He's made it clear that Google, the company, is not directly involved with the closing of his blog. I've read and respect Patry enough to believe that if something along those cynical lines was the case, he'd pretty much say so.
Apologies, but I don't think that you understand the first sale doctrine.;)
Title 17 Section 109, which establishes the first sale doctrine, is exactly why libraries can lend out materials. However, it's not an exemption specifically for libraries. It's an exemption that absolutely anyone can use, including people who rent movies. (It gets more complicated when you're dealing with sound and software, but this is the section of law that libraries use to lend materials in the US.)
The exemption specifically for libraries and archives is section 108, and does not address lending materials. It addresses the creation of copies by the institutions themselves and the creation of copies by their users. It's also likely to be rewritten after the recent report by the Section 108 Group established by the Library of Congress.
Funny, the art communities only received the text of the bill TWO DAYS AGO. The people who were spreading the FUD about the bill were mostly people who had no idea what they were talking about. And even some of the people who did see the bill still had no idea what they were talking about.:P
The bill in no way requires you or anyone else to register your works any more than existing copyright law does.
To reply bluntly, this is how the Internet pisses me off.:P
It does allow legitimate users to use orphan works, which is the point. The great majority of copyrighted content in existence is orphaned.
Did you read the text of the legislation? First, it doesn't require registration by creators any more than existing copyright law does. Second, if a person is identified as the copyright holder, that person is compensated and/or the user faces the full penalties of copyright law (particularly if they acted in bad faith).
The "token sum" you're speaking of is "reasonable compensation." It doesn't really change the balance of power between big companies and individuals. That's still an issue.
It does allow people who legitimately need to use orphan works- like educators, librarians, curators, and archivists, as well as others- use orphan works without the fear of getting sued for $150,000 an alleged infringement.
A great deal of the discussion that has taken place in the 'net is FUD, spread initially by certain individuals in an illustrator's group. Those particular discussions, in fact, took place BEFORE the text of the bills was released to the public, and pretty much panicked the readers.
At any rate, if the person's work is identified, that person will be compensated.
Under both bills, if a copyright holder identifies their work being used, the user of the orphan work has to compensate them.
Furthermore, the proposed definitions of what constitutes a "reasonable" search are pretty heinous. It seems like they were expecting this "big corporations" scenario rather than the people who legitimately need to use orphan works.
supporting it? Along with libraries, archives, museums, etc.
Both versions have protections for creators (in particular the House version, which might even go a bit overboard). At any rate, all the FUD being spread about the bill is disturbing (like requiring registration by creators, which is simply not true, or that it was written by big media, which is also not true).
The only people who are required to register are the people who want to use orphan works. Creators only have to register if they're suing... same as before.
Hm. Well, first, I'm not familiar with some discrete body of knowledge called "Darwinism," so I'm not quite sure what you mean. What is neo-Darwinism? Could you clarify? I've seen the term, but haven't found a single definition of it. To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing called "Darwinism" taught in schools. Where is this focus on "Darwinism" coming from?
Second, the understanding of natural selection and its relation to species evolution has changed a great deal since Darwin's time, if that's what you're referring to. Scientists don't agree on all aspects of evolution- ever read the punctuated equilibrium arguments given by Gould and Dawkins? ^_^
I don't really think one can be a practitioner of any of the biological sciences without believing in evolution.
I empathize because I'm in a similar situation, but I disagree with your assessment of the issues.
Say that the students weren't slavishly copying the notes- would you still consider that infringement? Assuming that what the professor teaches is fact-based, that would be a pretty weak argument, and would have some disturbing repercussions for student research in general.
This professor couldn't be further from the constitutional basis of copyright than he is.
Protecting your livelihood isn't an excuse to attempt to quash the dissemination of knowledge in an educational institution. Copyright isn't supposed to do that. Copyright doesn't exist to let creators make money- copyright exists to further the dissemination of knowledge through the exclusive economic rights granted by the law. That's one of the reasons that we have such generous exemptions for educators, particularly in the nonprofit sector.
