What country are you in? Copyright law is going to be different in different places, at least a bit.
What university are you at? Some universities require students' to turn over copyright in their work (although many don't). Some universities also have requirements or restrictions on how you may license the work- the most common one I've seen recently is requiring students to allow the library to provide an electronic version.
Assuming US law, part of your statement is redundant; someone else can't legally claim copyright in your work, either published excerpts or its entirety.
Your pirate/steal bit is a bit confusing, even without the normal misuse of the terms to describe infringement.;) If something is in the public domain, anyone can use it for any purpose, commercial or not. Once you've put it in the public domain, in this situation it probably can't be taken out of the public domain. (It would be nice to say that can never happen for any reason, but there is some precedent for some foreign works that probably doesn't apply here).
Creative Commons does sound like your best bet- check it out. ^^
An issue is that "all the facts" is that matter that is contentious, with the proponents of these bills being supporters of materials and findings that aren't recognized as fact-based by the great majority of scientists. These bills hide in terms of "academic freedom" and "critical thinking," but generally are nothing of the sort.
I'm going to disagree with the interface evaluation- I actually like it quite a bit on the PC side with the mouse/keyboard set up, and to me that was preferable to the PS3 interface. I could use hotkeys and the mouse combos, which is my preferred playing style, and I thought it worked great.I agree with some of the commentors that the menu interface is a bit clunky, though.
Not quite. While reverse engineering is ordinarily legal, the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA doesn't make allowances for fair use or other uses that may have otherwise been legal. That's one of the reasons the Section 1201 rulemaking procedure exists; to see if there are legitimate reasons for circumventing technological protection measures. I think it's a bit backwards, personally.
The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the President. The Register of Copyrights is appoints by the Librarian.
There is an extensive rule-making procedure for this process (Section 1201 rulemaking- see the featured link at copyright.gov). Unfortunately, those asking for the exemptions generally bear the burden of proof, and have to ask for the exemptions every three years. It is difficult to plan based on these exemptions.
This is not the case in the US, where we have a copyright exemption in the doctrine of first sale- the author is only entitled to the first sale of the book, but not subsequent sales or uses of that same product.
In the report, they do distinguish between what they term "counterfitting" and "piracy." Unfortunately, their definition of piracy is still overbroad, referring to making any unauthorized copy (which, as we should know, is not always illegal).
The report is good in pointing out that none of the Internet-based piracy "research" is reliable, specifically looking at numbers the Government claims, the BSA, and the MPAA studies.
The report still says that despite these weaknesses, piracy is a problem.
Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)
Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start. "I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622
He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.
There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.
Orphaned works are most certainly not a fiction. As someone who regularly works with libraries, archives, & museums, I can say with some certainty that orphan works are huge problems for such entities, and copyright law as it's currently instantiated ensures that these works may disappear forever. Orphaned works are the majority of works in existence.
See the Copyright Office comments (and the US Copyright Office favors strong copyright laws) http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/ See the Association of Research Libraries comments to the Copyright Office http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lcacomment0305.pdf See the Society of American Archivists Best Practices http://www.archivists.org/standards/OWBP-V4.pdf See some of Peter Hirtle's comments. http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2009/09/orphan-works-and-the-google-book-settlement.html...and so on.
Orphaned works is a huge issue, and will become more of an issue as we attempt to work with and preserve digital works.
This particular case actually didn't address the mercury issue. There are other ongoing cases which do.
However, the current scientific consensus is also that the mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines (thimerosal) is not linked to autism. Of course, thimerosal was also phased out of vaccines several years ago due to all the hoopla.
The use of the phrase "derivative right" is a bit misleading. Under copyright, there's the right to create a derivative work. For a work to be derivative, there needs to be fixation of that work in some tangible format, including electronic. There's no fixation here.
Similarly, not all performances are infringement. Copyright law covers *public* performances. This is not a public performance. If there is a public performance, it is the user of the device that is making that performance public, not any aspect of the device itself.
