Chilling footage:
At the DMCA 1201 hearings at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress, representatives from the MPAA showed a video demonstrating how users can videorecord a TV set. They argue this is an acceptable analog alternative to breaking copy protection on a DVD.
Don't try this at home in the movie theater, analogholes kids.
(df)
Arne Moll at Chessvibes:
Last week, ChessBase was apparently ‘forced to cease Internet broadcasting of the Topalov-Kamsky match’. As we noted in our report on the first match game, live broadcasting of the chess moves in this match without permission was prohibited by the Bulgarian Chess Federation (although they didn’t seem to have a problem with Chessdom’s, Crestbook’s, ICC’s and TWIC’s live coverage). This has led to heated discussions on this site. The key question here is: can you copyright a chess move at all?
Quotes Edward Winter:
A chess game, from its very nature and the manner of its production, must be the joint property of the two persons producing it… You can charge what you like for the publication of the games in any form you may deem to your advantage. But, unfortunately, that is a common privilege, of which anyone may take advantage.
Craigslist Seattle (since “flagged for removal”):
looking to create a supergroup - but there is a catch (seattle -
tacoma)
Reply to: comm-989309...@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-01-11, 7:27PM PSThi there i am a genius musician with over 15 years of experience and I am looking for adept musicians to help me create my symphony. The compositions that will be played are mine and mine alone, and they... Read More are easily worthy of air play and CD sales.
But there is a catch.
In an effort to protect my music (and believe me, I have every right to want to protect the genius compositions), everyone in the band must undergo group hypnosis that will take approx 30 minutes before we rehearse. You will be in an almost somnambulent state when you learn and perform my songs. After rehearsals (which are roughly 2 hours in length, 3 times a week) you will be un-hypnotized and dropped off at the location of your choice, preferably your home (i find the home is the best place because band members are often woozy after such a deep hypnotic state). You will have no recollection of our rehearsals or my music, and must be reintroduced into the trance state in order to remember my pieces. I hope you understand that I am just trying to protect my creations.
Another noteworthy bit is that you will pay me for gas money used to drop each individual musician off. I drive a toyota camry, so I get good mileage.
Only professional bassists, drummers, back-up singers, keyboard players, and individuals looking to create a backing orchestra need apply. There will be a rigorous audition process.
Thank you
Fringe today, mainstream tomorrow.
(yeti)
David McLeish at Square Root of Minus G*rf**ld:
(“But... but... you just can’t do that.” “Oh yes you can.”)
(aag@s-t)
AP (Watkins, “Feds Say They Drive a Stake into Mongols Gang,” 22 Sep ’08):
But U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien has asked for an injunction that would seize the Mongols’ trademarked name. If the order is approved, any Mongol would no longer be able to wear a jacket displaying the gang’s name or emblem. “It would allow law enforcement to seize the leather jackets right off their back,” O’Brien said.
What’s stranger—the prospect of cops spontaneously enforcing intellectual property rights or a motorcycle gang trademarking its name to begin with?
WSJ publishes a commonsensical defense of “piracy” by Lessig, who bridles:
Sorry to disappoint, but my new book, Remix, is not “A Defense of Piracy,” whatever the Wall Street Journal’s headline writers may think.
Note to Larry:
“Piracy” is defined by the Content Cartels, not by WSJ headline writers—and, according to the CCs, you’re defending piracy. If you don’t like their definition of it, it’s time to rethink your role as a market apologist. Your proposals make all the sense in the world, in the sort of warm-fuzzy way that ensures they’ll never happen, even under a fabled Obama presidency (unless you think he’ll risk alienating the CCs as he tackles more pressing issues).
IPR liberalization won’t come about by persuading CCs to moderate their ultraist demands, no matter how hard you think.
The CCs will moderate their demands when, and only when, their privileges have been stripped and the question turns to how many of those privileges should be restored. Those privileges are slowly being stripped de facto if not de jure, with the result that our legal systems increasingly describe worlds that no longer exist—except for the unfortunate few who are subjected to selective enforcement. And, yes, enforcement is literally selective. These are civil suits, filed by private plaintiffs according to their own, private criteria. Ask yourself how the CCs choose their targets. Is it on the basis of “merit”—for example, merit as measured by quantifiable violations? Clearly not. When the rule of law becomes the haphazard result of “strategies” and “initiatives,” for the many the law will appear as the rule of terror.
If you must use the term “pirate,” try for a moment assigning it to the CCs: roving opportunists with sketchy claimed affiliations who use inscrutable methods to choose where and when to strike with force in order to extract paltry takings from larger flows of traffic. Of course you can think of all kinds of objections to this equation; but so can those you accuse of “remixing”—a piss-poor term for describing what it means to enjoy the pleasures of a mediated world. The issue isn’t whether you’re defending piracy; it’s whether you understand the situation well enough to be truly effective. Your defense against the accidental (but no less accurate for that) accusation that you defend piracy shows that you don’t. Yet. The facts on the ground are moving, but your calculations haven’t caught up. Yet.
(detail, lessig_forehead.jpg)
“Olympic Mottoes Borrow Lines from O Canada,” CBC, 25 Sep ’08:
Two phrases borrowed from Canada’s national anthem have been chosen as the mottoes for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and organizers have already moved to protect the commercial rights to the lines.
The lines “With glowing hearts” from the English version and “Des plus brillants exploits” from the French version will soon be emblazoned on Olympic merchandise and promotional material as a national campaign to promote the mottoes is rolled out across Canada this fall.
That is the considered opinion of the Société pour l’administration du droit de reproduction mécanique des auteurs compositeurs et éditeurs (SDRM) on the subject of the USSR’s national anthem. SDRM just billed the filmmaker Jean-Christophe Soulageon a bill for EUR1000 because someone whistled seven seconds of the commie anthem “L’Internationale” in his 2004 film Insurrection résurrection.
(nettime)
Dr. Thomas Fingar, Deputy Dir of Nat’l Intell for Analysis and Chairman of the Nat’l Intel Council, in his 25 June ’08 testimony before Congress (114K pdf):
Elsewhere, developing countries—particularly major greenhouse gas emitters—may demand that the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) be amended to allow for the production and development of generic copies of green technologies, citing the precedent of HIV AIDS drugs. Indeed, last year the European Parliament asked for an examination of whether TRIPS presented a significant barrier to technology transfer.
That would—will—be a good change. Commercial players with major research capacity will start to act like big pharma and focus on rubbish research agendas (think: Lipitor, Viagra, Rogaine, etc) and manufacturing new forums instead of new drugs to avoid compulsory licensing. That’s unfortunate because it will involve delays; but ultimately they’ll just marginalize themselves (think: the increasingly shrill RIAA, MPAA, etc).
(Cryptome)
AP recently caused a stink when it announced that it plans to charge $7.50+ for the right to quote as few five words. Their “Licensing Agent for Reuse,” iCopyright, announced in a press release that “AP Deputy Director/Business Development Bruce Glover [said,] ‘iCopyright makes it easier to monitor copyright compliance and to identify pirated and misappropriated stories.’” This, they think, can be done by tacking a new footer on to every AP article (e.g.) which links to a iCopyright popup that includes the following footer:
Please honor copyright! Piracy hurts creators, devalues their works, and puts you and your employer at risk. Learn more.
“Learn more” links to iCopyright “Please Honor Copyright!” page, which includes a list of six “Copyright Don’ts.” The first: “Don’t use your browser to cut, copy, and paste content. It is wrong and, in most cases, illegal.”
Let’s ignore the big picture—namely, that it is right and, in most cases, legal—and, instead, focus on details.