If cases like this continue, then why in the world would Congress continue to allow the explicit educational copyright exemptions that allow us to use others' works in our teaching, and why would they allow fair use to have a strong educational component in its evaluation?
The issue is that educators should be paid more, not that they should be allowed to profit in this manner.
Now, I'm more sympathetic about the thesis and dissertation dissemination.
All of this information is available on other sites, and these answers aren't as informative as the information available at enworld.org.
To answer one of the questions:P, the Open Gaming License is no longer Open, so it's going to be more restrictive. They are probably not going to be calling it the open gaming license anymore- it's going to be the Game System License, and you very likely won't be able to create things like the d20 SRD with rules information.
:P If you read the actual article, the researchers came to the conclusion that the whole idea that the "google generation" is more impatient with results and expects no delay was not actually backed up with evidence (p. 17 of the pdf).
The researchers appear to have taken this concept into account, as they can compare the answers that different groups retrieve (and I'm pretty sure their methodology must have included comparisons of validity in searching).
Of course, the article description doesn't at all adequately report what the researchers said. Contrary to the blurb here, the researchers stated that they don't believe that the evidence supports the idea that the "younger generation" is impatient with search results.
I'm in the beta as well. Honestly, I never noticed any ads at all, although apparently they're everywhere.:P There was some complaining about the ads themselves in the beta forums, but I really didn't see very much. There was a lot more complaining about the intrusiveness of the EULA, which so far is the *only* thing that has bothered me about the game.
It's more complicated than that. Fair use is referred to as both a right and a defense in court cases and in Congressional testimony. If Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court referred to fair use as a defense that is one of the doctrines in copyright to protect First Amendment rights, and the recent Golan v. Gonzales 10th circuit decision describes it in the same way. It's a bit of both.
The fair use doctrine does not have specific provisions about how long clips can be. The fair use doctrine is intentionally vague. Depending on the circumstances, the use an entire work might be a fair use, or the use of a small clip might not be.
I believe you are misjudging your audience if you think people here believe copyright should be done away with completely. I find that most people here are more in favor of significant copyright reform, but that's entirely different.
Additionally, it is not the content owner's decision whether or not a given use is fair, or whether or not a given use promotes their work- and never has been. Copyright has historically been a balance between copyright owners and the public. Ostensibly, copyright is supposed to promote creativity. While the "promotion" angle is certainly incredibly unpopular with content owners, it most certainly should be taken into account when judging a fair use- since one of the four factors is the effect on the market. It has also been the rationale for existing polices- like why terrestrial radio pays songwriters rather than performers. Of course, content owners are looking at changing that as well.
Fair use can certainly apply in commercial uses. It is completely dependent on the circumstance.
This case isn't about fair use. It's about what constitutes a new work.
In this case, the court decided that an exact replication of the original use, in whatever format, was not a new work. But using the same photograph in a newly created montage is probably a new work.
The real impact this will have for the future are in how companies interpret existing contracts and in how contracts are handled.
Then I disagree entirely, and not just about your argument that it's identical to keep every phone conversation. It's not. As an IT professional, you can say that it might not be possible in your organization, but that's not the case for everyone- and these rules of civil procedure are partly about deciding who fits the bill for that type of situation. If it's unreasonable and burdensome for you to have to do it, the party seeking that information might very likely have to pay for it themselves, or at the very least share the costs.
Without records laws, then we have far less accountability than we do now- public and private entities alike. Enron got called out for their actions. I think you underestimate the effects these records laws have had. Look at any ARMA publication.
To this issue, though, I know that IT people were involved in the creation of the Rules of Civil Procedure, because I had the brief opportunity to speak with some of the people involved in the court cases that led to these rules, as well as some of the people from the Sedona Conference(which releases guidelines and principles related to these rules as well as other issues). It is primarily legal professionals involved, but some of those people have pretty significant technological expertise, and they also consulted with people with such expertise.
Of course I have a grasp of how much of a hassle this is. I'm an IT person with records education. I don't know of any organizations which are fully compliant- particularly in education. It is a burden, but oftentimes a necessary one. Educational institutions have had to deal with this- I know of one university that was required to keep all emails during litigation for several months. That is a near impossible task. Systems were not designed with this in mind. But the Rules of Civil Procedure aren't what cause this hassle- records laws and standard rules of evidence cause this. This has pretty much always been an issue that's been more or less ignored in certain sectors.
