COPYCENSE

"WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the most popular television shows of the late ’70s and early ’80s, but it is unlikely ever to be released on DVD because of high music-licensing costs.

"For many TV shows, costs to license the original music for DVD are prohibitively high, so rights owners replace the music with cheaper tunes, much to the irritation of avid fans. And some shows, like WKRP, which is full of music, will probably never make it to DVD because of high licensing costs."

Katie Dean. Copyrights Keep TV Shows Off DVD. Wired News. March 1, 2005.

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"Backed by powerful technology groups and a handful of artists, file-swapping software companies on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject proposals from the entertainment industry that could put them out of business.

"Record labels and Hollywood studios, seeking to overturn lower court rulings shielding file-swapping companies, have asked the court to rule that businesses distributing products ‘predominately’ devoted to copyright infringement should be held legally responsible for that illegal activity."

John Borland. P2P Companies Ask High Court for Help. News.com. March 1, 2005.

See also:
Grant Gross. Showdown Looms for P2P Networks. PC World. March 1, 2005.

Dawn C. Chmielewski. Intel Urges High Court to Protect File-Sharing. SilconValley.com. March 2, 2005.

Alex Veiga. Leading Scientists Back File-Sharing Firms. ABC News. March 1, 2005.

Jefferson Graham. Tech Industry Outlines File-Sharing Argument. USA Today. March 1, 2005.

Jonathan Krim. Artists Break With Industry on File Sharing. WashingtonPost.com. March 1, 2005.

(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.)

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"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.