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" Why the FUCK would the FBI (who's purpose is to prevent communism) even get involved in copyright infringement?"

I'll assume you're not trolling:

Because if you do enough of it, it's a crime. This falls under federal law.

I'll go ahead and answer some other Slashdot noob copyright infringement questions while I'm here:

Why is the government enforcing this law? Aren't there be terrorists to catch?

No, really. What's it to them?

Spend some time out of the US and you'll learn that intellectual property is one of the US's biggest exports. The revenue earned (and taxes paid) by US-based citizens and companies through the distribution of intellectual property -- whether it's music, movies, books, or software -- is absolutely enormous, and whether we like it or not, it's a significant reason that we in the US enjoy the quality of life that we do. Like original sin, we are all stained by the shame of enforcing the rights of copyright holders.

Enough with this borgouis capitalistic intellectual property nonsense. This country is ruined by greed! Except for the part where I download music and movies for free instead of paying for them... I wouldn't consider that greed. But I digress. Isn't there a sane place where people don't pay no never mind to intellectual property?

There sure are -- try the (somewhat short) list of countries that aren't signatories to the Berne Convention. Iran and Iraq are among them, as well as a few African nations and dirt-poor tropical islands. They are largely places that the typical US citizen would not want to live. Revenue sources like the taxes that Microsoft pays tend to go toward things like infrastructure here in the US -- clean running water and the like.

Isn't this a victimless crime? Owners and creators of movies, books and music are all rich beyond my wildest imagination. I see this pointed out on Slashdot all the time, and so it must be true.

You have taken the first vital step toward sanitizing the act of ignoring others' rights. This trick is pretty common. For example, it worked well in the 18th century when "manifest destiny" dictated that we grab all the land. It became immensely easier to do this once we started thinking of Indians as godless, drunken, flea-infested savages who stole our horses and raped our women.

So what's your point?

If you'd rather download that song or that film rather than pay for it, go ahead and do it -- just don't try to make it a social cause. At best, you're being wise with your dollar. You're not a hero, you're not advancing a social cause, and this is not the Montgomery freedom march.

Note that I didn't say it was ok for Google to take copyrighted works and distribute them willy-nilly.

However, fair use is more liberally construed in conjunction with academic works. The guidelines for fair use and the use by libraries and archives from the US Copyright Law say

... the fair use of a copyrighted work, ... for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include --

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Case law indicates that there aren't hard and fast guidelines, but that each circumstance is to be taken in its context.

Google may have to tread lightly, such as by only serving up part of a journal article at a time. The profit/nonprofit aspect works against them, but it's not a trump card. The key may be in item (4), that having an article in Google's cache may tend to increase the market for the work. I'd expect them to argue that, anyway.

My main point is, and was, that the academic publishers are going to have to accept change sooner or later, whether they figure out how to immediately profit from Google's use of their works or not.

There is allready one good reply to this, just want to add a few things.

>When you buy a book, you're not buying the
>author's conceptual work.

You are buying a copy of it.

>Rather, you're buying
>the medium made available by the publisher, as
>well as a publisher's license to use that medium
>to enjoy the author's conceptual work.

Why are people tossing out this rubish all the time? There is no need for licenses at all. Here is a link to the US copyright law:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

Go read it. Find the "rights" of the copyright holder, reading and other normal uses is NOT among them. There are basically just a few rights, listed in chapter 1, 106. That is all, there is nothing else. None of the things you liste in your first numbered list is among that. There is no right to enjoy and no right for compensation,

From your second list, the first point is true. The seoncd is not covered. The copyright holder can only control the first distribution, not any redistribution after that. This typically goes under various names in different countries. In US I believe it is the first sale doctrine. Finally, the last two about revenue streams, is not in the copyright law at all, try to find them if you want.

Also read chapter 1, 101 and go to "copies"

> You are
>not purchasing the ability to redistribute or rebroadcast the author's conceptual work.

