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Last I checked, there's that thing called fair use that actually allows educational non-profit use of copyrighted works, so you can get off your moral high horse.

>"Virtually impossible" to use the school's computers for schoolwork? How did we live before Google Images?

I also attended school without Internet access, but damn it's a valuable educational resource to have and it wouldn't cross my mind to demolish that resource simply to protect my prudish and backwards sense of morality (assuming I had one). In short: move over grandpa.

The fee is (more or less) 1% of gross revenue if you're a cable system.

See section 111 here:

http://www.copyright.gov/title...


(F) If the actual gross receipts paid by subscribers to a cable system for the period covered by the statement for the basic service of providing secondary transmissions of primary broadcast transmitters are more than $263,800 but less than $527,600, the royalty fee payable under this paragraph to copyright owners pursuant to paragraph (3) shall be—

(i) 0.5 percent of any gross receipts up to $263,800, regardless of the number of distant signal equivalents, if any; and

(ii) 1 percent of any gross receipts in excess of $263,800, but less than $527,600, regardless of the number of distant signal equivalents, if any.

Penalties are provided for knowing material misrepresentations in either a notice or a counter notice.

if you file a counter claim to get things put back up claiming misidentification or mistake and you are found to be infringing anyway, you could be on the hook for the copyright holder's attorney's fees. If the counter-claim requires a reason, I would recommend something other than one of these two.

As I understand the actual text of the statute, the reason in the counter-claim must be "mistake or misidentification". The notice of claimed infringement includes an assertion that the use "is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." If you have a license from the copyright owner (such as the GPL), then the use is "authorized by the copyright owner", and if your use is covered under some statutory defense such as fair use, then it is "authorized by [...] the law". In either case, the copyright owner made a "mistake" by sending a notice where there is no infringement. I'm not a lawyer, but it would appear to me that an alleged infringer can demonstrate enough of a "good faith belief" to avoid a "knowing material misrepresentation" by summarizing the legal theory of a noninfringement defense in the counter-notice.

DMCA requires that the service provider wait no fewer than ten and no more than fourteen days after forwarding the counter-notification and then put it back up if the service provider has not received notice of suit in that period.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure about the section in bold requiring the ISP to wait 10 days. The phrasing is weird. Here is the relevant section of the DMCA(emphasis mine):

Under the knowledge standard, a service provider is eligible for the limitation on liability only if it does not have actual knowledge of the infringement, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent, or upon gaining such knowledge or awareness, responds expeditiously to take the material down or block access to it.

The statute also establishes procedures for proper notification, and rules as to its effect. (Section 512(c)(3)). Under the notice and takedown procedure, a copyright owner submits a notification under penalty of perjury, including a list of specified elements, to the service providerâ(TM)s designated agent. Failure to comply substantially with the statutory requirements means that the notification will not be considered in determining the requisite level of knowledge by the service provider. If, upon receiving a proper notification, the service provider promptly removes or blocks access to the material identified in the notification, the provider is exempt from monetary liability. In addition, the provider is protected from any liability to any person for claims based on its having taken down the material. (Section 512(g)(1)).

In order to protect against the possibility of erroneous or fraudulent notifications, certain safeguards are built into section 512. Subsection (g)(1) gives the subscriber the opportunity to respond to the notice and takedown by filing a counter notification. In order to qualify for the protection against liability for taking down material, the service provider must promptly notify the subscriber that it has removed or disabled access to the material. If the subscriber serves a counter notification complying with statutory requirements, including a statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed or disabled through mistake or misidentification, then unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the subscriber, the service provider must put the material back up within 10-14 business days after receiving the counter notification.

Penalties are provided for knowing material misrepresentations in either a notice or a counter notice. Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed or blocked through mistake or misidentification, is liable for any resulting damages (including costs and attorneysâ(TM) fees) incurred by the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or its licensee, or the service provider. (Section 512(f)).

