/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ the politics of IP en-us wex@hovir.com 2012-03-20T09:56:22-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/03/20/posting_newspaper_excerpts_ruled_fair_use.php In the EFF Deep Links section earlier this month Kurt Opsahl posted a summary and discussion of one of the Nevada federal district court judgments against Righthaven. The court rejected Righthaven's claim that online excerpting was copyright-infringing action, and also noted that a site which permits user comments is not automatically liable for material posted in those comments, even if the site is not a formal candidate for DMCA Safe Harbor provisions. Righthaven is often referred to as a copyright troll for its practices of suing far and wide on dubious legal theories; for example, see this Boingboing post from... 75535@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2012-03-20T09:56:22-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2010/10/20/canadian_scientists_take_their_case_to_the_public.php In an attempt to get around what seem like heavy-handed rules from the Canadian government, the scientists' union has put up a Web site to publicize members' work. The Globe and Mail has coverage of the issue, noting that there seem to be an increasing number of hoops for government scientists to jump through if they want to talk about their work to the media. The fear, of course, is that the intention behind all these new rules is to move away from science-based policy making. This is presumably because the science doesn't support the pet policies of those in... 74723@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2010-10-20T15:53:37-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2010/10/20/gene_simmons_has_a_big_mouth.php But then again, he'd need it to hold that much tongue. Except holding his tongue has never been his strong suit, has it. The ex-KISS bassist has managed to get himself a personal Google headline "Make sure your brand is protected," ... "Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line" That, and some additional comments about "every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material" has attracted the attention of Anonymous who have responded by taking down a couple of Simmons-associated Web sites via DDOS attacks. Audrey Waters... 74722@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2010-10-20T11:16:03-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2010/04/15/ipad_lovers_just_skip_this.php After the flap I created in the comments by implying that Apple would (and does) continue to treat the iPad like a gated Disney-esque community, I figure at least half my readers have already decided I'm too heretical, or offensive. Which, in a very small way, puts me in excellent company. In particular, the cartoonist/satirist Mark Fiore has just won a Pulitzer Prize - the first online-only cartoonist ever to do this - but he's too heretical, or offensive, for Apple. The applet he tried to get into the iStore that would let people read and watch his cartoons on... 74408@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2010-04-15T13:47:04-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2009/03/23/antistaples_ruling_troubles_freespeech_advocates.php Staples' slogan is "That Was Easy." Now it appears that the ease of mass-mailing something to a large number of employees may have brought trouble not only to this company but to everyone - bloggers, journalists, critics, etc - who relies on the notion that truth is an absolute defense against charges of libel. Nobody debates that Jay Baitler, an executive VP at Staples, sent out a mass email giving information about the causes for firing Alan S. Noonan. The ostensible purpose of the email was to remind employees to follow certain Staples procedures. But the cause for action was... 73801@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2009-03-23T09:26:01-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2008/12/30/cbldf_asking_for_support_from_creators.php It's that time of year, when every charitable organization and good cause is asking people for donations. Earlier this year I mentioned the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's efforts to protect the rights of adults to view creative material, even if it is a bit edgy. CBLDF is asking authors, retailers, and other creative types to help as well:If you're a creator or publisher, you can also donate some of your time to the Fund by signing for them at conventions and events, donating signed copies of your work, or something even more creative. If you're a retailer, why not... 73662@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2008-12-30T09:20:37-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2008/12/02/continuing_on_the_morality_theme.php Neil Gaiman has a long, and cogent discussion in his blog today about the Christopher Handley case. I generally agree with what Gaiman has written. I think popular speech doesn't need defending. It's the edgy, unpopular, icky stuff that needs defending because that's what people will attack. And although Copyfight is not a free speech blog I do passionately believe that much great art is created out on those icky unpopular edges and if we do not defend the rights of people to be patrons of that art then we strip away a lot of what is of value in... 73634@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2008-12-02T12:30:17-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2007/06/12/fox_to_ftc_fk_off.php Man this has been a long time coming. I don't know if it'll hold on appeal but at least we finally got a judge to agree that the FCC's censorship is "arbitrary and capricious". Long-time readers of this blog may remember more than a year ago