Who has ever claimed that. This IS one of the cases of copyright infringement. Nothing is "stealing" anything when distibuting new copies though.

Fair use does not allow you to download something simply for personal (non-commercial) use. Your decision to download the item is what initiates the duplication - not the person hosting it.

Your mention of using news releases is incorrect; copyright law specifically mentions news reporting and comment as fair use and non-infringing. (source)
One of the four factors used in determining fair use is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." This is particularly important - if there is no effect, the case for fair use is stronger. Downloading a file has some effect, however, small, on the potential value of the work to the copyright holder. Uploading it has a much larger impact, as you are potentially distributing it to thousands.

So in that, it is possible to make a fair use case in personal use; but I suspect you'd lose because of the immorality of the thing. There is a reasonable expectation that you would have to pay for the album, because that's how the world works. If the goal of downloading is simply to avoid paying for it (not for the betterment of society, education, etc. which I consider the goal of fair use), it's clearly not protected.

Obviously, there's some debate here. Even the copyright office makes it clear that there are grey areas and that the best thing to do is consult a lawyer. But there are some guidelines and I believe that many people misunderstand copyrights and fair use - which has complicated this situation further.

(a) The exclusive rights of the owner of copyright in a sound recording are limited to the rights specified by clauses (1), (2), (3) and (6) of section 106, and do not include any right of performance under section 106(4).

What I've always wondered is this: copyright allows for quoting from works. Using a modified BitTorrent client/server, shouldn't it be possible quote only up to the legal portion of a piece of property to any given IP address?

The US Copyright Office clarifies that among the considerations for fair use applicability is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." I don't imagine that the RIAA would have a hard time arguing that a hundred people cooperatively publishing a unique 1% of a song each would have the exact same market effect as a the publication of the song by a single source.

Copyright infringement is a criminal offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Well, IANAL, and I suppose you could be right, but this appears to suggest that downloading a TV show for personal use, even if it was not fair use, isn't a criminal act because it (1) isn't being done for commercial advantage or private financial gain, and (2) doesn't have a retail value in excess of $1000.

Get this through your thick fucking skull, will you? DOWNLOADING SHOWS OFF PIRATE SITES IS NOT FAIR USE.

The courts have yet to rule on the scenario we're discussing (or rather, that I'm discussing, and you're foaming about hysterically). I believe there is a compelling argument to support my assertion that cable/satellite TV subscribers have a right to keep a copy of a cable/satellite program for personal use.

I own literally hundreds of DVDs, all purchased retail. I have never downloaded a single film off the internet; having not paid for that content, I don't have the right to. I don't subscribe to HBO, so I never had the right to make a copy of the Sopranos. I do subscribe to the SciFi channel, and I do have a right to keep a copy of any show on that channel for my own personal use.

In any case, I've lost my patience for debating you about the semantics of using TiVo vs BitTorrent for timeshifting programming I've paid for. I'm done.

Fine, but who owns the work until it's published? Right now, copyright is automatic.

And it should remain automatic until the work is first published.

so, in theory, if you left your manuscript in the back seat of my taxi cab, I could make a copy of it and rush it to press. If I immediately applied for copyright, would I then own it?

Copyright registration in the United States already requires the person filing the two-page application to certify that he is the author, copyright owner, or designated agent. Fraud is a crime in all 50 states.

I doubt application for copyright would be a simple process

You don't need an attorney to register a copyright in the United States. All you need is to send 30 USD, two copies of your work, and a simple form to the Copyright Office.

Copyright Durations
...the copyright term began on the date of publication or registration, and originally lasted 28 years...
http://www.bromsun.com/practice/copyrights/copyrig ht_durations.html

bulk.resource.org
Data rescued by media.org.
http://bulk.resource.org/copyright/

Copyright Clearance Center
http://www.copyright.com/

Copyright in Cyberspace
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/0963702513p1 33.html

Copyright Management Center
http://copyright.iupui.edu/

Copyright Website
http://www.benedict.com/

FAIRCOPY
http://www.faircopy.com/

Janis Ian
The Internet Debacle - An Alternative View
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.h tml
FALLOUT - a follow up to The Internet Debacle
http://www.janisian.com/article-fallout.html

Musicians Against Copyrighting Of Samples
http://www.icomm.ca/macos/

Stanford University Libraries
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

What is Copyright Protection
http://www.whatiscopyright.org/

The problem is that these are just GUIDELINES and not strict rules. Even the US governments own web page on fair use says, The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined.

