COPYCENSE

“In some quarters of the Internet, the three most hated letters of the alphabet are DRM. They stand for Digital Rights Management, a set of technologies for limiting how people can use the music and video files they’ve purchased from legal downloading services. DRM is even being used to limit what you can do with the music you buy on physical CDs, or the TV shows you record with a TiVo or other digital video recorder.

“Once mainly known inside the media industries and among activists who follow copyright issues, DRM is gradually becoming familiar to average consumers, who are increasingly bumping up against its limitations.”

Walter S. Mossberg. Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers’ Activities. The Wall Street Journal Online. Oct. 20, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“A small software developer plans to seek royalties from companies that use XML, the latest example of patent claims embroiling the tech industry.

“Charlotte, N.C.-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426) covering the transfer of “data in neutral forms.” These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert.”

Martin LaMonica. Small Company Makes Big Claims on XML Patents. News.com. Oct. 21, 2005.

See also:

Joe Beyers. Rise of the Patent Trolls. News.com. Oct. 12, 2005.

Michael Kanellos. Companies Trying to Cash in Via Licenses, Lawsuits. News.com. July 20, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

K. Matthew Dames, the executive editor of CopyCense, is speaking at several sessions of this week’s Internet Librarian 2005 conference in Monterey, Calif. Internet Librarian 2005 is produced by Information Today.

Dames will conduct a pre-conference workshop on Sunday, October 23 entitled The Mechanics of Licensing Digital Information. The description for this workshop follows:

License agreements have become as common as the electronic information being protected. If you use Lexis or JSTOR, Microsoft Word, or an iPod, you have consented to a license agreement. Many info pros do not totally understand license agreements—the terms contained; their relation to copyright law; or their impact on customers, institutions, or themselves. This workshop explains what license agreements are, how these agreements impact the traditional model of acquiring information, how to read and interpret license agreements, and how to negotiate the terms and conditions of a license agreement so that many of your critical rights are preserved.

Separate registration is required for the workshop (Workshop 14), which begins at 9:00 AM PST and ends at 12:00 noon PST.

(Dames also will be speaking during the main conference session. More information about his talk, “The Digital Guerilla: Building a (Nearly) Free Virtual Collaboration Suite,” is available at OpenWyre, a sister Seso Digital blog.)

Supplemental materials for this workshop, including a copy of Mr. Dames’ slide presentation, available below.

For more information about retaining K. Matthew Dames as a consultant, speaker or trainer, please contact Seso Digital LLC at mail [at] sesodigital.com.

Slide Presentation

K. Matthew Dames. The Mechanics of Digital Licensing. (.pdf, 1.1 MB) Workshop given at Internet Librarian 2005. Monterey, Calif. Oct. 23. 2005.

Supplemental Materials: Contracts Law

• Legal Information Institute. “Law About Contracts.” A good overview of contract law, with links to the relevant provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code.
• National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws: NCCUSL drafts laws, rules, and procedures that are consistent from state to state. It is the organization responsible for drafting the Uniform Commercial Code, including UCC Article 2, which concerns the sale and lease of goods.

Supplemental Materials: Copyright Law

• CopyCense™: CopyCense™ provides news and commentary about the intersection of law and technology, with a particular focus on copyright and licensing.
• United States Copyright Office: The Web site of the federal agency that advises Congress on intellectual property matters and anticipated changes in U.S. copyright law; analyzes and assists in drafting copyright legislation and legislative reports for Congress; maintains a registry of copyrighted works; and promulgates rules about the procedure for registering works.
• Copyright Law: A full online version of Title 17 of the United States Code. Sections 106, 109, and 301 (among others) are relevant to the overlap between licensing and copyright.

Supplemental Materials: Licensing Resources

• CopyCense™: CopyCense™ provides news and commentary about the intersection of law and technology, with a particular focus on copyright and licensing.
• Yale University Libraries. LibLicense: Licensing Digital Information. The leading Web site for academic professionals who have to deal with negotiating electronic content licenses. Includes a glossary, model license, term analysis, and compendium of publishers’ licenses (although this last section contains many outdated links).
• Creative Commons. One of the leading commercial licensing initiatives, the Creative Commons provides licenses that protect or give away an author’s copyright according to his or her level of comfort and beneficence.
• Association of Research Libraries. Licensing Electronic Resources. Another good resource for academic professionals who must negotiated electronic content licenses.
• University of Texas. Licensing Resources. A good single-sheet summary of the intersection of copyright and licensing, with relevant links to other, more broad sources.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation. Dangerous Terms: A User’s Guide to EULAs. Along with the Ed Foster sites (immediately below), EFF analyzes End User Licensing Agreements, or EULAs, which are some of the most common — and potentially onerous — license agreements most people or organizations will encounter. Unlike electronic content licenses, however, EULAs rarely are negotiated. The EFF site provides tips on what to watch for, and how to avoid having your rights eliminated.
• InfoWorld. The Gripe Line Weblog. Ed Foster is one of the leading observers and critics of EULAs, and this forum is a good place to monitor EULA changes and trends.
• Ed Foster. Ed Foster’s GripeLog. A companion site to The Gripe Line Weblog, Foster’s own GripeLog contains slightly different content than what appears on the InfoWorld site.
• University of Western Australia Library. Principles for Licencing Electronic Resources. Provides a good overview of key licensing terms, and optimal limits that educators should seek during licensing negotiations.
• International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Licensing Principles. Presents a “set of basic principles that should prevail in the contractual relationship and written contracts between libraries and information providers.”

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Two of the digital music world’s biggest mavericks are teaming up, as MP3.com and MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson brings Norwegian hacker Jon Johansen into his latest venture.

“A prediction? Feathers are likely to be ruffled somewhere in the world.

“Johansen is widely known as the independent programmer who released code online in 1999 that can help crack through the antipiracy protections on DVDs.”

John Borland. ‘DVD Jon’ Joins Another Maverick. News.com. Oct. 19, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Well, it appears that Google will be heading to court, again, over their Google Library book digitization program.”

“According to this news release, one of the largest trade groups of publishers in the U.S., the Association of American Publishers (AAP) that represents more than 300 members (here’s a list) including many commercial book publishers, is suing Google over the program.”

Gary Price. Association of American Publishers Sues Google over Library Digitization Plan. SearchEngineWatch. Oct. 19, 2005.

See also:

Alorie Gilbert. Publishers Sue Google Over Book Search Project. News.com. Oct. 19, 2005.

The Association of American Publishers. Publishers Sue Google Over Plans To Digitize Books. (Press Release.) Oct. 19, 2005.

Gary Price. Google Print Press Review & Just A Bit About Search Inside the Book. SearchEngineWatch. Oct. 18, 2005.

Search & Text Mining Report™ K. Matthew Dames & Stephen E. Arnold on the business, technology, and law of search.