I believe the last paragraph does allow for penalties for deliberately false take down notices. The problem is that you would have to actually take the case to court and discover that they knew the notices would be false. IANAL but if I read this right, if you file a counter claim to get things put back up claiming misidentification or mistake and you are found to be infringing anyway, you could be on the hook for the copyright holder's attorney's fees. If the counter-claim requires a reason, I would recommend something other than one of these two.

I'd hate to say it, even though I think copyright is too long now, going after people who do zero day releases is within reasonable copyright time.

Copyright act of 1790 set the limits to 14 years, then another 14 if the author was still alive. I'm not sure how to read the penalties, since I'm not a lawyer from the late 18th century.

see: http://www.copyright.gov/histo...

If you purchase a copy, you own that copy and retain all first-sale rights.

Could you offer a link, where this legal quirk is convincingly explained?

You got told copyright trumps first sale and you actually _believed_ it?

109 . Limitations on exclusive rights: Effect of transfer of particular copy or phonorecord (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106(3), the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under this title, or any person authorized by such owner, is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy or phonorecord. Notwithstanding the preceding sentence, copies or phonorecords of works subject to restored copyright under section 104A [doesn't apply, chase the link yourself.]

First sale was settled in 1908 by the Supreme Court, and it's been statute law since copyright was codified in 1976. Anyone who claims to know anything at all about copyright and feeds you that line is playing you for a chump.

The code clearly states that distributions by unauthorized person is a crime. charging is irrelevant.

False. Though all unauthorized distribution is illegal, not all of it constitutes a criminal offense. To make the perpetrator a felon, according to paragraphs; 506 federal Title 17 of the United States Code, the distribution must be committed:

1. for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
2. by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
3. by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.

Our protagonist qualifies for the first item above. And so do his current jailers. Small-time non-profit distributors — such as torrent-users, who keep the stuff they just downloaded available, but not for long enough to qualify for the second case — do not.

Very well. Then had she any copyright in the work to begin with, it would have vested in her. Unfortunately, she didn't have any copyright to anything.

At least read the circular from the copyright office with the short version of how and to whom copyright vests:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs...

"Copyright law protects a work from the time it is created in a fixed form. From the moment it is set in a print or electronic manuscript, a sound recording, a computer software program, or other such concrete medium, the copyright becomes the property of the author who created it. Only the author or those
deriving rights from the author can rightfully claim copyright."

Garcia isn't the author here. The cameraman is. He's the one who "created" the film.

Game mechanics can't be copyrighted.

Coke hasn't copyrighted their recipe because recipes themselves are not copyrightable. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/f...

Err, recipes in and of themselves are not copyrightable.

Now collections of recipes are (e.g. cookbooks), but recipes themselves do not hold a copyright.

>But you must keep in mind (as I mentioned above) that to get monetary renumeration--rather than an injunction--you must have registered your work with the Copyright Office before the violation. And it must be registered--before or after the violation--to be able to make a claim.

I thought you were wrong, so I started looked up references. As it turns out, you're right.

The law: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap4.html#412

Slightly more readable: http://thompsonhall.com/why-you-must-register-a-copyright/

If I find a way to grow orange corn, and add a buttery salt to it, and sell it as "BringsApples Corn (TM)", then no other person can sell corn and call it "BringsApples Corn (TM)", but they can grow orange corn, butter it with salty stuff and call it "Similar_Name Corn (TM)". Since I'd have my own recipe, your corn may not be as good as mine, or it may be better. Look at the similarities on the ingredients of Coke and Pepsi.

You are confusing patent & copyright with trademark - http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/basics/ - when you want to trademark (TM) on the name you want to use for your product and others cannot, and trade secret - http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/ip_business/trade_secrets/trade_secrets.htm - your process/ingredient of your product that is not supposed to be disclosed to anyone but your own! Of course, they all are intellectual properties, but they are not the same.

Then you may need to elaborate about patenting "orange corn" because there are multiple ways of doing so -- patent how to grow/process to get the "orange" feature, genetic (which is controversial), etc.

Also the GP talked about "copyright is forever" is somewhat true in the sense but not exactly. You may look at http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html for more information.