Because of this, many companies are understandably nervous about getting sued and so often err on the side of caution. In addition to more famous examples such as Negativland and the Grey Album, there are cases such as the one detailed in the article, Unfair Use: Advice to Unwitting Authors where an author was originally denied permission to publish an scholarly book responding to another author because the publishers were afraid that he had cited the other auther too much and was therefore exciding the bounds of fair use.

The book would never have been published had the author not gone to the step and called the other author personally to get permission. Of course the problem here is that since this book was highly critical of the first author's work, if the first author would have been thin skinned, he could have easilly said no and thereby stifled the debate about the issue.

The Copyright Office in the US has finally decided to take a look at this, unfortunately comments had to be in by May 9, 2005.

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/

Companies and governments already track you, with IDs or without IDs. Driver's licenses, credit card numbers, bank accounts, you name it. I once read an article in a magazine long ago about privacy; the conclusion was that if you want real privacy you can't leave your house, use the Internet, own a credit card / bank account or use the phone. If you want real privacy, become a Tibetan monk.

Like parent said, many European countries have IDs like that, and they aren't the ones who get their bags opened and searched at the airport without their presence. So much to protest about, yet people make a fuss out of nothing.

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

You are both wrong. Copyright holders have the exclusive right to display or perform their works publically (in the US) granted by the US copyright law. Meaning that it is illegal for ANYONE but the copyright holder to display these at all, in whole or in part.

Do you understand the term "Intellectual Property"? How about "Copyright"? It would reason that you do, considering that you are posting in a topic specifically dedicated to it.

Just as a refresher, copyrights don't have to be about something physical. From http://www.copyright.gov/Copyright.gov:

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:

That means if you distribute any copyright musical piece, movie, or software program, without the consent of the owner, you are in violation. In shorter words... If you give away things you don't own, you are breaking the law.

It doesn't matter if you harm if phyiscally, that isn't a condition of the law. From the same site, the owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to:

To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

So keep telling your self that you are not doing anything illegal. But when the authorities come knocking at your door good luck explaining it to them.

Unfortunately for your selfish demands, content authors *do* have a moral right to control how their work is displayed or performed.

There are no copyright issues whatsoever in recording someone speaking. The spoken word does not qualify for copyright protection. Period.

Title 17, 102(1):

(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression

The spoken word is not a tangible medium of expression.

When it is recorded, the recording can qualify for copyright protection (if it's original enough, and meets all the other requirements), but that copyright belongs to the person making the recording, not the person being recorded.

There can be other issues regarding the use of someone's voice, but those are not copyright issues.

The professors quoted in this article desperately need a remedial course in copyright law.

The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all the following three elements:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word "Copyright," or the abbreviation "Copr."; and

2. The year of first publication of the work. In the case of compilations or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful article; and

3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.

Example: © 2002 John Doe

So basically Comcast has decided to treat its customers as guilty until proven innocent when it comes to compyright infringement.

This is a requirement under the DMCA -- the ISP's HAVE to do this, or they lose their "safe harbor" and may themselves be sued for contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringement. As long as they follow these rules, they don't have to be worry about being sued for infringement themselves.

See 17 USC 512(c) for all of the gory details. 17 USC 512

Smart idea, except that you'd have to pay a copyright fee for each of those "songs".

No you don't. You have two ways to accomplish this:

Create a gigantic orchestral work that encompasses days, maybe months worth of music, and submit that as one work.

Or:

Submit a portfolio of works (which you can do) for registration for only the one fee.

