-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Copyright Office Should Right DMCA Wrongs in Rulemaking
,----[ Quote ]
| The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed three exemption requests with
| the U.S. Copyright Office today aimed at protecting the important work of
| video remix artists, iPhone owners, and cell phone recyclers from legal
| threats under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
|
| The DMCA prohibits "circumventing" digital rights management (DRM) and "other
| technical protection measures" used to protect copyrighted works. While this
| ban was meant to deter copyright infringement, many have misused the law to
| chill competition, free speech, and fair use. Every three years, the
| Copyright Office convenes a rulemaking to consider granting exemptions to the
| DMCA's ban on circumvention to mitigate the harms the law has caused to
| legitimate, non-infringing uses of copyrighted materials.
`----
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/12/02
Why Copyright, O Canada?
,----[ Quote ]
| Over on the Open Enterprise blog, I have been extolling the virtues of James
| Boyle's new book, The Public Domain. I still urge you to read it (freely
| available here), but recognise that not everyone has the time (or energy) to
| snuggle down with 300 pages of deep meditation on intellectual monopolies.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-copyright-o-canada.html
“DRM is nearly always the result of a conspiracy of companies to restrict the
technology available to the public. Such conspiracy should be a crime, and the
executives responsible for it should be sentenced to prison.”
--Richard Stallman
Recent:
Air Force cracks software, carpet bombs DMCA
,----[ Quote ]
| The Court of Federal Claims that first heard the case threw it out, and the
| new Appellate ruling upholds that decision. The reasoning behind the
| decisions focuses on the US government's sovereign immunity, which the court
| describes thusly: "The United States, as [a] sovereign, 'is immune from suit
| save as it consents to be sued . . . and the terms of its consent to be sued
| in any court define that court's jurisdiction to entertain the suit.'"
|
| In the case of copyright law, the US has given up much of its immunity, but
| the government retains a few noteworthy exceptions. The one most relevant to
| this case says that when a government employee is in a position to induce the
| use of the copyrighted material, "[the provision] does not provide a
| Government employee a right of action 'where he was in a position to order,
| influence, or induce use of the copyrighted work by the Government.'" Given
| that Davenport used his position as part of the relevant Air Force office to
| get his peers to use his software, the case fails this test.
|
| But the court also addressed the DMCA claims made by Blueport, and its
| decision here is quite striking. "The DMCA itself contains no express waiver
| of sovereign immunity," the judge wrote, "Indeed, the substantive
| prohibitions of the DMCA refer to individual persons, not the Government."
| Thus, because sovereign immunity is not explicitly eliminated, and the
| phrasing of the statute does not mention organizations, the DMCA cannot be
| applied to the US government, even in cases where the more general immunity
| to copyright claims does not apply.
|
| It appears that Congress took a "do as we say, not as we need to do" approach
| to strengthening digital copyrights.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080804-air-force-cracks-software-carpet-bombs-dmca.html
Controlling copies isn't necessarily part of an artist's livelihood, but
getting them accurately attributed is
,----[ Quote ]
| I'm reminded of the fact that the original Creative Commons license allowed
| creators to choose whether they wanted their works attributed to them or not,
| but after a year or two, it was discovered that nearly every CC user turned
| the attribution switch on while generating the license -- everyone wanted
| correct attribution, even when they were giving away free copies. Copyright,
| Fraud and Window Taxes (No, not that Windows)
`----
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/08/controlling-copies-i.html
Canadian open source community upset over proposed copyright law
,----[ Quote ]
| The Government of Canada has angered those who believe that a proposed
| copyright law threatens the country's open source business model.
|
| Russell McOrmond, a member of the Canadian Software Innovation Alliance
| (CSIA), says that Bill C-61, the proposed copyright legislation unveiled by
| the government last month, ignores just about every recommendation made by
| CSIA, a coalition of open source businesses and supporters, in a white
| paper...