Actually, board games, food recipes, and fashion designs are all patentable. Board Games: http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/12/22/patenting-board-games-101/id=21356/

Hm, interesting; According to Copyright.gov, games cannot be protected under US copyright law. I had thought the same applied to patenting game mechanics, but I've lost my reference to that one.

The guy probably didn't register his copyright with the U.S. Library of Congress (who would for pictures posted on twitter?). If you didn't register your copyright, the most you can collect are actual damages suffered. You can't collect attorney's fees or statutory damages. i.e. the $1.2 million represents how much Getty et al wold have had to pay the rightful copyright holder if they had licensed the images in the first place. $1.2 million / $500 which is typical for a headlining photo of a newbreaking event = 2400 infringements, which is probably about the number of news organizations which reproduced the photo.

It's only if you register your copyright that the $150,000 per infringement limit kicks in. That's a statutory damages limit.

So you pretty much have to hold some copyrights to be able to do anything, but if you do have them you can go to town.

Easy. Create a simple poem.
A-B-A-B
C-D-C-C
Thanks to the Copyright Act of 1976, a work is protected by copyright once the work is in "fixed form," no registration necessary.

Mission Control
I am coming in
Here comes the roll
I'm going to win!

Been gone so long
No one remembers me
Immortalized in song
Touchdown Hong Kong.

DDOS takedowns of all WB properties begins in 3...2...1...

For individual works. But in context of /., we are likely to be looking at corporate works (for example, of a company that paid people to write software), for which it is seventy years from first publication.

Nope. Ninety five years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever comes first.

Which, incidentally, suggests that corporations are not alive, contradicting the "companies are legal people" mantra used to justify a lot of corporate dubious practice.

Corporate personhood is what's called a legal fiction. Those are assumptions that are codified into law for the purposes of smoothing and standardizing the application of law. While corporate personhood is probably the most well known to laymen, it is far from the only one. They exist is all facets of law.

What you do for your employer while you work for them belongs to them, unless you have a specific agreement stating otherwise.

While this is close, it's inaccurate in an important (albeit minor, in the context of this discussion) way. The term used here is "work for hire," which means that the copyright to an original creation is owned not by the most direct creator, but by the employer.

Under US copyright law, there are two instances in which work for hire applies. First is the fork I believe you're thinking of: if the work is within the regular scope of one's employment. This is an important distinction; it means that if you're working as an animator for the Simpsons, and spend some of your work time writing a program (that has nothing to do with animating the Simpsons), you own the copyright to that program, not your employers. While there will always be billable hours for lawyers to argue over what is within the scope of anyone's employment,no written agreement stating otherwise is required for an employee to own the copyright to something unrelated to work that he/she creates while on the job.

The second fork of work for hire applies to contractors, rather than regular employees. Under this, the work has to fit one of 9 categories, AND there has to be a signed, written agreement (can't be oral) explicitly stating that the work in question is work-for-hire. Point is the written agreement applies only to contractors not employees, and it has to explicitly state that the work is work for hire, not the other way around.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html

Solandri: You can only get the extravagant fines for copyright infringement if you've registered your copyright with the Library of Congress (which involves paying a fee and sending them a copy of the work). If the copyright isn't registered, the owner can only claim damages suffered.

Evidently we can't file suit at all without registering with the LoC first -- though this is the first I've heard of it despite having read a hell of a loton the matter as a writer over the past couple of decades. From the USCopyright Office FAQ:

Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

Ihaven't seen anything related to the kind/sum of fines involved in the suit based on registration status. IIRC, all infringement suits are supposed to focus on loss of income ("damages"), with the US law originally written to target companies/individuals selling unauthorized copies, as they rarely gave the creator a share of the resulting proceeds.

Solandri: You can only get the extravagant fines for copyright infringement if you've registered your copyright with the Library of Congress (which involves paying a fee and sending them a copy of the work). If the copyright isn't registered, the owner can only claim damages suffered.