Remember, for musical compositions, file form PA with the US Copyright Office (there is a short form as well.)

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and the above is not to be construed as legal advice.

Smart idea, except that you'd have to pay a copyright fee for each of those "songs".

No you don't. You have two ways to accomplish this:

Create a gigantic orchestral work that encompasses days, maybe months worth of music, and submit that as one work.

Or:

Submit a portfolio of works (which you can do) for registration for only the one fee.

Remember, for musical compositions, file form PA with the US Copyright Office (there is a short form as well.)

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and the above is not to be construed as legal advice.

When I buy a book do I get from the publisher a special license to read it?
You get an implied license giving you all the rights granted under copyright law. If you look at your CD it probably has a little area where it says "copyright Sony Music" or something similar. The comparison to a hammer doesn't make sense since it is a physical object, the closest comparison would be when you buy a hammer, you own the hammer, you don't own the design of the hammer if it is innovative and protected intellectual property (patented).
And if you still think there's a license, perhaps you can point me to its terms..?
The terms are those of copyright law the publisher retains certain rights, and you have certain rights.
In fact this section is written very vaguely on purpose in order to leave the courts with free hands in deciding what's fair use and what's not.
True it's handled on a case by case basis, but show me a case where a non-educational reproduction that impacts the potential market for sales has been upheld. In Playboy vs Frena the court found "PEI's right under 17 U.S.C. Section 106(3) to distribute copies to the public has been implicated by Defendant Frena. Section 106(3) grants the copyright owner "the exclusive right to sell, give away, rent or lend any material embodiment of his work." and in Harper & Row vs Nation Enterprises "More important, to negate fair use one need only show that if the challenged use should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work."
There are fair uses (ie mix tapes, backups, adaption to run on other devices, etc), but making copies and giving them to friends is not one

The DMCA gave everyone exactly what they deserve. I'm not a fan of the media companies, nor do like that the DMCA and similar laws have done. But the people who unlawfully aquire copyrighted material have brought this upon themselves. ...As in: not free - for something of value. Bartered, sold, traded - not just given away.

If this is the legal criterion by which it is decided that someone has unlawfully acquired or distributed copyrighted material, then the law NEEDS to be changed. The implication is absurd...that I could produce something that cost me a bundle, that provides good value to a sufficient number of people, and yet, I have no control over it, as long as people are giving it away - giving my property away - for free. That makes ZERO sense.

Oh...you might want to check this out...it supports much of what I have been saying, and it is, what most would consider, the "horse's mouth."

AFAIK, the artists or promoters hold all copyright to their live performances, whether or not they are published as albums. This is similar to the "No restrasmnission or reproduction of the images or audio of the SuperBowl is allowed, except with express written consent of the National Football Leage". So unless the band specifically allows taping and redistribution of a live performance (like The Grateful Dead or The Dave Matthews Band often do), the artist's copyright is still being violated.

I believe in the U.S., you do not have to claim copyright on a work, you automatically have copyright "the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device". If I fart on the street corner, you can't tape it and re-distribute it without my explicit permission.

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

Read sections 107 and 108 -

"Fair Use" refers to reproducing works in part or in whole for comment, criticism, or scholarship. It doesn't work for your private DVD collection

Archival copies are permitted for public libraries or research archives. Again (and unfortunately), this doesn't apply to your private DVD collection.

Register with the US copyright office. It's not expensive. Its $30 to register a whole album worth of music and lyrics.

http://www.copyright.gov/register/sound.html

There you will find Form SR (Sound Recording) and instructions on how to register.

Yes, the copyright is for the information on the page-- the XML recommendation; the standard itself. The actual methods involved could only be protected by patent; likewise, the actual serialization/"language" can only be protected by trade secret; no IPR protection other than trade secret protections has been recognized for information formats (though novel, patented techniques can be used in them). Obviously, W3C recommendations are relatively open and none of these protections are in place for XML. However, our original discussion was that whether the XML recommendation was copyrighted. You said:

It is an open standard as the W3C is a body for the maintenance of web standards and since they also handle XML, they maintain the standard; since it isn't closed it is therefore an 'open standard'. And it is NOT copyrighted (according to the W3C).

