Copyright Defeats?

Uruk asks: "Over the last few years, we've seen what looks like the victory of copyright and business interest at the expense of the consumer. There's been The DMCA, the UCITA, all of the legal wranging over DeCSS, and so on. Copyright holders can even shut your website down without doing the research about whether or not it was appropriate. Johansen did seem to be acquited of some of what was brought against him as a result of the DeCSS situation, but that was in Norway. Does anyone know of any copyright or consumer victories on the net in the last few years? Something that limits the abilities of these laws, or otherwise acts in the copyright spirit of free use? My hat is off to GNU and EFF, even Project Gutenberg. What is the status of this ongoing battle? I'm looking for the sunny side to a situation that seems littered with defeat."

Comments

Dastar vs. FOX

[e]

Just in the past few days...

http://www.eldred.cc/eablog/000074.html

e;

Re:Dastar vs. FOX

[e]

From the first paragraph of the court ruling:

---
In 1975, Doubleday renewed the copyright on the book as the " 'proprietor of copyright in a work made for hire.' " App. to Pet for Cert. 9a. Fox, however, did not renew the copyright on the Crusade television series, which expired in 1977, leaving the television series in the public domain.
---

Here's a prime example of how the Eldred Act would in fact get works into the public domain quicker. There's clear past precedent to show that companies won't hassle with renewal of works they don't find to be attractive any longer.

e;

Streamcast/Grokster

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA/MPAA lose suit against Streamcast/Grokster.

US v. Elcomsoft

[varun]

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-978176.html

I thought this was pretty big!!

UCITA mostly stalled or stopped

[pjrc]

I'd hardly call the UCITA a "defeat". Yeah, it passed in a couple states where it was rushed through, but in all the others it's met stiff resistance and is stalled or dead.

Also check out IPJustice.org

[davetd02]

IPJustice is another group working for fair use and copyrights. Check them out. Founder is Robin Gross, formerly of the EFF. Their principles are:

• We reserve the right to control our individual experience of intellectual property.
• Creators deserve to be compensated.
• We reserve our right to make private copies of lawfully acquired intellectual property.
• Technology and information that enable the exercise of rights should be lawful.
• "Copy Rights" come with "Copy Responsibilities."

Dr. Bernstein's cryptography lawsuit vs US Gov.

[maromig]

http://www.eff.org/bernstein/

http://cr.yp.to/export.html

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-225508.html?legacy=c net

In a 2-to-1 vote, a federal panel affirmed U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel's 1997 landmark ruling in Daniel Bernstein vs. the Justice Department. That decision states that software source code is a language, and therefore the export controls violate the University of Illinois math professor's First Amendment right.

ChillingEffects.org

[yerricde]

Maybe if there is some way to collect an informal archive about unjustified attempts to claim enforcement of copyrights

Would that be the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse?

Link to Dastar opinion

[angle_slam]

Here is the actual Supreme Court opinion on the case.

As for how the footage came into the public domain, they never renewed the copyright, and it expired in 1977.

No one has really explained in detail what the case was about. Fox hired Time to produce a TV series based on a book. It was originally broadcast in 1949 and the copyright expired in 1977. Fox never bothered to renew the copyright. Dastar purchased copies of the original, public domain series, edited the footage, and sold it under their own name.

Fox complained, of course. They used the theory that, by selling the tapes and not revealing the original source of the footage, they were "reverse passing off" the footage as their own, a violation of the unfair trade practices act.

The court did not want to use trademark law to interfere with copyright law, and found for Dastar.

You probably know about the Google censorship

[Muhammar]

Church of Scientology recently threatened Google in court and got a judge to issue temporary cease-and-desist order to make Google to eliminate the objectionable (=critical) sites from its search engine, because displaying materials to which COS owns copyright. Google was scared and took the links down temporarily, then restored most of them (which did not display the copyrighted secrets - just provided links to them) and as a bonus Google published a court document containing a complete list of COS-objectionable sites with their explanation.

creative commons

[panck]

Creative Commons This isn't a "victory" in the fight, but it is a new weapon. Be pro-active about giving people the ability (limited or not) to use and copy your copyrighted material. Check out the snifty informative video here, featuring none other than the White "No computers were used in the making of this album" Stripes.

Also check out Lawrence Lessig's weblog for up-to-the-minute happenings in the good fight. (and for the extremely lazy, here's his RDF feed.

And ( if that weren't links enough) you should go and sign the petition to Reclaim the Public Domain.

yrs trly, linky karma whore

Modchipping legal Down Under

[Neurotensor]

You may recall that /. covered the ruling in favour of an Australian who was selling PS2 modchips. He still got caught on trademark infringement, but nevertheless modchipping a PS2 is now legal in this country.

Some quick googling turned up this link which pretty much explains the situation.

The DMCA can't touch us if we all live Down Under.

For a little while. Until we join the Coalition of the Willing-To-Suppress-Basic-Freedoms.

Mildly OT - the Public Domain is Languishing

[Embedded Geek]

I came across a postcard that demostrates how the public domain is languishing due to all the copyright extensions that are being legislated. Basically, there will be nearly no growth in the public domain between 1990 and 2030 due to current legislation, even though the copyrighted realm is growing exponentially. If the copyright acts of 1923 were still in effect (the first year to which the Sonny Bono act applies), the number of registered items in the public domain would grow from today's 9 million to 25 million. It's very powerful visual aid.

And, to beat the reply posts:

1. No, I have no idea why they put it on a postcard.
2. Yes, I did notice the entire webiste, including the card, is "©2003 Cabinet Magazine".