COPYCENSE

"What do you get when you mix P2P, inexpensive digital input devices, open source software, easy editing tools, and reasonably affordable bandwidth? Potentially, you get what Lawrence Lessig calls remix culture: a rich, diverse outpouring of creativity based on creativity. This is not a certain future, however. Peer-to-peer is on the verge of being effectively outlawed. Continuation of the current copyright regime would mean that vast quantities of creative content will be forever locked away from remix artists.

"Lessig is joining the battle for the remix future on several fronts: the court battle on the legality of P2P; another legal battle to free ‘orphan works’ from their copyright gulag; rolling out new Creative Commons ‘sampling licenses’ with the help of big-name artists like David Byrne; and supporting the ‘free culture’ work of Brazilian musician and culture minister Gilberto Gil toward a society based on freedom of culture.

"In an extensive phone interview, I talked with Professor Lessig about all of these issues. Lessig will expound on many of these same topics in his upcoming keynote at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference, March 14-17 in San Diego."

Richard Koman. Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig. O’Reilly Network. Feb. 24, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"It’s 9:20 p.m. on a recent Wednesday. P.Vo, known by day as Paul Vodra, is the first of 21 DJs who will play at this city’s version of an iPod DJ party. On this night, the iPod serves as the lounge’s source of music, roughly three songs at a time. No turntables. No vinyl. Bring an iPod. Be the DJ. Please sign your DJ name on the white board in the front.

"The iPod Jukebox night attracts mostly white-collar types in their twenties and thirties who heard about it from a friend of a friend, or read about it in a link to a blog. It’s perhaps the most public manifestation of how the iPod has gone mainstream, spawning an entire iPod culture that goes far beyond wearing those distinctive white earphones."

Jose Antonio Vargas. Downloaded and Ready to Rock. WashingtonPost.com. Feb. 25, 2005.

See also:
Leander Kahney. With iPod, Who Needs a Turntable?. Wired News. July 18, 2002.

Methodshop.com. The iPod DJ Revolution.

(Editor�s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archives.)

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

“There will be no winners if we do not sort out copyright, argues columnist Bill Thompson. But let us not forget moral rights.

“Amidst all the ‘will they?, won’t they?’ excitement over whether European patent law should be updated, and whether the version currently on offer will allow US-style software patents, it would be easy to forget that another, bigger, battle continues around the world.

It is the ‘copyfight’ – the continuing dispute over what sort of legal protection creative people or the companies that employ them should have over the ways in which their works are used.”

Bill Thompson. The Copyright ‘Copyfight’ Is On. BBC News. Feb. 18, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"ASCAP updated its Internet licensing to reference podcasts – oh, excuse me, pod-casts – last week. The move may have been intended to answer some questions as to the legality of using music in podcasts, but, as with the webcasting era, it left a lot of people scratching their heads. Is this all we need, just a $288 license to this agency, to be covered through 2005?

"Well, there’s some bad news. The truth is that, no, that’s not everything. In fact, the landscape for music licensing is even more confusing than most people would imagine, and it at times consists of entities who may not even want to sell you a license. Here, I try to break them down. Know that I am not a lawyer, and as such am not going to know much more detail than is absolutely necessary.

Bestkungfu Weblog. Podcasting, Music and the Law. Feb. 15, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Hollywood studios launched a new round of legal action Thursday, aimed in part at people swapping versions of nominated films in Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony.

"As with previous rounds of lawsuits filed by the Motion Picture Association of America, the group’s executives declined to say how many people were targeted in the lawsuits or where the suits were filed. They cited several award-nominated films–including ‘Sideways,’ ‘The Incredibles‘ and ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind‘–as being involved in the lawsuits.

"The MPAA is several months into an aggressive new legal campaign against unauthorized film trading, which has resulted in several key file-swapping hubs being taken offline.

John Borland. Studios Target Oscar Film Swappers. News.com. Feb. 24, 2005.

See also:
Reuters. Hollywood Files More Web Lawsuits. CNN Money. Feb. 24, 2005.

John Borland. MPAA Files New Film-Swapping Suits. News.com. Jan. 26, 2005.

John Borland. File Swapping vs. Hollywood. News.com. Jan. 25, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.