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/141384
The future of books
,----[ Quote ]
| The BookCamp will be a wonderful chance to discuss next generation textbooks,
| print-on-demand, ebook readers, why DRM (better known as Digital Restrictions
| Management) is bad and many other topics.
|
| Richard Stalmann, President of the Free Software Foundation, will deliver a
| speech (via phone) with a quite straight title: “Fighting the Swindle of DRM
| on E-Books”.
`----
http://www.clipperz.com/users/marco/blog/2008/07/09/future_books
Microsoft Misleads on Copyright Reform
,----[ Quote ]
| The Hill Times this week includes an astonishingly misleading and factually
| incorrect article on Canadian copyright written by Microsoft.
`----
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2670/125/
Court Rejects Attempt to Expand the DMCA
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday, a district court dismissed several claims in the case Coupons,
| Inc. v. Stottlemire, in which we had, in March, filed an amicus brief.
| Coupons offers online coupons that consumers can access and print using
| software provided by Coupons.
|
| [...]
|
| This is because controlling use of copyrighted material is already addressed
| by copyright law, and addressing it again in the DMCA would upset the careful
| balance between the rights of copyright owners and those of the public. As
| the court properly understood, maintaining a clear distinction between
| access-control claims and rights-control claims "leaves room for individual
| fair uses, adaptations for the blind, library research, and the other
| statutory exceptions to copyright."
`----
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/court-rejects-attempt-to-expand-the-dmca
Fight the Canadian DMCA!
,----[ Quote ]
| On Wednesday, Industry Minister Jim Prentice introduced a bill that
| BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow described as making it "flatly illegal to break
| any kind of digital lock, or to violate terms in one of those absurd end-user
| license agreements that make you promise to agree to let the record industry
| kick your teeth in and drink all your beer, just for the dubious privilege of
| paying for a song at iTunes or watching a video on Viacom's website.
`----
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/fight-the-canadian-dmca
RIAA Hopes New Judge will Nab Sharers
,----[ Quote ]
| Rather that directing the lawsuit at the same defendants as before, the RIAA
| directed it at John Doe (a defendant to be identified later), therefore
| obtaining a new judge ... who may not be so strict about the "making
| available" clauses.
|
| Nice move, RIAA.
`----
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007114.html
Canada Warming Up Its Own DMCA
,----[ Quote ]
| Bill C-61 is essentially a series of amendments to the Copyright Act that
| would ratify the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright
| Treaty, which the DMCA did for the USA in 1996.
`----
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007113.html
Canada moots tough sanctions for DRM flouters
,----[ Quote ]
| The Canadian government today unveiled a controversial proposal to update the
| country's copyright laws.
|
| [...]
|
| It's a somewhat confusing solution that government officials behind the bill
| call a "balanced approach to truly benefit Canadians".
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/12/canada_copyright_reform_june_2008/
Red Hat founder speaks against Canada's copyright reform
,----[ Quote ]
| Lulu Inc. CEO Bob Young is a major voice in the open source software
| industry, but according to him the entire community has been unjustifiably
| ignored throughout the Canadian government's copyright reform initiatives.
|
| Last year, the Conservative government vowed to adopt copyright laws which
| would make it illegal to modify or remove any device or software fitted with
| a technical protection measures (TPMs). After months of hearsay and numerous
| delays, the buzz on Parliament Hill now suggests a proposed copyright bill
| from Industry Minister Jim Prentice is imminent.
|
| In the wake of these rumors -- which many industry activists have begun
| referring to as the Canadian version of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright
| Act (DMCA) -- a new open source software alliance has added their name to the
| lengthy list of opposition to the Industry Minister's soon-to-be-unveiled
| legislation.
`----
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/06/06/red-hat-founder-speaks-against-canadas-copyright-reform
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAkk3rc4ACgkQU4xAY3RXLo7yhACeP/t51rnFVluhvmPg6ClM5oVw
9oMAn3Q+CIlPVzGE/jHVxT/i+GDAAinC
=0MD2
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|