Evidently we can't file suit at all without registering with the LoC first -- though this is the first I've heard of it despite having read a hell of a loton the matter as a writer over the past couple of decades. From the USCopyright Office FAQ:

Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”

Ihaven't seen anything related to the kind/sum of fines involved in the suit based on registration status. IIRC, all infringement suits are supposed to focus on loss of income ("damages"), with the US law originally written to target companies/individuals selling unauthorized copies, as they rarely gave the creator a share of the resulting proceeds.

Please enlighten me with a law or statute that says differently.

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Of course it's possible that you're making a Common Law vs. Civil Law joke.*

*(The joke would be that, since the US, like the UK and most former colonies, uses Common Law, where most of the body of law comes from precedent, not from statue.)

Except copyright law doesn't work that way.

How does copyright work in the case of anonymous authorship? I found this info which I make no attempt to explain . . .

In the US, there's this:)

(c) Anonymous Works, Pseudonymous Works, and Works Made for Hire. — In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. If, before the end of such term, the identity of one or more of the authors of an anonymous or pseudonymous work is revealed in the records of a registration made for that work under subsections (a) or (d) of section 408, or in the records provided by this subsection, the copyright in the work endures for the term specified by subsection (a) or (b), based on the life of the author or authors whose identity has been revealed. Any person having an interest in the copyright in an anonymous or pseudonymous work may at any time record, in records to be maintained by the Copyright Office for that purpose, a statement identifying one or more authors of the work; the statement shall also identify the person filing it, the nature of that person's interest, the source of the information recorded, and the particular work affected, and shall comply in form and content with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation.

And this

Anonymous Work

An author's contribution to a work is “anonymous” if that author is not identified on the copies or phonorecords of the work. If the contribution is anonymous, you may:

* reveal the author's identity even though the work is anonymous, or
* leave the author fields blank, or
* give “Anonymous” in the last name field.

Note that if a work is “made for hire,” you must name the employer as author. In any case, you should check the anonymous box.

And internationally, there's this advice from wikipedia.

Except copyright law doesn't work that way.

How does copyright work in the case of anonymous authorship? I found this info which I make no attempt to explain . . .

In the US, there's this:)

(c) Anonymous Works, Pseudonymous Works, and Works Made for Hire. — In the case of an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication, or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. If, before the end of such term, the identity of one or more of the authors of an anonymous or pseudonymous work is revealed in the records of a registration made for that work under subsections (a) or (d) of section 408, or in the records provided by this subsection, the copyright in the work endures for the term specified by subsection (a) or (b), based on the life of the author or authors whose identity has been revealed. Any person having an interest in the copyright in an anonymous or pseudonymous work may at any time record, in records to be maintained by the Copyright Office for that purpose, a statement identifying one or more authors of the work; the statement shall also identify the person filing it, the nature of that person's interest, the source of the information recorded, and the particular work affected, and shall comply in form and content with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation.

And this

Anonymous Work

An author's contribution to a work is “anonymous” if that author is not identified on the copies or phonorecords of the work. If the contribution is anonymous, you may:

* reveal the author's identity even though the work is anonymous, or
* leave the author fields blank, or
* give “Anonymous” in the last name field.

Note that if a work is “made for hire,” you must name the employer as author. In any case, you should check the anonymous box.

And internationally, there's this advice from wikipedia.

The USPTO, for example, is established in the US Constitution, and has its own funding that doesn’t depend on annual Congressional appropriations to the extent that some others do.

See, Subby, it's not that the funding is guaranteed by the Constitution, but that the funding comes from its own fees rather than Congressional allotment. Consider, the very same clause in the Constitution that establishes the Patent Office also establishes the Copyright Office... And yet, the Copyright Office is closed. The difference is that it only costs $35 to register a copyright, and costs upwards of $3000 in fees to get a patent.

They will either pay for it or not pay for it. If they don't pay they are committing a crime which can be severely punished if they get caught.

Simply getting it for free probably wouldn't be a criminal offense, as per copyright law. Of course the DMCA could apply depending on what they do after acquiring it.

Someone above got it just right, teaching only Photoshop to a kid is like teaching only Excel instead of long division.

Why would publishing it be automatically considered as an intent to give up your ownership over your intellectual property. And if that is the case, then the same should apply to copyrights. If you don't register with the copyright office your blog post, article, music, source code, graphic design, etc, before making it public, than those would automatically be public domain, where I can take your IP, put my name on it, and sell it for a profit.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html

But copyrights are basically free, and apply automatically at the moment they are created by their authors.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States
(title 17,U.S.Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including
literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This
protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106
of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive
right to do and to authorize others to do the following"

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is cre
ated in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship
immediately becomes the property of the author who cre
ated the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights
through the author can rightfully claim copyright"

"Is my copyright good in other countries?"
"The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights."

So if you create a story about a boy wizard who goes to wizarding school, you own that work and you also get to own the imaginary characters that you created, No one can write a story using your specific boy wizard character. All this happens instantaneously, across multiple countries, for free as soon as you write it.

You spend thousands creating a better internal combustion engine, you have to go the patent office (and maybe get a patent lawyer), pay huge sums of money, wait years to hear from the patent office. and after all that you get to claim that you own your own invention. And you have to do this across each country you want to claim that you own your own invention, so that others can't take it, put their name on it, and sell it for a profit and give you nothing.

Why would publishing it be automatically considered as an intent to give up your ownership over your intellectual property. And if that is the case, then the same should apply to copyrights. If you don't register with the copyright office your blog post, article, music, source code, graphic design, etc, before making it public, than those would automatically be public domain, where I can take your IP, put my name on it, and sell it for a profit.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html

But copyrights are basically free, and apply automatically at the moment they are created by their authors.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States
(title 17,U.S.Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including
literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This
protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106
of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive
right to do and to authorize others to do the following"

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is cre
ated in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship
immediately becomes the property of the author who cre
ated the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights
through the author can rightfully claim copyright"

"Is my copyright good in other countries?"
"The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights."

So if you create a story about a boy wizard who goes to wizarding school, you own that work and you also get to own the imaginary characters that you created, No one can write a story using your specific boy wizard character. All this happens instantaneously, across multiple countries, for free as soon as you write it.

You spend thousands creating a better internal combustion engine, you have to go the patent office (and maybe get a patent lawyer), pay huge sums of money, wait years to hear from the patent office. and after all that you get to claim that you own your own invention. And you have to do this across each country you want to claim that you own your own invention, so that others can't take it, put their name on it, and sell it for a profit and give you nothing.

Why would publishing it be automatically considered as an intent to give up your ownership over your intellectual property. And if that is the case, then the same should apply to copyrights. If you don't register with the copyright office your blog post, article, music, source code, graphic design, etc, before making it public, than those would automatically be public domain, where I can take your IP, put my name on it, and sell it for a profit.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-register.html

But copyrights are basically free, and apply automatically at the moment they are created by their authors.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

"Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States
(title 17,U.S.Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including
literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This
protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Section 106
of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive
right to do and to authorize others to do the following"

"Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is cre
ated in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship
immediately becomes the property of the author who cre
ated the work. Only the author or those deriving their rights
through the author can rightfully claim copyright"

"Is my copyright good in other countries?"
"The United States has copyright relations with most countries throughout the world, and as a result of these agreements, we honor each other's citizens' copyrights."

So if you create a story about a boy wizard who goes to wizarding school, you own that work and you also get to own the imaginary characters that you created, No one can write a story using your specific boy wizard character. All this happens instantaneously, across multiple countries, for free as soon as you write it.

You spend thousands creating a better internal combustion engine, you have to go the patent office (and maybe get a patent lawyer), pay huge sums of money, wait years to hear from the patent office. and after all that you get to claim that you own your own invention. And you have to do this across each country you want to claim that you own your own invention, so that others can't take it, put their name on it, and sell it for a profit and give you nothing.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-who.html

"Can a minor claim copyright?

