derivative work

Larry O’Brien tells a cautionary tale of software book publishers and the derivative works right.

There’s just something strange about a system that gives a market more incentive to police pictures than pacemakers. A good candidate for quote of the year, from Wendy Seltzer. [copyfight 12/29]

Today is a beautifully misty day, perfect for leisurely procrastination from holiday tasks like installing back-up hard drives for the mom-in-law. (Well, “in-law” if we were in Mass.; everywhere else in the US, “mom-in-out-law”.) So naturally I found myself doing a little backlog reading of blogs that I don’t read every day, and was fortunate [...]

It was the only thing to do, after such postings as: There’s No “War” in “Warrant”1 (12/17): So George Bush secretly authorized the NSA to spy on Americans without warrants or judicial oversight. Oh, it violates your civil liberties, oh, it illegally breaks the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, oh, that tape of you and your [...]

As a former medical librarian I thought this editorial by a medical librarian in the BMJ was fascinating. First this amazing information: Within a year of its release Google Scholar has led more visitors to many biomedical journal websites than has PubMed (J Sack, personal communication, 2005). … which certainly lends credence to the pro-tagging, [...]

David Klinghoffer @ the National Review is confused, perhaps willfully, about the Kitzmiller decision. He describes the decision thusly: If ID is bogus because many of its theorists have religious beliefs to which the controversial critique of Darwinism lends support, then what should we say about Darwinism itself? After all, many proponents of Darwinian evolution [...]

oh happy day! The war on us is progressing nicely and soon we will have won the war against ourselves. Phones are being tapped willy-nilly and surely some of them will generate some useful information to allow us to be held without trial or access to the courts indefinitely under the president’s powers. The government [...]

My friend badgerbag was hanging out & making pastry with various kids, including her own, when one of the kids started acting up. There followed this exchange: Oh and at some point Moomin went, “Besides, Sophie… Jesus says you should be kind and love other people.” WHAAAAAT? I freaked out! What what what? I mean, [...]

Happy holidays and merry xmas to rational Christians: Judge Jones (a Bush 43 appointee) has not only found the obvious religious motivation in the Dover School Board’s actions, but also found the obvious religious motivation in the development of the intelligent design curriculum. [decision available @ MD PA court website and also @ msnbc. News [...]

This nyt article on teen s3xc@ms raised a lot of interesting issues, not least of which was the role of the NYT reporter(s) in developing the story. update 3pm 12/20: I see that I wasn’t alone in finding the journalist ethics issues troubling. Jack Shafer @ Slate also raised the issue, and got the reporter [...]

Love this quote on the right-wing frothing about Prof. Mirecki’s email [from The Panda's Thumb]: [T]hey hate “Hate Crime” legislation, driven to rabid frothing at the mere mention of “politically correct” language. They are such fierce opponents (they say) of limits to free speech intended particularly to block racist speech; the term “PC” in the [...]

“I wish with all my heart that you will be able to publish a new translation.” — Simone de Beauvoir, 1982. Another example of copyright being used by the copyright owner to control or restrict dissemination of a copyrighted work — regardless of the likely desires of the creator. Ampersand at Alas, a Blog writes [...]

I’ve changed hosts for this website & blog, to dreamhost. We’ll see how it goes. It can’t be any worse than my former server, with its outsourced-to-a-FSU* tech support and its 90% uptime. Already I like the way dreamhost sets up administration for multiple domains. It seems very logical & straightforward to me. It’s open [...]

aka “Pokémon Producers Pissed” Pier Paolo Pandolfi of Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has apparently received a trademark cease & desist from the Pokémon company (Nintendo) after cancer-related research on the Pokemon gene — which Pandolfi’s lab named four years ago, in 2001 — received headlines like “Pokemon Causes Cancer”. Sloan-Kettering has knuckled under, now calling the [...]

One internal F.B.I. message, sent in October 2003, criticized the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review at the Justice Department, which reviews and approves terrorist warrants, as regularly blocking requests from the F.B.I. to use a section of the antiterrorism law that gave the bureau broader authority to demand records from institutions like banks, Internet [...]

A human being who was doing valuable work, and helping to make the world better, was killed in San Quentin, California, just after midnight, Tuesday December 13. [See SaveTookie.org for details of Mr. Williams' anti-gang and anti-violence work.] “I could find no justification for granting clemency.” [Schwarzenegger Statement following Clemency Decision, 2005/12/12.] Tookie Williams was [...]

Eric Rothschild, representing the Kitzmiller plaintiffs, in Plaintiffs’ Response to Defendants’ Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law: Defendants spend 898 paragraphs of proposed factual findings and 52 proposed legal conclusions avoiding the mountain of inconvenient evidence demonstrating that the Dover Area School Board’s change to the biology curriculum was done for religious reasons, [...]

Fascinating. A pictorial history of an artist’s descent into schizophrenia. Louis Wain, 1860-1939, effects of late onset schizophrenia on cat drawings. Part of a larger piece on schizophrenia. [link from miscellaneous heathen] More info at wikipedia. The early paintings during the onset of Mr. Wain’s schizophrenia reminded me of some of the migraine paintings we [...]

The sad story of PearLyrics is being widely reposted [See alandwilliams, sideshow, boingboing.] I’m just sorry that I didn’t hear about it before the designer responded to the C&D by taking down the code. Dan Gillmore (12/3) on telcos attacking the open web: basically, carriers would like to become editors or distributors, content selectors, rather [...]

a variety of exciting carnivals to read: fourth carnival of the feminists (#1 – #2 – #3) carnival of the liberals #1 and i wonder where is the anarchist carnival? carnival of the godless is looking for postings for #29 (12/11) a copyright carnival has been proposed (although when I google “copyright carnival” i note [...]