Even if that performance was somehow contrary to the ordinary rights of the author, I can't really argue that a private performance would not be a fair use.
I'm actually more worried about the chilling arguments from the decision itself, not the arguments that the plaintiff brought forth. I'm looking at the fair use analysis, in particular, about what considers substantial copying and what is transformative. I agree that the decision was well crafted, I just disagree with the analysis.
Here's the thing- for non-legal practitioners, the decision has implications beyond the text of the legal findings. This decision is specific to the facts of this case. That doesn't matter as much to some as it does to attorneys.
Are the legal findings sufficient to cause additional risk in publishing such a work?
Are publishers going to want to use resources to publish a book that has a stronger possibility of a lawsuit, whatever the merits of this particular case?
The judge's analysis of transformation- in my opinion, not friendly to fair use- is enough to make a reference publication of a fictional work a greater risk than it was before the decision. I do think the judge wanted to do the right thing, but I don't think the judge did.
The courts AWARDED the minimum statutory balance, but that was the judge's decision.
The Battlestar Wiki and Wookiepedia are technically derivative works. We're pretty much relying on fair use for the legality of the wikis, and those arguments were weakened by this case somewhat.
Thank you for the polite response. ^_^ Here's where I'll quibble with you a bit, as well as the reasoning in the decision. The judge mentions protection of "fictional facts," citing other Second Circuit opinions (as the judge pretty much must do). The protection of these "fictional facts" is an issue, because protection of these descriptions- not merely the expression of these descriptions, but the descriptions (fictional facts) themselves, has some serious implications for any work of this nature, whether or not the judge wants it to.
Plagiarism is not illegal. Copyright infringement is illegal. Plagiarism is not copyright infringement- except occasionally in the Second Circuit.:P (That was a dig, yes. Even in the Second Circuit, plagiarism is generally not infringement.)
Interestingly, the commercial aspect of the nature was not what primarily compelled the judge to decide as he did. "Reorganized" is not always illegal either- particularly when facts are involved. Heck, the selection and arrangement of facts is often what IS protected.
actually read it, please. It's linked there. The judge relied on VERY fair-use unfriendly Second Circuit case law to come to his conclusion.
While the judge does admit that the author does not have control of these types of works, and the judge states that some types of works should be encouraged, the actual analysis of what would constitute transformation really does make the likelihood of such works being published less likely.
The judge left a pretty darned high threshold for what is considered "substantial" copying, and mentioned things like "fictional facts" and "paraphrasing" used to determine infringement.
In any rate, the ruling is vague enough in its analysis that I'm confident it will act as a bar towards publishing similar works, even when verbatim copying does not occur. I expect publishers and potential authors will be more reluctant to pursue such works in the future.
I love Slashdot. ^_^ As a coworker of mine put it, on Slashdot the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Furthermore, absence of evidence is evidence. ^_-
I'd hardly call it petulance, although working with copyright today is incredibly frustrating. I wouldn't call him a martyr. Read the comments on that entry.
I do a number of things related to copyright law. IMHO, Patry's blog was one of the greatest free Web resources for anything interested in following copyright.
If you read the comments on Patry's closing blog entry, you'll find a number of names you'd recognize if you follow copyright law at all- almost a who's who of the copyright world. And most of them, while they wish he would continue, completely agree with his reasons for leaving, including his second premise. Copyright law has gotten depressing, and it does bring the crazies out. And he's not the first person who works in copyright law that I've heard say pretty much the same thing.
It's not like he's leaving the copyright world- he is still the author of the definitive legal treatise on copyright, and he's still a copyright attorney.
Slashdot Mirror
What country are you in? Copyright law is going to be different in different places, at least a bit.
What university are you at? Some universities require students' to turn over copyright in their work (although many don't). Some universities also have requirements or restrictions on how you may license the work- the most common one I've seen recently is requiring students to allow the library to provide an electronic version.