when I started listening to Howard Stern because he seemed to be the FCC's favorite whipping target, including being subject to hidden standards, retroactive censorship, and other such idiocy. Regardless of what you think of the man or his show, I expect you'd agree no one should be subject to that. Part of Stern's... 72399@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2007-06-12T14:45:15-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2007/05/07/the_power_and_danger_of_web_20.php Verne Kopytoff had an interesting think piece last week on SFGate about the pressure on Digg to resist takedown notices, particularly in regard to the "Oh Nine Eff Nine" dust-up. Kopytoff quotes Digg co-founder Kevin Rose as saying:You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. [...] If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." Which is noble sentiments, don't get me wrong, but misses the point. Digg isn't creating this controversy. Nor are Digg's 'readers' saying "keep on writing about this." Digg's readers are its writers and they're saying "stop... 72285@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2007-05-07T10:32:25-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2007/05/03/oh_nine_eff_nine_the_song.php Looked at simplistically, a song is a string of words set to music. It's quite possible to write nonsense songs or songs containing nonsense words - just ask any parent of a small child. So if a song happened to be a series of words and not-quite-words (hush you Scrabble players, "eff" is not a normal word) then that'd still be a song, copyrightable and protected in the usual ways, right? This is sort of bad news for the Cartel, because in this case the sequence of lyrics is the sung-out version of the key used to crack HD-DVD encryption.... 72275@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2007-05-03T11:25:15-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2006/06/21/is_blogswarming_a_new_journalism.php The heart of this story appears to be one very stupid (and accused-of-corruption) Republican state governorship trying to block access to a blog critical of the establishment. The catalyst for this idiocy was apparently a front-page story in the New York Times that both criticized the governor of Kentucky and mentioned the blog, BlueGrassReport.org. Prior to an hour ago I'd never heard of this blog, nor of the troubles of the KY state administration. But the blogsphere takes care of its own, and the censorship got mention in Daily Kos and Boing Boing, among other places. BlueGrassReport's author, Mark Nickolas,... 60623@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2006-06-21T17:11:05-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2006/06/01/wardrobe_malfunction_or_governmental_malfunction.php It has been a while since the FCC has crossed my radar. Howard Stern has gone off to digital satellite radio and is apparently making a bucket of money for himself and Sirius, his employers there. However, I did notice that the FCC has upheld its own fine against CBS for the nipple flash. I've also been reading how indecency complaints for the first half of 2006 have exceeded the entire number of complaints registered for all of 2005. Don't you people have anything better to do? I mean, really. What brought this to my attention was the unattributed note... 59191@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2006-06-01T16:55:13-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/11/16/bloggers_you_have_a_right_to_remain_vocal.php EFF today launched a fund-raising campaign to support its multi-front battle to protect and defend bloggers' rights -- your freedom to tell your fellow citizens about things they need to know, regardless of whether politicians [PDF], companies, or anyone else would rather you remain silent. There is no system of public defenders in place to protect people like Edward Felten, the Princeton University professor who was threatened by the RIAA because he planned to publish his research on SDMI. There is no system to protect people like Nelson Pavlosky and Luke Smith, the Swarthmore students who were threatened by Diebold... 38066@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2005-11-16T10:36:45-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/11/09/eff_stops_pharmaceutical_giant_from_using_trademark_to_silence_medical_news_website.php Trademark law is supposed to curb consumer confusion -- not stop people from learning the truth about products, especially ones that affect human health. Which is why I'm thrilled to report that EFF has stopped one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, Sanofi-Aventis, from using trademark claims to censor AcompliaReport.com, an independent online newsletter devoted to reporting about a drug called Acomplia. Acomplia may help people lose weight and quit smoking. It may not. But Sanofi-Aventis has no right to control the flow of information about the drug simply because it has a trademark on the word "Acomplia." Yet that's... 37770@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2005-11-09T12:39:29-05:00 http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2005/10/29/attack_of_the_printing_press.php Kurt Opsahl, the EFF attorney fighting Apple to protect bloggers' right to keep their sources confidential, has published Attack of the Printing Press! -- a stone cold brilliant parody of the Forbes cover story, Attack of the Blogs. Here's Forbes: Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo. Gregory Halpern knows how to hype. Shares of his publicly held company, Circle Group Holdings, quadrupled in price early last year amid reports that its new fat substitute, Z-Trim, was being... 37566@/home/corante/public_html/copyfight/ Speech 2005-10-29T11:08:34-05:00