The standard -IS- copyrighted. W3C's own FAQs say this, and there is appropriate notice on the page.

Let's look at US Copyright Office Advisory Circular #3 ("Copyright Notice":

Visually Perceptible Copies
The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain three elements. They should appear together or in close proximity on the copies. The elements are:

1 The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word "Copyright,"
or the abbreviation "Copr."; and

2 The year of first publication. If the work is a derivative work or a compilation incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the derivative work or compilation is sufficient. Examples of derivative works are translations or dramatizations; an example of a compilation is an anthology.
The year may be omitted when a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery,
jewelry, dolls, toys, or useful articles; and

3 The name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner.*
Example: © 2004 Jane Doe

Next, let's look at a bunch of copyright notices from software I have sitting around:

Copyright (c) 1998,1999,2000,2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Copyright (c) 2000 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (C) 1995-2000 Simon G. Vogl
Copyright (c) 2001 Wind River Systems, Inc.
Copyright (C) 1992-2004 The FreeBSD Project. All rights reserved.
* Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1993
* The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Next, let's look at a standard that's relatively closed (the SD Memory card standard):

Copyright (C) 2000 (C) 2001 by SD Group (MEI, SanDisk, Toshiba) ...
Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without prior written permission of SD Group

Or another one (IEEE's boilerplate for their standards):

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, USA
Copyright © 2002 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published 8 March 2002. Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, in an electronic retrieval system or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

I haven't found one yet where people have put the name of something being copyrighted before the copyright notice. So let me get this straight-- you understand the requirements and no one else does? Not the US Copyright Office, not the legal staff for these organizations, etc?

Robert Durst was acquitted of murder charges by paying 1.8 million in legal fees. The RIAA exploits a 1976 copyright law to claim each song shared is valued at up to $150,000. It costs the same amount of money to commit murder and hire expensive attornies as it does to get caught pirating an album and be sued by the RIAA.

" I don't know about everyone else, but copyright violations seem like they should ONLY be civil."

Agreed. I would feel much more comfortable pirating movies and music if I knew that at worst, I'd just have to pay a fine.

"This criminal prosecution is just taken to far: congress was even attempting to pass a bill that would make copyright violation a criminal offense in the US! (I dont think it passed though..)"

I'm sure you've watched a few DVDs in your day. The "FBI" in that bright red warning at the beginning of the DVD does not stand for "federal boobie inspector." Criminal copyright infringement has been around in the US for ages, and about ten years ago, the law was stiffened so that you don't even need to take cash payment for pirated material in order to enter the realm of criminal violations. If you like, you can read the relevant portion of the law.

From copyright.gov:

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: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."

You'll notice I have highlited the occurences of the word "quotation". For something to qualify as a quotation, it must be clearly attributed to its author or source. That is not what google is doing, rather, it is taking AFP's pics and inserting them into articles from third parties without attribution.

The issue, therefor, is not one of compensation but one of attribution. AFP's business model does not rely on google or anyone else linking to them. Rather, they provide content to newspapers and other outlets and generally keep a low profile themselves. If said newspapers have to compete with third parties who basically rip off AFP images and insert them into a foreign and unattributed context, then they are right to complain before a court, and do so after having contacted google directly beforehand.

To suggest that AFP should keep its content away from google's robots is to ignore the issue. AFP isn't trying to keep its pics off google, just keep them in context.

To suggest that AFP is suing for the money is to have absolutely no idea what kind of budget one of the world's big three news agencies runs with and is downright ridiculous.

Before I am called an idiot by someone else who is just looking for a good chance to bash the french because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside rather than because the nationality of the news agency in question has anything to do with the issue at hand, let it be known I am not french.

The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author's expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable.