You don't have to keep every bit on every hard drive weekly or daily- unless you're involved with litigation and everything you have is relevant, or the judge orders you to keep every bit of data for that long. Again- you should have a records retention policy, and you should be following that records retention policy for electronic media as well. That doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be a technological solution to records retention- some of it will almost certainly be up to the individual. That's difficult as well.
Records people have been considering IMs and similar issues- and we absolutely have to have that kind of media stored when it's a record. Different institutions handle them in different ways. But basically, tech people and records people need to get together a whole lot more than they have been in order to resolve some of these issues. These laws and rules aren't just there to cause a hassle- most of them serve a legitimate public good that has to be considered.
The AG scandal is an excellent example where records retention laws were not followed.
I commented on your message below. ^_^ I agree with your statement that most of this is vendor hype. There is no requirement to log everything in the rules themselves, although there are logging/retention requirements in some laws- SarbOx, FERPA, etc. The shock to most public schools is going to be applying records retention policies to electronic media- something they had to do before, but many hadn't really realized it.
Very much correct. The rules of evidence are nowhere near as draconian as the article or vendors appear to be making them out to be. They actually improve the situation in many cases.
I think your post is the biggest worry that hasn't really been addressed yet by the business and legal community. In many ways, these actions encourage companies and government organizations to destroy information. I've seen that espoused by persons in the legal community at large industry conferences: have a strict records retention policy, and follow that records retention policy. There are many companies that offer just those services. Microsoft's new Office integrates with Sharepoint to enforce records rules, for example.
You're not required to delete it- but if you don't delete it, it can and will be used against you.
So it will be a challenge, because the "public interest" isn't clearly represented yet.
Slashdot Mirror
He's made it clear that Google, the company, is not directly involved with the closing of his blog. I've read and respect Patry enough to believe that if something along those cynical lines was the case, he'd pretty much say so.
Apologies, but I don't think that you understand the first sale doctrine. ;)
Title 17 Section 109, which establishes the first sale doctrine, is exactly why libraries can lend out materials. However, it's not an exemption specifically for libraries. It's an exemption that absolutely anyone can use, including people who rent movies. (It gets more complicated when you're dealing with sound and software, but this is the section of law that libraries use to lend materials in the US.)
The exemption specifically for libraries and archives is section 108, and does not address lending materials. It addresses the creation of copies by the institutions themselves and the creation of copies by their users. It's also likely to be rewritten after the recent report by the Section 108 Group established by the Library of Congress.
Funny, the art communities only received the text of the bill TWO DAYS AGO. The people who were spreading the FUD about the bill were mostly people who had no idea what they were talking about. And even some of the people who did see the bill still had no idea what they were talking about. :P
:P
The bill in no way requires you or anyone else to register your works any more than existing copyright law does.
To reply bluntly, this is how the Internet pisses me off.
It does allow legitimate users to use orphan works, which is the point. The great majority of copyrighted content in existence is orphaned.
Did you read the text of the legislation? First, it doesn't require registration by creators any more than existing copyright law does. Second, if a person is identified as the copyright holder, that person is compensated and/or the user faces the full penalties of copyright law (particularly if they acted in bad faith).
The "token sum" you're speaking of is "reasonable compensation." It doesn't really change the balance of power between big companies and individuals. That's still an issue.
It does allow people who legitimately need to use orphan works- like educators, librarians, curators, and archivists, as well as others- use orphan works without the fear of getting sued for $150,000 an alleged infringement.
Consensus? Really? :P
A great deal of the discussion that has taken place in the 'net is FUD, spread initially by certain individuals in an illustrator's group. Those particular discussions, in fact, took place BEFORE the text of the bills was released to the public, and pretty much panicked the readers.
At any rate, if the person's work is identified, that person will be compensated.
No to you as well. :P
Under both bills, if a copyright holder identifies their work being used, the user of the orphan work has to compensate them.
