would seem obvious that something as major as reworking a book into a lexicon of the book would be likewise sufficient.
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