Qaint. Pretend I don't have any rights so there's nothing to take away. It would be funny if it weren't both pathetic and threatening at the same time. (pathetic because it is so naive, threatening because day by day it becomes more of a reality...)

To turn it back on you (forwards to the rest of the world). Copyright's are exclusive rights of the copyright holder including the right to:

1) To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;

2) To prepare derivative works based upon the work;

3) To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;

4) To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;

5) To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and

6) In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

So, anything not in this list I'm allowed to do no questions asked. In fact, the only way a copyright holder could (possibly) get me to give up further rights would be to get me to agree the work is being rented, leased etc. rather than being sold. (...A dirty trick if pulled off successfully...)

Consumer rights under copyright:

1) First Sale, the right to resell something once you're done using it.

2) Fair use, the right to freely use portions of a work for criticism, parody and the like.

3) Archival, the right to make backup copies of purchased works.

4) Reverse Engineering, the right to take apart and understand a purchased work.

Perhaps you can see why I think pretending these rights don't exist is coercive at best...

Yes, the game materials are copyrightable.

The U.S. Copyright Office disagrees with you in publication FL108.

Yes, they are copywritten.

Please use the term "copyrighted" rather than "copywritten" because many Slashdot users have a rule of thumb: anybody who uses "copywrite" to mean "copyright" probably knows little about copyright law.

Almost every major board game has been extensively defended [through patent law] ... more recently in the electronic world Tetris, Archon, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and so forth.

Interesting. What is the U.S. patent number on Tetris? All I see when searching the USPTO is a trademark assigned to Elorg.

AFAIK you *cannot* patent game mechanics in the US.

You can't copyright game mechanics, but you can patent them. See U.S. Patent 5,265,888, which covers the mechanics of Nintendo's Dr. Mario.

So changing ... the rules slightly (to make sure no copyright is violated) should be enough

Rewriting the rules in your own words will be enough to avoid the copyright on the rulebook. See Copyright Office publication FL108 for more information.

Hmm, since I can't edit comments, I must doublepost.

Someone else posted a link to this, which appears to state that only certain aspects of a game (the artwork and the written manual from what I can tell) are copyrighted. In fact, it states that:

"Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game."

Obviously I know nothing about copyright law, but I'm curious as to how this jibes with your comments.

I am not a lawyer, but I have followed the similar Tetris issue.

Change the name from e-scrabble to something else, and the trademark claim is pretty much out the window. True, the rule sheet packaged with the game is copyrighted, but given Copyright Office publication FL108, I'm not so positive that copyright applies to the elements of a game itself.

That is correct for post 1976 published works, incorrect for earlier works. Simplifying, the earlier works have had their term extended to 95 years if they had not already been in the public domain. That is why 1923 is the cutoff date before which you know works are public domain.

For more info check out Circ 15a: Duration of Copyright: Provisions of the Law Dealing with the Length of Copyright Protection from the Copyright Office.

Fair Use

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: "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author's observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."

Daimou has put his employer in a very difficult position here, by bringing into a commercial workplace GPL'ed code, and incorporating it into his work. With Daimou being an employee, his employer had the right to assume that it could use his work product in any way it saw fit with full ownership, absent a written agreement to the contrary (employee work within the scope of employment is considered a work made for hire under U.S. Copyright law). Further, from this article, it isn't clear that Daimou either notified, explained to or got the agreement of his employer to include GPL'ed code (which does, by the terms of the license, need to stay under the GPL) in his work. At some level, the GPL issue is a red herring (although it obviously affects the ability of the employer to keep the source code proprietary)--if Daimou had included code he'd written for some other previous employer, it would have caused similar problems.

At this point, Daimou's employer may (depending on the intricacies and particular facts of this situation, for which it would need the advice of its own lawyer) face a difficult decision: release under the GPL, or rebuild using non-GPL'ed code. Who pays for the rebuilding, and Daimou's role in the process (or at the company), are other questions to be determined. Moral of the story, folks: Never include any code or content subject to outside license restrictions (whether GPL or otherwise) in something done for your boss without getting the boss' informed consent! {Professor Jonathan Ezor, Director, Touro Law Center Institute for Business, Law and Technology}

Before you can enforce a copyright, you must register it with the Library of Congress.