Assuming US law, part of your statement is redundant; someone else can't legally claim copyright in your work, either published excerpts or its entirety.
Your pirate/steal bit is a bit confusing, even without the normal misuse of the terms to describe infringement. ;) If something is in the public domain, anyone can use it for any purpose, commercial or not. Once you've put it in the public domain, in this situation it probably can't be taken out of the public domain. (It would be nice to say that can never happen for any reason, but there is some precedent for some foreign works that probably doesn't apply here).
Creative Commons does sound like your best bet- check it out. ^^
An issue is that "all the facts" is that matter that is contentious, with the proponents of these bills being supporters of materials and findings that aren't recognized as fact-based by the great majority of scientists. These bills hide in terms of "academic freedom" and "critical thinking," but generally are nothing of the sort.
I'm going to disagree with the interface evaluation- I actually like it quite a bit on the PC side with the mouse/keyboard set up, and to me that was preferable to the PS3 interface. I could use hotkeys and the mouse combos, which is my preferred playing style, and I thought it worked great.I agree with some of the commentors that the menu interface is a bit clunky, though.
One caveat- reverse engineering for interoperability is specifically addressed by the statute.
Not quite. While reverse engineering is ordinarily legal, the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA doesn't make allowances for fair use or other uses that may have otherwise been legal. That's one of the reasons the Section 1201 rulemaking procedure exists; to see if there are legitimate reasons for circumventing technological protection measures. I think it's a bit backwards, personally.
The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the President. The Register of Copyrights is appoints by the Librarian.
There is an extensive rule-making procedure for this process (Section 1201 rulemaking- see the featured link at copyright.gov). Unfortunately, those asking for the exemptions generally bear the burden of proof, and have to ask for the exemptions every three years. It is difficult to plan based on these exemptions.
This is not the case in the US, where we have a copyright exemption in the doctrine of first sale- the author is only entitled to the first sale of the book, but not subsequent sales or uses of that same product.
In the report, they do distinguish between what they term "counterfitting" and "piracy." Unfortunately, their definition of piracy is still overbroad, referring to making any unauthorized copy (which, as we should know, is not always illegal).
The report is good in pointing out that none of the Internet-based piracy "research" is reliable, specifically looking at numbers the Government claims, the BSA, and the MPAA studies.
The report still says that despite these weaknesses, piracy is a problem.
Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)
Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start.
"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622
He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.
There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.
Check out the sources cited to find out why this is an issue. ^_^
Orphaned works are most certainly not a fiction. As someone who regularly works with libraries, archives, & museums, I can say with some certainty that orphan works are huge problems for such entities, and copyright law as it's currently instantiated ensures that these works may disappear forever. Orphaned works are the majority of works in existence.
See the Copyright Office comments (and the US Copyright Office favors strong copyright laws) ...and so on.
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/
See the Association of Research Libraries comments to the Copyright Office
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lcacomment0305.pdf
See the Society of American Archivists Best Practices
http://www.archivists.org/standards/OWBP-V4.pdf
See some of Peter Hirtle's comments.
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2009/09/orphan-works-and-the-google-book-settlement.html
Orphaned works is a huge issue, and will become more of an issue as we attempt to work with and preserve digital works.
This particular case actually didn't address the mercury issue. There are other ongoing cases which do.
However, the current scientific consensus is also that the mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines (thimerosal) is not linked to autism. Of course, thimerosal was also phased out of vaccines several years ago due to all the hoopla.
Er... not quite.
The use of the phrase "derivative right" is a bit misleading. Under copyright, there's the right to create a derivative work. For a work to be derivative, there needs to be fixation of that work in some tangible format, including electronic. There's no fixation here.
Similarly, not all performances are infringement. Copyright law covers *public* performances. This is not a public performance. If there is a public performance, it is the user of the device that is making that performance public, not any aspect of the device itself.
