Category: Copyright

e-Publishing on the B, C, and D list

David Pogue explains his hesitation to e-Publish his book:

Unfortunately, I’ve had terrible experiences releasing my books in electronic form. Twice in my career, ‘blind’ people e-mailed me, requesting a PDF of one of my books. Both times, I sent one over–and both times, it was all over the piracy sites within 48 hours, free for anyone to download.

He goes on to point out that the “pay what you like” model really only works well for creators with an established name.

So the choice appears to be: lock a work down in a physical publication / DRM, or go for broke… what’s an author to do? It’s a tough question–and one that Pogue admits he’s glad not to have to address for readily digitiz-able media like music and film. I won’t pretend to have any answers, but one other counter to the “Slashdot argument” is that arguably the majority of downloaders wouldn’t pay full price (or sometimes anything) for a copyrighted work. Exposure from free downloads might be worth something, even if it doesn’t put food in your family’s mouth. Naturally this view files in the face of the law and norms of publishing.

When everyone opts for the pirated download version and authors can’t make money from those of us who can afford a legit copy–then we have a problem.

Catsup

Some of these go way back…

  • Best Buy challenges FCC over analog TV sales penalty: If this continues it could become a defining case in the reach of the FCC.
  • YouTomb: “YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.” Great idea!
  • Fight shaping up over Oregon’s state law copyright claims: “State laws are not themselves copyrighted, of course, but Oregon claims that all the ancillary material in the Revised Statutes—including section numbers and headings—is copyrighted.” Can a body of law be useful without organization? Can a state copyright that organizational work product? I’d argue laws should be completely “open source” for reasons of transparency and legitimacy.
  • How YouTube’s sucking up to Modest Mouse (and other giants of media): Uploads [to YouTube] of music videos from the band by non-official sources now carry a link reading “Contains content from Sony BMG…” Very interesting permissive, automatic copyright licensing.

Catching up

Catching up on the news feed today. It seems to take so much longer when there’s lots of interesting stuff to read.

The bill is intended to “promote competition, to facilitate trade, and to ensure competitive and non-discriminatory access to the Internet.”

It does so by outlawing discriminatory fees for providing content, applications, or services over the ‘Net. Internet providers also have to interact fully with the networks of their competitors and provide equal access to all users and any devices they wish to put on the network. Network providers would be allowed to provide favored service to specific types of data but, if they do, they have to provide that same favoritism to anybody transmitting the data, and couldn’t charge for it.

  • FCC 2.0: Change we can believe in? (Ars): An interesting overview of what could happen at the FCC should a democrat Obama be elected (here’s a riddle: who was president in 1996?).
  • Chief RIAA Litigator Named Colorado Judge (Wired): The RIAA’s “top litigator” as an appeals judge. This might not seem as troublesome (he’s said to be a top notch lawyer) if the tactic of suing thousands of file sharers weren’t so legally and socially controversial.

Briefly…

New Orphaned Works Act would limit copyright liability (Ars)
Without passing any kind of judgment on our copyright structure, we should realize that “orphan works” wouldn’t be a problem in earlier versions of the law. Shorter terms and registration/renewal requirements would solve this in the clearest possible way.

State Secrets (New Yorker)
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but I understand it’s a worthwhile overview of a wiretapping case.

Your virginity for Net neutrality (MSNBC)
Um, I’ll let this speak for itself.

The Music Industry’s Extortion Scheme (Slate)
$5 a month conveniently added to your Internet bill for all the music you could want. Aside from the slippery slope to fees for other media, this would literally make music worthless. Where’s the identity in ownership for music you didn’t even have to take time to consider what you want?

Georgia only occasionally on my mind (Patry)
A great catch on the issue of sovereign immunity in the Georgia State decision. Who’s liable in this case? The instructors?

Here, Warren and Cobb focus on the fact that their allegedly infringing activities were done in the scope of their employment. As discussed above, however, the test is not whether the acts were done in the course of an employee’s official duties but whether a judgment against the employee would in fact operate against the state.

Here’s an interesting read on sovereign immunity.