derivative work

People have called my attention to a few more copyright & related matters lately: * Darren Barefoot, who did the project “GetAFirstLife.com“, received a

Suddenly there’s a lot of press about the rights enforcement companies and their P2P notices — this Washington Post article and this AP story are just two of the recent press. How timely — I just finished a report on exactly this issue. I spoke with representatives from 25 different educational institutions and online service [...]

In a NYT article on the alleged “gyroball” pitch, I saw this note: Tezuka feels so strongly about the gyroball that he has tried to get it copyrighted. “I couldn’t get that,” he said through Masa Niwa, an interpreter. In Japan, I presume? I wish I had more details on this.

The US copyright lobby (as represented by the “International Intellectual Property Alliance”, a confusingly named consortium of US copyright lobbying groups) has just done a report on the failures of the rest of the world to properly protect its members’ intellectual property. We care, because it submits this report (solicited? unsolicited?) to the US Trade [...]

One might think it would sometimes be in the best interests of a corporation to take the high road, but McDonald’s has chosen to go for the glory. McD’s slapped a cease and desist letter on an art gallery selling “Cokespoon #2″ — a gold-plated versions of a 1980s vintage McD’s coffee stirrer that was [...]

For the bibliophiles and geeks. Credits posted on YouTube: It’s from a show called Øystein & Meg (Øystein & I) produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting television channel (NRK) in 2001. The spoken language is Norwegian, the subs in Danish. It’s written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad.