derivative work

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 [...]

Some poor kid took a short clip of the Transformers movie, and was hauled out and arrested. The theater (Regal Cinemas Ballston Common 12, in Arlington, Virginia) is pressing charges that could land this 19yo in prison for a year for the 20-second film clip. She recorded the clip to show her little brother, because [...]

Last week a copyright imbroglio broke out at a science blog which had written a post critiquing mainstream coverage of a science article; the blog had posted a figure from the paper to demonstrate bad science writing in the mainstream media. Wiley sent a C&D; the blogger agreed to take the material down (actually took [...]

In an SFgate story about conflicts between folks trying to take Shaolin practice in different directions, I spotted this: In recent years, the main temple’s abbot, Shi YongXin, has tried to copyright the Shaolin name. He’s also been criticized for commercializing the faith. YongXin gave his approval to Ho’s venture in San Francisco. Really? I [...]

I just got around to reading the weekend’s Washington Post Google Print editorials, pro (Mary Sue Coleman, UMich Pres) & con (Nick Taylor, Authors’ Guild). Short editorials, and I suppose the format limits their ability to go beyond rhetoric (“access to vast libraries of content” … “this is a socialist plot!”) into any actual legal [...]

Concerned about massive copyright infringement? The folks at unhappy birthday.com are, too, and have some suggestions for how you can help. [link from sivacracy]

San Francisco’s counterPULSE Theater got a cease-and-desist from Fox TV demanding they cancel their sold-out live action performance of “Once More, With Feeling” (the Buffy musical). According to SFist, Buffy creator Joss Whedon said he had no objection to the staging of the show. [link from whedonesque]

WebIndia has a report about a fight between a tattoo artist and a tattoo recipient. (I found it odd that it was listed in the sports page until I thought, hmm, maybe Beckham is some sort of athlete; then I remembered the soccer flick “Bend It Like Beckham” and suddenly the title made sense, and [...]

I’ve heard stories like this before, but this AP article [boston.com 6/16] has more discussion about the problems caused by private third-party policing of copyrights.

“I would call upon everyone who has access to ‘Eyes on the Prize’ to openly violate any and all laws regarding its showing,” says civil rights leader Lawrence Guyot, who led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and today is a program manager for the D.C. Department of Human Services. from