COPYCENSE

This interdisciplinary symposium, featuring Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, will explore the relationship between digital access to public cultural information and intellectual property constraints. In recent years, new legal limitations in the United States have affected public access to the materials held in a variety of different open digital library infrastructures, ranging from those of the Library of Congress to Kazaa. As new technological possibilities and laws governing their many uses emerge, it becomes critical to examine the relationship between digital innovation and legal regulation. This symposium seeks to promote a better understanding of the associated impacts of these changes on the local, national and international levels, both now and in the future.

The symposium is hosted by the MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University’s General Libraries. The symposium will be held from 9 AM – 5:30 PM on October 14, 2005, at Gambrell Hall on the Emory University Campus.

Emory University

Free Culture & the Digital Library

October 14, 2005

Emory University,

Gambrell Hall

1301 Clifton Road

Atlanta, GA 30322

USA

This interdisciplinary symposium, featuring Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, will explore the relationship between digital access to public cultural information and intellectual property constraints. In recent years, new legal limitations in the United States have affected public access to the materials held in a variety of different open digital library infrastructures, ranging from those of the Library of Congress to Kazaa. As new technological possibilities and laws governing their many uses emerge, it becomes critical to examine the relationship between digital innovation and legal regulation. This symposium seeks to promote a better understanding of the associated impacts of these changes on the local, national and international levels, both now and in the future.

The symposium is hosted by the MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University’s General Libraries. The symposium will be held from 9 AM – 5:30 PM on October 14, 2005, at Gambrell Hall on the Emory University Campus.

Emory University

Free Culture & the Digital Library

October 14, 2005

Emory University,

Gambrell Hall

1301 Clifton Road

Atlanta, GA 30322

USA

Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

Political Washington is all abuzz about the confirmation and swearing in last Thursday’s of John G. Roberts, Jr. to be the nation’s 17th Chief Justice of the United States. Roberts’ confirmation was made official just in time for the U.S. Supreme Court to begin its new term this morning, Monday, Oct. 3.

For me, though, the new Supreme Court term is significant not only because the Roberts court will hear and decide its first cases, but also because the new term will be the first Court term that decides intellectual property cases under the new standards the Court established in its Grokster decision.

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Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

The lead story in last weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal was a profile on the Walt Disney Co., and its business strategy for providing content to audiences who, increasingly, are less available via television or the movie theater. Included in the article is a discussion of how one Disney executive bought several Sony PSP units for her team (with the units loaded with episodes of “ABC News” and the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean”) so the team could see what “their shows looked like playing on a smaller screen.”

At minimum, the story suggests that the movie industry’s big players generally have been quicker to revamp their respective business models to accommodate a changed environment than their counterparts in the music industry. (One could make a legitimate counter argument, however, that the movie industry has had more time to learn from the music industry’s mistakes because America’s broadband capabilities allow for easy transmission of music files, but do not yet accommodate the easy movement of movie files, which are significantly larger.)

Any news story that discusses of a large company’s digital content strategy must mention how that company plans to implement digital rights management so that the content is monetized efficiently. And to this end, I find the following paragraph interesting.

The push into new technologies means Disney has to worry more about the growing problem of unauthorized digital copies. [Disney CEO Robert] Iger recently had discussions with Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications Inc., about a programming deal for Verizon’s online services and nascent television operation. Before cutting the deal, Mr. Iger insisted on a provision that requires Verizon to send warnings to its broadband customers identified by Disney as unauthorized copiers of Disney content. The provision was significant because Verizon, intent on protecting the privacy of its customers, had balked at demands made by the music industry in its effort to battle piracy.

The Journal‘s characterization of Verizon’s privacy battle with the music industry is not inaccurate, but it is wanting. In fact, Verizon battled the music industry tooth and nail over a Digital Millennium Copyright Act provision (Section 512(h) of the Copyright Act) that allows an expedited subpoena procedure. The procedure allows content owners to request a subpoena through a court clerk instead of a federal court judge.

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“Twenty members of Congress are calling for the reinstatement of the ‘broadcast flag,’ a controversial form of copy prevention technology

for digital TV broadcasts.

“In a letter Thursday, the politicians called for rapid approval of a federal law adopting the broadcast flag, which would outlaw over-the-air digital TV receivers and computer tuner cards that don’t follow strict anticopying standards.”

Declan McCullagh. Politicians Want to Raise Broadcast Flag. News.com. Sept. 30, 2005.

See also:

Public Knowledge. Broadcast Flag Plot Thickens. In the Know. Sept. 30, 2005.

Declan McCullagh. Are PCs Next in Hollywood Piracy Battle? News.com. Nov. 5, 2003.

Updates:

EFF Deep Links. Stopping the Signal: Broadcast Flag Update #2. Oct. 10, 2005.

"Yahoo, The Internet Archive and several other organizations announced the formation of the Open Content Alliance (OCA) to make thousands of books, multimedia files and other materials freely searchable and accessible online.

"Brewster
Kahle, founder of The Internet Archive, said today’s announcement is a ‘call for open participation in the Open Content Alliance.’ In other
words, the group would love to see other organizations (libraries,
publishers, archives, etc.) join the group."

Gary Price. A New Digital Library Alliance Makes its Debut. SearchEngineWatch. Oct. 3, 2005.

Scott Carlson and Jeffrey R. Young. Yahoo Works With 2 Academic Libraries and Other Archives on Project to Digitize Collections. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Oct. 3, 2005.

Katie Hafner. In Challenge to Google, Yahoo Will Scan Books. The New York Times. Oct. 3, 2005.

Barbara Quint. Open Content Alliance Rises to the Challenge of Google Print. Information Today. Oct. 3, 2005.

Research Buzz. Yahoo Announces Open Content Alliance. Oct. 3, 2005.

Yahoo Search Blog. Announcing the Open Content Alliance. Oct. 2, 2005.