Furthermore, the proposed definitions of what constitutes a "reasonable" search are pretty heinous. It seems like they were expecting this "big corporations" scenario rather than the people who legitimately need to use orphan works.
supporting it? Along with libraries, archives, museums, etc.
Both versions have protections for creators (in particular the House version, which might even go a bit overboard). At any rate, all the FUD being spread about the bill is disturbing (like requiring registration by creators, which is simply not true, or that it was written by big media, which is also not true).
The only people who are required to register are the people who want to use orphan works. Creators only have to register if they're suing... same as before.
Hm. Well, first, I'm not familiar with some discrete body of knowledge called "Darwinism," so I'm not quite sure what you mean. What is neo-Darwinism? Could you clarify? I've seen the term, but haven't found a single definition of it. To the best of my knowledge, there's nothing called "Darwinism" taught in schools. Where is this focus on "Darwinism" coming from?
Second, the understanding of natural selection and its relation to species evolution has changed a great deal since Darwin's time, if that's what you're referring to. Scientists don't agree on all aspects of evolution- ever read the punctuated equilibrium arguments given by Gould and Dawkins? ^_^
I don't really think one can be a practitioner of any of the biological sciences without believing in evolution.
I empathize because I'm in a similar situation, but I disagree with your assessment of the issues.
Say that the students weren't slavishly copying the notes- would you still consider that infringement? Assuming that what the professor teaches is fact-based, that would be a pretty weak argument, and would have some disturbing repercussions for student research in general.
This professor couldn't be further from the constitutional basis of copyright than he is.
Protecting your livelihood isn't an excuse to attempt to quash the dissemination of knowledge in an educational institution. Copyright isn't supposed to do that. Copyright doesn't exist to let creators make money- copyright exists to further the dissemination of knowledge through the exclusive economic rights granted by the law. That's one of the reasons that we have such generous exemptions for educators, particularly in the nonprofit sector.
If cases like this continue, then why in the world would Congress continue to allow the explicit educational copyright exemptions that allow us to use others' works in our teaching, and why would they allow fair use to have a strong educational component in its evaluation?
The issue is that educators should be paid more, not that they should be allowed to profit in this manner.
Now, I'm more sympathetic about the thesis and dissertation dissemination.
All of this information is available on other sites, and these answers aren't as informative as the information available at enworld.org.
:P, the Open Gaming License is no longer Open, so it's going to be more restrictive. They are probably not going to be calling it the open gaming license anymore- it's going to be the Game System License, and you very likely won't be able to create things like the d20 SRD with rules information.
To answer one of the questions
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=218511
:P
If you read the actual article, the researchers came to the conclusion that the whole idea that the "google generation" is more impatient with results and expects no delay was not actually backed up with evidence (p. 17 of the pdf).
The researchers appear to have taken this concept into account, as they can compare the answers that different groups retrieve (and I'm pretty sure their methodology must have included comparisons of validity in searching).
Of course, the article description doesn't at all adequately report what the researchers said. Contrary to the blurb here, the researchers stated that they don't believe that the evidence supports the idea that the "younger generation" is impatient with search results.
I'm in the beta as well. Honestly, I never noticed any ads at all, although apparently they're everywhere. :P
There was some complaining about the ads themselves in the beta forums, but I really didn't see very much. There was a lot more complaining about the intrusiveness of the EULA, which so far is the *only* thing that has bothered me about the game.
It's more complicated than that.
Fair use is referred to as both a right and a defense in court cases and in Congressional testimony. If Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court referred to fair use as a defense that is one of the doctrines in copyright to protect First Amendment rights, and the recent Golan v. Gonzales 10th circuit decision describes it in the same way.
It's a bit of both.
The fair use doctrine does not have specific provisions about how long clips can be. The fair use doctrine is intentionally vague. Depending on the circumstances, the use an entire work might be a fair use, or the use of a small clip might not be.
I believe you are misjudging your audience if you think people here believe copyright should be done away with completely. I find that most people here are more in favor of significant copyright reform, but that's entirely different.