Minors may claim copyright, and the Copyright Office issues registrations to minors, but state laws may regulate the business dealings involving copyrights owned by minors. For information on relevant state laws, consult an attorney. "

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: [...] reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; [...] http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

And posting something on the internet does NOT automatically make it public domain. Just because you see it on a web page does not mean you are free to copy it.

~~

The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: [...] reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; [...] http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

~~

And I was under the impression that a receipt was more than just a list of ingredients.

Assuming you meant recipe, from the same link:

How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See FL 122, Recipes.

Which to me says that a grocery list isn't copyrightable, for the same reason the listing of ingredients in a recipe is different from the actual techniques and steps involved.

And, really, to carry this metaphor a little further to the absurd -- if I'm skilled cook, and I eat your food, there's a good chance I can reverse engineer your recipe pretty closely, and you have zero chance of protecting yourself from that.

Which is part of my problem with software patents, because if the simple act of seeing it and knowing it exists means I could build my own, the 'novelty' of this 'invention' is probably over-stated.

Anything written down is granted an automatic implicit copyright in the US.

And that seems to be the problem with copyright in the US.

If I write down an alphabetic list of the elements, that's something I can copyright? Awesome, pay me bitches.

I was under the impression you couldn't copyright facts:

How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law.

Which to me also applies to grocery lists.

from the fine article:

According to the complaint, Lessig showed clips of different groups of amateurs dancing to the song in Brazil, Israel, Brooklyn, Latvia, and Kenya. His point was such spontaneous outbreaks of online culture are "the latest in the time-honored 'call and response' tradition of communication."

So, he had video clips of people dancing to underscore the point of the presentation. People dancing in random parts of the world is the original content, and material (hell, the point) to his presentation. The non-profit/no-loss part is COMPLETELY relevant, as it is two of the four tests used in determining if something is fair use:

The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
The nature of the copyrighted work
The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work

--United States Copyright Office

finally, you could just watch the presentation and judge for yourself.

If you know of some magic wording that the laws says has to be spouted for it to be an "official" takedown, please enlighten us.

The six specific elements required of a takedown notice are enumerated in section 512(c)(3)(A) of Title 17. There's a bit of explanatory commentary from Plagiarism Today that might help you to understand the relevant passages.

The cease & desist email quoted by TorrentFreak omits at least three of the required six elements - (ii), (iii), and (vi) - and element (v) is at best implied rather than explicitly stated.

I'm glad I was able to enlighten you.

Copyrights are not unlimited in any major country that I know of. Can you specify contract are you talking about that makes it ok for you to break the law if, in your opinion, the duration of copyright is too long?

While not unlimited US copyright is definitely long enough to be viewed as such as most works created today will be under copyright way past your and my lifetime:

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years. For an anonymous work, a pseudonymous work, or a work made for hire, the copyright endures for a term of 95 years from the year of its first publication or a term of 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html

It should be obvious to anyone including the most hardcore defenders of the current model for whose benefit these asinine copyright terms have been put in place.

Pro tip: It is not for the benefit of the creators.

I think that many, many writers and artists are only able to devote time to their work because copyright allows them to charge for access to their work

Because deceased authors are always putting out more new works since we've extended copyright past the natural lifetime of the author and not at all for rent-seeking by the heirs/descendents/scumbags.

Right?

--
BMO

  As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html

A pdf file is a program, written in the postscript language, directing a 2D printer to create some 2D object. I can't print copies of someone's book and sell them without permission based on the argument that the book is the output of the PDF program.

I don't see how adding an extra D changes that.

It doesn't. But not all pdf's are copyrightable.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

You can't print someone's book because the book is a work of literary authorship. If you get a non-copyrightable pdf, such as a simple list of facts or ingredients, then you can print that and sell it. We will likely see something similar happen in the 3D printing world.

At issue here is not whether or not the printer has two dimensions or three, but rather if the underlying object would be considered an original work of authorship. Probably not.

