Fair Use Support Building
"A group of technology vendors, consumer rights groups, and ISPs are banding together to support 18-month-old U.S. House legislation that would let consumers make personal copies of copyrighted digital products, including movies and music.
"The Personal Technology Freedom Coalition has kicked an effort to push the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act through Congress. The legislation was introduced in January 2003 by Rick Boucher. It would allow consumers to break copy controls to do such things as make personal copies of compact discs or movies. Supporters say the bill is necessary to protect consumers’ so-called fair-use rights to make personal copies, which the (DMCA) curtails."
Grant Gross. Looser Digital Copyright Laws Urged.PC World. June 22, 2004.
See Also Declan McCullagh. Tech Heavies Support Challenge to Copyright Law. News.com. June 21, 2004.
Copyright Bill Targets Technology
"A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate would, if passed, dramatically reshape copyright law by prohibiting file-trading networks and some consumer electronics devices on the grounds that they could be used for unlawful purposes.
"The proposal, called the Induce Act, says ‘whoever intentionally induces any violation’ of copyright law would be legally liable for those violations, a prohibition that would effectively ban file-swapping networks like Kazaa and Morpheus. In the draft bill seen by CNET News.com, inducement is defined as "aids, abets, induces, counsels, or procures" and can be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms.
"The bill represents the latest legislative attempt by influential copyright holders to address what they view as the growing threat of peer-to-peer networks rife with pirated music, movies and software."
Declan McCullagh. Antipiracy Bill Targets Technology. News.com. June 17, 2004.
Stupid Licensing Tricks
"The old licensing argument is that you ‘signed’ a shrink-wrap agreement when you opened the package. This in itself is stupid. What if I can’t read? What if I’m 12? If I want to protest the signing of a software licensing agreement because the terms are onerous, I am told that I simply cannot purchase, er, I mean license, the product. But since Microsoft is a monopoly, what choice do I have? How am I not trapped in a form of indentured servitude? Does anyone find this as annoying as I do? I’m having weird dreams about it."
John Dvorak. License Dirt, While You’re At It. PC Magazine. June 14, 2004.
The High Cost of Copyright Permissions
"When some 20,000 first-year American medical students reported to their schools last summer, they received a free 20-minute multimedia collage of music, text and short video clips from television doctor dramas, past and present, burned onto a CD-ROM.
"’The patients you meet in the coming years may have doubts about you because of the doctors they see on prime-time television,’ the introduction reads. ‘The aim of this presentation is to explore why that is, and suggest what you can do about it.’
"But the CD was perhaps more of an education for its developer, Joseph Turow, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication.
"’It’s crazy,’ Professor Turow said of the labyrinth of permissions, waivers and fees he navigated to get the roughly three minutes of video clips included on the CD, which was paid for by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The process took months, Professor Turow said, and cost about $17,000 in fees and royalties paid to the various studios and guilds for the use of clips. The film used ranged from, for example, a 1961 episode of ‘Ben Casey’ to a more-recent scene from ‘ER.’"
Tom Zeller, Jr. Permissions on Digital Media Drive Scholars to Lawbooks. The New York Times. June 14, 2004.
Knowledge Held Hostage Web site.
(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)
Report on the Information Commons
"The Internet offers unprecedented possibilities for human creativity, global communication, and access to information. Yet digital technology also invites new forms of information enclosure. In the last decade, mass media companies have developed methods of control that undermine the public’s traditional rights to use, share, and reproduce information and ideas. These technologies, combined with dramatic consolidation in the media industry and new laws that increase its control over intellectual products, threaten to undermine the political discourse, free speech, and creativity needed for a healthy democracy.
"In response to the crisis, librarians, cyber-activists, and other public interest advocates have sought ways to expand access to the wealth of resources that the Internet promises, and have begun to build online communities, or "commons," for producing and sharing information, creative works, and democratic discussion. This report documents the information commons movement, explains its importance, and outlines the theories and "best practices" that have developed to assist its growth."
Nancy Kranich. The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report. The Free Expression Policy Project. (.pdf version) 2004.
The Future of Music
"The future playback of recorded music will not be tied to physical media (e.g., compact discs) or singular virtual players (e.g., iPods), but to many objects with shapes and sizes designed to appeal to our tactile relationships with music and, at the same time, to have the features of a virtual music device. I imagine these being called Playbacks.
"Playbacks may look like CDs. Many will cost about the same cost as a CD. But, Playbacks will be everywhere, appearing as all kinds of things. Some will look like traditional recorded media (CDs, tapes, LPs), but some will look utterly different."
The Ear Reverends. The Future of Music Playback. June 6, 2004.
The New Music Marketing
"Today’s music fan interacts with a "community" that is far larger than anyone ever dreamed possible before the widespread personal use of the Internet. This social networking is changing the way people market and sell music and it’s doing so on a global scale.
"Here’s how: One fan hears a song and ‘tells’ a dozen others online. Each in turn sends the information (and sometimes the entire song file) to another dozen people, and so on. If the song’s hook is catchy and universal enough, the artist can reach thousands of fans in a matter of seconds. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s free, and it’s global.
"Does this viral communication bring any income for that artist (or songwriter, or publisher, or manager, or agent, or distributor, or record label)? No. But does it provide vital publicity that has the potential to sell singles, albums, concert tickets and merchandise? Absolutely."
eMediaWire. Social Networking and Music Marketing: MySpace.com is Putting It All Together. June 5, 2004.
COPYCENSE 