derivative work

(edited & corrected as I learn more) According to MacObserver, the French legislation opening DRM (like that on apple’s ipod) has now passed into law. Presumably, this was supposed to open up Apple’s scheme to competitors so music purchased at iTunes store will play on other devices. According to consumer groups this portion was quite [...]

I just got back from ALA for a panel on RFID (“Tiny Trackers”). As usual, ALA was chock-full of stimulating folks and ideas. A few notes follow, but first a report about New Orleans. New Orleanians were grateful for ALA’s presence. ALA was the first large conference to keep its commitment to New Orleans since [...]

Bill Patry posted on the ongoing trend in popular discourse to treat copyright as a property right, contextualizing it with the traditional view of copyright infringement as a tort. Go read Patry’s post, and as for me, I’m going to dig up this very smart Birrell article.

Out of the thickets of antitrust doctrine (“Noerr-Pennington”, anyone?) comes a District Court decision concluding that “‘misuse of copyright’ is a viable defense to a copyright infringement action”, and concluding similarly to the unclean hands defense. Hitherto the 8th Circuit had punted on copyright misuse, finding it not applicable in the particular cases it reviewed, [...]

The first stage of our new fair use project is online — the Fair Use Network website, at http://fairusenetwork.org/ . At present, we’re focusing on consumer resources, and version 1.0 includes resources for recipients of copyright cease-and-desist letters or DMCA § 512 takedown notices. Similar resources for trademark will be coming online later. Version 2.0 [...]

* Alas (a blog) has deemed Father’s Day “queer sex day” for very good reasons. * Jon Stewart points out the obvious to Bill Bennett’s proffered state rationale for recognizing only male-female marriages: Divorce doesn’t occur because 50% of marriages end in gayness. * New York’s highest court (the confusingly named “Court of Appeals”) heard [...]

Research done on women’s and men’s favorite novels turned up that women have a diverse reading list; men are more focused on a smaller number of titles; and — surprise, surprise — women’s favorite books include both male & female authors, but men’s favorite books are pretty much all men. (Harper Lee is the exception.) [...]

we knew this, right? that legislative attempts to do something positive for consumers were likely doomed? [nyt 6/9] consumers, if you get Internet service from a phone or cable company, do you think you pay enough to have service already? do you think your broadband provider ought to be able to charge you more for [...]

Two quickies: (1) badgerbag posted this photo of Walgreen’s “Emergency Contraception Encounter Form” — probably from California, but perhaps implemented elsewhere. Nine states (including California) allow women to get EC directly from a pharmacist. Apparently, this is what women have to do to get EC. Holy Griswold, Batgirl. (2) The FCC has finally broken thru [...]

(1) Today’s NYT article on “tough questions” for gubernatorial candidates on abortion: all the gubernatorial candidates quoted are men. [NYT 6/5] (2) Mercury Rising discusses what happened to Wen Ho Lee after the racist government debacle a few years back. [sideshow 6/4] (3) I don’t believe I’ve plugged Ann Bartow’s “Fair Use and the Fairer [...]