Additionally, it is not the content owner's decision whether or not a given use is fair, or whether or not a given use promotes their work- and never has been. Copyright has historically been a balance between copyright owners and the public. Ostensibly, copyright is supposed to promote creativity. While the "promotion" angle is certainly incredibly unpopular with content owners, it most certainly should be taken into account when judging a fair use- since one of the four factors is the effect on the market. It has also been the rationale for existing polices- like why terrestrial radio pays songwriters rather than performers. Of course, content owners are looking at changing that as well.
Fair use can certainly apply in commercial uses. It is completely dependent on the circumstance.
This case isn't about fair use. It's about what constitutes a new work.
In this case, the court decided that an exact replication of the original use, in whatever format, was not a new work.
But using the same photograph in a newly created montage is probably a new work.
The real impact this will have for the future are in how companies interpret existing contracts and in how contracts are handled.
Then I disagree entirely, and not just about your argument that it's identical to keep every phone conversation. It's not. As an IT professional, you can say that it might not be possible in your organization, but that's not the case for everyone- and these rules of civil procedure are partly about deciding who fits the bill for that type of situation. If it's unreasonable and burdensome for you to have to do it, the party seeking that information might very likely have to pay for it themselves, or at the very least share the costs.
Without records laws, then we have far less accountability than we do now- public and private entities alike. Enron got called out for their actions. I think you underestimate the effects these records laws have had. Look at any ARMA publication.
Texas.
To this issue, though, I know that IT people were involved in the creation of the Rules of Civil Procedure, because I had the brief opportunity to speak with some of the people involved in the court cases that led to these rules, as well as some of the people from the Sedona Conference(which releases guidelines and principles related to these rules as well as other issues). It is primarily legal professionals involved, but some of those people have pretty significant technological expertise, and they also consulted with people with such expertise.
IT people should be involved in policy.
Of course I have a grasp of how much of a hassle this is. I'm an IT person with records education. I don't know of any organizations which are fully compliant- particularly in education. It is a burden, but oftentimes a necessary one. Educational institutions have had to deal with this- I know of one university that was required to keep all emails during litigation for several months. That is a near impossible task. Systems were not designed with this in mind. But the Rules of Civil Procedure aren't what cause this hassle- records laws and standard rules of evidence cause this. This has pretty much always been an issue that's been more or less ignored in certain sectors.
You don't have to keep every bit on every hard drive weekly or daily- unless you're involved with litigation and everything you have is relevant, or the judge orders you to keep every bit of data for that long. Again- you should have a records retention policy, and you should be following that records retention policy for electronic media as well. That doesn't necessarily mean that there has to be a technological solution to records retention- some of it will almost certainly be up to the individual. That's difficult as well.
Records people have been considering IMs and similar issues- and we absolutely have to have that kind of media stored when it's a record. Different institutions handle them in different ways. But basically, tech people and records people need to get together a whole lot more than they have been in order to resolve some of these issues. These laws and rules aren't just there to cause a hassle- most of them serve a legitimate public good that has to be considered.
The AG scandal is an excellent example where records retention laws were not followed.
Rules of Evidence are in the Rules of Civil Procedure- I was using them synonymously. Sloppily. :P
I commented on your message below. ^_^ I agree with your statement that most of this is vendor hype. There is no requirement to log everything in the rules themselves, although there are logging/retention requirements in some laws- SarbOx, FERPA, etc. The shock to most public schools is going to be applying records retention policies to electronic media- something they had to do before, but many hadn't really realized it.
Very much correct. The rules of evidence are nowhere near as draconian as the article or vendors appear to be making them out to be. They actually improve the situation in many cases.
Could you be more specific? What do you mean by the expiration provision?
I think your post is the biggest worry that hasn't really been addressed yet by the business and legal community. In many ways, these actions encourage companies and government organizations to destroy information. I've seen that espoused by persons in the legal community at large industry conferences: have a strict records retention policy, and follow that records retention policy. There are many companies that offer just those services. Microsoft's new Office integrates with Sharepoint to enforce records rules, for example.
You're not required to delete it- but if you don't delete it, it can and will be used against you.
So it will be a challenge, because the "public interest" isn't clearly represented yet.