RIAA copyright education contradictory, critics say | CNET News.com
It looks as though a number of groups are going to “issue a joint statement condemning some statements on the Recording Industry Association of America’s video.” Pointing out the discrepancies and generous interpretations of the law must be done, but I hope that the statement also notes the role that Educause played in the creation of the video.
“First, we were told we should not enforce our rights,” said an RIAA representative responding to critics of the video. “Now we are told education is wrong, too. We won’t accept such a do-nothing approach. We’ll continue to work with respected higher-education groups to engage students to think critically about these issues.”
This RIAA spokesperson has received an important message: education about copyright is not the answer. For the public to truly accept and adhere to copyright law, we should attempt to open a dialogue between owners and users. If the public is alowed to have a stake in the law they are expected to adhere to, there may be greater compliance than in a law which is imposed on them.
For more on the video and the role of Educause, see the last few posts under “Copyright.”
Times Withholds Web Article in Britain – New York Times
Here’s an interesting note about how the Times blocked an article from IP addresses within Britain because it contained information that might prejudice an English jury. Kudos to the Times for coming right out and admitting the block.
The problem with this action is the type of precedent it might set. Would I be liable for the same offense if I posted the same info on my blog, which is available to all of England. What about a more prominent blogger? It’s interesting to think in this case about what separates the Times as an institutional speaker from less notable (but, in theory, just as accessible to the public) publishers.
A bit more information about the New RIAA Video addressed earlier. It turns out that it was produced while working with Educause, the organization dedicated to the issue of education and technology and is also responsible for handling the .edu domain name. This is surprising to me, as one would have thought that there would have been greater thought and input into creating a balanced yet convincing piece. Someone could have at least checked their legal quote!
Here are a few story links:
In what appears to be little-reported in the U.S. media, the BBC reports:
A US businessman has been charged with offering broadcasts of Hezbollah’s al-Manar satellite television station to customers in the New York-area.
It appears from this report that this individual is being charged with “doing business with a terrorist entity” because of his rebroadcasting of Hezbollah news broadcasts. What is interesting about this is that the broadcasts are news (which may not be balanced, but certainly political speech), and that this is not an individual speaking but rather a business (and as a rebroadcast, it’s not the individual’s own speech). It’s also not immediately clear from the reports whether any money had been given to Hezbollah, or if the spreading of their messages was considered the offense. More charges are said to be pending, so there will certainly be more about this soon.
Edit: it looks as though some of the US media has picked up on it…just not my rss aggregator.
Can the Germans fix Wikipedia?
The wikipedia vandalism problem has pushed the model nearer to the point of restricting access to expert authors in a given area–a point that would make it like a regular encyclopedia.
From what I can tell, the system allows anyone (or perhaps logged in users) to edit a page, but then a “trusted” or “experienced” user reviews the changes and makes them live.
This change makes perfect sense.
Technically, it sounds a lot like Slashdot’s moderation system or Google’s PageRank (TM) system. Outside of the technological realm, it sounds quite a bit like how review works in publication or even the newsroom. Institutions (whether commercial or nonprofit) have a number of inherent factors which ensure content quality. Review processes, history, reputation, legal liability, and internal debate are all things which restrict institutional speech from being completely uninhibited. By mirroring this, in it’s own way, Wikipedia stands to potentially become more reputable while still capitalizing on the benefits of worldwide collaborative editing.