If you compare this to the fashion industry, for example, where a designs for clothing are *not* eligible for copyright. The fashion industry has responded to this by elevating trademarkable labels to be elements of fashion themselves. I can take a Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt and produce another shirt with its dimensions exactly, but I can't put that logo on it.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

treats web deployment as a trigger to license compliance

How does this work in the USA? If you obtain it from them directly, they are giving you a copy, you aren't copying it yourself - so that's not copyright infringement. Copying software as an essential step in using it does not count as copyright infringement in the USA - so installing it on your server doesn't count as copyright infringement. Responding to incoming web queries doesn't copy any of their work - so that's not copyright infringement. So if you aren't doing anything that is protected by copyright, why do you need a license?

You can't copyright recipes, only the expression.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

No there aren't. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

And even if there were, the actual Twinkie recipe probably says something like "Take 500 lbs of refined flour and dump it in a cement mixer...".

They don't make them suckers up in home-kitchen sized batches.

There are copyright restrictions on Hostess recipes.

No there aren't. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

Expression and ideas is right in Chapter 1 and goes through the entire copyright act: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf

Yes it is copyright law. You make not like copyright law but that doesn't change how broad the law is.

Apple's view towards jailbreaking can likely be summed up thus: Anyone is free to do whatever they want with their devices. Just don't expect support for unsupported things if it breaks. Found a security exploit in the OS? Thanks, we'll fix that right up.

Apples view is your a criminal breaking DMCA http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple-inc-31.pdf

I am a little tired of being spoon-fed lies(at least it wasn;t another Ars "open"[sic] article) on how I'm being raped as a consumer by mega-corporations. Everone knows why Apple Locks down devices...its so they can bleed every bit of cash from you with their cheap Chinese Foxconn devices. The EFF called it “corporate paternalism”

Here from when Apple filed a response to an Electronic Frontier Foundation request that the US Copyright Office exempt from the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Apple asserts that jailbreaking fails all four “nonexclusive statutory fair use factors prescribed in 107 of the copyright statute,” essentially calling jailbreaking a crime http://www.copyright.gov/1201/2008/responses/apple-inc-31.pdf .

Its easy boycott Apple. Its not like their is a shortage of better value, better hardware and software, running open standards products from more ethical companies.

In the U.S.

In cases of works made for hire, the employer or commissioning party is considered to be the author

If you want credit for your work then do it yourself and dont have a company pay you money for it. Hiring companies should know this and not expect your name to be on the work that you made while employed. If a hiring company questions you on it, then tell them to phone the company directly and confirm the claims in your resume. That is what references are for.

The solution is not to have your name on every piece of code you ever did. The solution is to inform the interviewer that another company owns the code you wrote for them and you do not have any control over the copyright statement.

If you think the company has a responsibility to attach your name to your work... youre nuts

In the U.S.

In cases of works made for hire, the employer or commissioning party is considered to be the author

... is considered to be the author for purposes of copyright law. The employer owns the code.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean they sat down and wrote it. They paid somebody else to do it. It depends on how you define "author". There's a legal definition for the purposes of copyright law, but that's not really the one that applies here.

Really, in the OP's case, I'm surprised this is such a big deal. It sounds like the company in question didn't do anything legally wrong, and the OP was being truthful as well, and so the OP should just say "well, they paid me to write it, I wrote it, then I guess they took my name off and put their name on it". For purposes of showcasing his skills that should be just as good.

And really, having that come up in an interview seems unusual. I guess somebody didn't believe what was on his resume and looked into it, and then was looking forward to confronting him about it in the interview?

The proper response would be what I said before, and if there's any question after that, ask the interviewer how he'd like you to prove it. He really shouldn't doubt what you said at all (after all, it would be a mighty blatant lie at that point -- the interviewer was probably more expecting some backpedalling), but if he does, and he has the skills to ask questions about it, have him do so.

Actually it applies to anyone who signs a work for hire agreement. Even an employee who does NOT sign a W.F.H. agreement owns the code they write. IANAL, so confirm this with a lawyer.

"Work for hire" defined well here:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

Somewhere to start reading:

http://www.copyright.gov/reports/exsum.html

GrpA