Bzzzzt! Try again.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hsc says you don't have to. Here's the text for those who don't wanna go to the link:

HOW TO SECURE A COPYRIGHT
Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation

The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. (See following Note.) There are, however, certain definite advantages to registration. See "Copyright Registration."

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords" are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in sheet music (" copies") or in phonograph disks (" phonorecords"), or both.

If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date.

That's easier than it used to be. The National Intellectual Property Rights coordination Center, a unit of Homeland Security, handles this. There's even an online form.

Before you can enforce a copyright, you must register it with the Library of Congress. This costs $30. So that's step one.

Not true. I have commented before to the Copyright Office, and once testified at a hearing they held. They DO pay attention to comments. Unfortunately, they don't look beyond the comments -- they tend to be a very literal bunch -- so if 50 big shot lawyers write comments for large firms, and only 5 individual citizens write comments, the Office concludes that it isn't of interest to the general public. They don't hear what we don't say.

Not true. I have commented before to the Copyright Office, and once testified at a hearing they held. They DO pay attention to comments. Unfortunately, they don't look beyond the comments -- they tend to be a very literal bunch -- so if 50 big shot lawyers write comments for large firms, and only 5 individual citizens write comments, the Office concludes that it isn't of interest to the general public. They don't hear what we don't say.

"1) It is very difficult to really prove actual loss from people downloading music."

And that's why copyright law has "statutory damages" -- when it is hard to prove actual damages, or there are no actual damages, the court can still impose damages. See 17 USC 504(c)

The point of these statutory damages is twofold -- one is to compensate the copyright holder for actual and presumed losses, and the other is to make it hurt so that the infringer will stop infringing.

That's why when you steal a $.50 pack of gum, you could potentially go to jail -- it's not because the gum is worth that much, but they want to make it hurt in order to deter the behavior.

So, might as well post my old comment.

I wonder if this push for a price increase is to put a dampner on the existing on-line players as they did with the CARP act a few years ago regarding streaming.

The problem, as the established media companies see things, with these new electronic outlets they have problems excerting their marketing influences to pimp their latest one-hit manufactured artist.

If they can put the breaks on things until *they* control the market then this is better for them. Its not really an issue concering margins as all the big players seem to be reporting big profits.

The problem, as the established media companies see things, with these new electronic outlets they have problems excerting their marketing influences to pimp their latest one-hit manufactured artist.

If they can put the breaks on things until *they* control the market then this is better for them. Its not really an issue concering margins as all the big players seem to be reporting big profits.

Basically, there is a distinction made between technological measures that prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works and measures that prevent unauthorized copying of copyrighted works. The DMCA does not prohibit the circumvention of technological measures that prevent unauthorized copying of copyrighted works...ala iTunes DRM.

Section 1201 divides technolgical measures into two categories: measures that prevent unauthorized access to a copyrighted work and measure that prevent unauthorized copying of a copyrighted work. Making or selling devices or services that are used to circumvent eith category of technological measure is prohibited in certain circumstances described below. As to the circumvention in itself, the provision prohibits circumventing the first category of technological measures, but not the second.

• you can't copyright silence, so this is moot.
• you are allowed to circumvent DRM to copy copyrighted material that you own.

from http://www.copyright.gov/

What Is a Sound Recording?

The copyright code of the United States (title 17 of the U.S. Code) provides for copyright protection in sound recordings. Sound recordings are defined in the law as "works that result from the fixation of a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds, but not including the sounds accompanying a motion picture or other audiovisual work." Common examples include recordings of music, drama, or lectures

therefore no sound, no copyright...
sounds good to me... (no pun intended)

but this post on the otherhand... blatently stolen from their website hmm...