derivative work

aka, “the copyright industry suckup continues”, this time with the elevation of FTC commissioner Jon Leibowitz to Chair. Leibowitz is a former MPAA lobbyist (well, “vice president for congressional affairs”).

The Dept. of Justice is threatening to weigh in on one of the numerous cases relating to the Constitutionality of statutory damages in copyright law. In case anyone hasn’t heard this, the Obama Administration has larded the DOJ with numerous copyright litigators and lobbyists.
I just sent the following letter to whitehouse.gov:

I’m [...]

The ALA’s Copyright Subcommittee (Committee on Legislation) is hosting a panel on the Google Book Settlement at ALA Midwinter this year — Saturday at 1:30 at the Grand Hyatt. (I’m on the committee and on the panel.) Should be interesting.
Come to the Google Book Settlement Session at ALA Midwinter Conference January 24th, 2009, 1:30-3:30, [...]

see below for update 12/19
Obama has appointed the next US Trade Representative, current U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA 31); see also Becerra’s House site. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s going to be in the pocket of tank for Hollywood, just as prior USTR’s have been.
A few notes from some fast research (“googling”):
* He’s a [...]

The entertainment industry has succeeded — at least theoretically — in passing off more of their enforcement costs to the federal government — i.e., the taxpayers. Nice use of government dollars at a time of financial crisis, Congress! Bush signed the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act” (“PROIPA” ?) which, besides [...]

California has followed Oregon in claiming copyright over its state statutes.

how on earth does blizzard keep winning these horrible cases? do they bribe the courts?
Patry covers the new case on software cheats, MDY Industries v. Blizzard.
How one might ask can there be a violation of the Copyright Act if no rights granted under the Act have been violated? Good question.
To [...]

Bill Patry was withering in his critique of the Copyright Alliance’s efforts to define itself as one of the big kids. For example,
Leaving aside the painfully juvenile use of © in voi©e, the math used by the Alliance challenges even the math used by the IIPA in its annual country “piracy” reports.
That is [...]

According to Robert Brauneis’ new paper, “Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song”, the song “Happy Birthday To You” — long held as an example by us copyright reformists — is most likely not copyrighted after all, due to the tortuous path of ownership and failure to re-register.[linked from patry copyright blog]
See also the brauneis [...]

Awesome librarian (and friend) Jenna Freedman has been on the LCSH (“Library of Congress Subject Headings”) for a while for its many failures to recognize current topics and language. She just posted about the new and revised headings, including a new heading for Fair use (copyright).

150 [...]

update 4/16: Both a commenter here and also P.Z. Myers have reported that Expelled filmmakers Premise filed on Monday a DJ (“declaratory judgment”) motion on XVIVO’s copyright claims against them — i.e., asked a judge to look at the evidence & say that they are not infringing. Premise v. XVIVO, N.D. Tex., 4/14/2008.
Here are links [...]

So, Wal-Mart is fighting with its former video contractor over ownership of a variety of recordings of internal Wal-Mart affairs.

An aside: From the description, it seems like some of them might have been automatically captured footage. The question of copyright over surveillance camera footage and other automated recordings is an interesting one, [...]

4/11: I had previously (3/27) drafted a brief commentary on Expelled’s use of copyrighted material. Then, I unposted it while I checked on something, to try to make it more complete. I hadn’t gotten back to it, when the other shoe dropped: One of the copyright holders’ whose material was used in Expelled wrote [...]

This professor is claiming that a student note service violates his copyright on his lectures. (wired 4/4, link from Fred @ EFF on a mailing list)
Student note services gather actual student notes of lectures, and sell them to students — who presumably missed a lecture, took bad notes themselves, or want to see another [...]

The Section 108 study group has finally released their report. See:

Section 108 Study Group
Executive Summary of Report
Full report

For those who are not copyright or library geeks, Section 108 is one of the most important parts of the Copyright Act for libraries.
For those who are having trouble reading the medium-grey on light blue summaries of recommendations [...]

Josh Timonen wrote a detailed synopsis of the movie “Expelled”, the creationist film that tries to argue that creationist views are “unfairly” excluded from the academy.
What piqued my interest about this particular post (there have been hundreds by now about how bad the movie is, the deceptiveness of the filmmakers, P.Z. Myers’ being prevented from [...]

Randy Cohen’s NYT “The Ethicist” column took on “ethics” versus “legality” and got it right. The Ethicist, Feb. 24, 2008.

John Naughton had a nice column last week in The Observer (at the guardian) trashing the British Phonographic Industry. Triggered by their spokesperson’s statement that “For years, ISPs have built a business on other people’s music,” Naughton awarded it “Fatuous Statement of the Month” and went on to excoriate their arrogance and the legislation they’re [...]

Friend and colleague Wendy Seltzer has a new column in Craft Magazine about copyright. Copyright has been increasingly applied by crafters and craft-pattern companies to craft patterns, in “shrinkwrap” style licenses. I’m greatly pleased to see some attention to this issue! Thanks, Wendy!
Related reading:
* idahobeauty writing about the impact of copyright on quilting culture
* RePost [...]

This LA Times article reports on consumer attitudes in LA about “piracy” of goods. Of course, the author (Richard Verrier) seems mortally confused about the differences between trademark and copyright.
Although previous studies have documented piracy’s toll on the Los Angeles economy, the U.S. Chamber report is the first to focus on the attitudes and behavior [...]