Even if that performance was somehow contrary to the ordinary rights of the author, I can't really argue that a private performance would not be a fair use.
I'm curious, on what grounds?
I'm actually more worried about the chilling arguments from the decision itself, not the arguments that the plaintiff brought forth. I'm looking at the fair use analysis, in particular, about what considers substantial copying and what is transformative. I agree that the decision was well crafted, I just disagree with the analysis.
I've read, and commented, on PJ's analysis. I really like PJ and respect her work. I think she's wrong about this one. ^_^
Given that the judge was constrained by second circuit precedent, the decision was not completely shocking. It is a huge disappointment, however.
Here's the thing- for non-legal practitioners, the decision has implications beyond the text of the legal findings. This decision is specific to the facts of this case. That doesn't matter as much to some as it does to attorneys.
Are the legal findings sufficient to cause additional risk in publishing such a work?
Are publishers going to want to use resources to publish a book that has a stronger possibility of a lawsuit, whatever the merits of this particular case?
The judge's analysis of transformation- in my opinion, not friendly to fair use- is enough to make a reference publication of a fictional work a greater risk than it was before the decision. I do think the judge wanted to do the right thing, but I don't think the judge did.
The courts AWARDED the minimum statutory balance, but that was the judge's decision.
The Battlestar Wiki and Wookiepedia are technically derivative works. We're pretty much relying on fair use for the legality of the wikis, and those arguments were weakened by this case somewhat.
Thank you for the polite response. ^_^ Here's where I'll quibble with you a bit, as well as the reasoning in the decision. The judge mentions protection of "fictional facts," citing other Second Circuit opinions (as the judge pretty much must do). The protection of these "fictional facts" is an issue, because protection of these descriptions- not merely the expression of these descriptions, but the descriptions (fictional facts) themselves, has some serious implications for any work of this nature, whether or not the judge wants it to.
Plagiarism is not illegal. Copyright infringement is illegal. Plagiarism is not copyright infringement- except occasionally in the Second Circuit. :P (That was a dig, yes. Even in the Second Circuit, plagiarism is generally not infringement.)
Interestingly, the commercial aspect of the nature was not what primarily compelled the judge to decide as he did. "Reorganized" is not always illegal either- particularly when facts are involved. Heck, the selection and arrangement of facts is often what IS protected.
actually read it, please. It's linked there. The judge relied on VERY fair-use unfriendly Second Circuit case law to come to his conclusion.
While the judge does admit that the author does not have control of these types of works, and the judge states that some types of works should be encouraged, the actual analysis of what would constitute transformation really does make the likelihood of such works being published less likely.
The judge left a pretty darned high threshold for what is considered "substantial" copying, and mentioned things like "fictional facts" and "paraphrasing" used to determine infringement.
In any rate, the ruling is vague enough in its analysis that I'm confident it will act as a bar towards publishing similar works, even when verbatim copying does not occur. I expect publishers and potential authors will be more reluctant to pursue such works in the future.
I love Slashdot. ^_^ As a coworker of mine put it, on Slashdot the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Furthermore, absence of evidence is evidence. ^_-
I'd hardly call it petulance, although working with copyright today is incredibly frustrating. I wouldn't call him a martyr. Read the comments on that entry.
I do a number of things related to copyright law. IMHO, Patry's blog was one of the greatest free Web resources for anything interested in following copyright.
If you read the comments on Patry's closing blog entry, you'll find a number of names you'd recognize if you follow copyright law at all- almost a who's who of the copyright world. And most of them, while they wish he would continue, completely agree with his reasons for leaving, including his second premise. Copyright law has gotten depressing, and it does bring the crazies out. And he's not the first person who works in copyright law that I've heard say pretty much the same thing.
It's not like he's leaving the copyright world- he is still the author of the definitive legal treatise on copyright, and he's still a copyright attorney.
Patry has made it clear that he did not receive pressure from Google to close his blog.