Comic Book on Copyright and Creativity

An anonymous reader writes "Three law professors have written a comic book on copyright and creativity -- focusing on the effects of expanding rights and restrictive licensing on documentary film. The book is available for free online via the creative commons license. High points include Larry Lessig as the Statue of Liberty, a version of the Crypt Keeper who looks like Justice Rehnquist, and comic book riffs from the Silver Surfer. At the end, the book discusses the 'cultural environmentalism' movement which has been getting some attention recently."

Comments

Mirror of PDFs

[AliasN]

Mirror of PDFs here in case it gets ./-ed (Low bandwidth, but still):
http://linuxownzwindows.com/mirror/cspd/

Re:Mirror of PDFs

[phiwum]

Say, this mirroring raises an interesting question: Is mirroring an article a fair use right?

Now, clearly you have been granted the right to mirror in this case (by the Creative Commons license on the inside cover of the comic book). But what about in general?

My guess is that mirroring in general counts as re-distributing without permission. But has anyone seen any argument for or against my guess?

Hate and guidance

[tepples]

It doesn't offer guidance, just copyright-hate.

Well-written copyright-hate is guidance ... to lawmakers.

Good way to highlight the issues at hand

[the_humeister]

Unfortunately, most people are generally too apathetic to care about such things as "fair use." It's really a shame. If you film something incidentally for a documentary, why must you clear the rights? How about the buildings that said documentary takes place?

Re:I hope

[mattjb0010]

You could have RTFC. It's distributed under the creative commons license.

is there a "the creative commons license"???

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the creative commons license actually a list of licenses?
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the -licenses

Re:Indeed.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Oh my god. Unlike you, I am all for indoctrinating our nation's children in the ways and methodologies of godless communism. But quiche? They go too far.

Re:Hard to read, difficult to follow

[gilroy]

I might have missed something, but how is this a use of your tax dollars (good or bad)? It claims to have been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Easy to read, simple to follow

[Marce1]

Doing as a comic is a really straightforward way of introducing fair-use copyright material including images, songs etc.. and references to them as both critique and parady - it really covers the publication against trivial law suits.

Furthermore, it adds nicely to the overwhelming feeling of the copright mire, while actually spreading the information around the page nicely (like a mindmap).

Its so good its got me thinking of doing a documentary here in the UK.

If I use lots of 'fair use' material, I can send the product (prior to public release) with notices like 'if you dont complain / sue I will release this as fair use after 40 days' literally begging the major corporate owners to sue: If I win or they don't complain I would use the data protection act to prove they had received the works and the warning notices, and include the whole documentary under some form of GPL - as such I would be the only point of contact needed to go through trials of fair use on that material, and anyone could use the original footage, or my new creation, simply by referencing it (or me)..

Do that to enough material, or highlight it to enough of the public, and we could change the culture back from oppressive rights to expressive rights. Right on!

Rehnquist

[volpe]

a version of the Crypt Keeper who looks like Justice Rehnquist,

I imagine that Rehnquist looks a bit like the Crypt Keeper too right about now.