Category: Copyright

Tuesday’s child; Wednesday’s child

| 1 Comment
| Copyright, Media and Communications

BBC news logo, via their site.Two stories from the BBC news website this week caught my eye, and I think they make an interesting pair put side by side.


First, on Tuesday: Huge pirate music site shut down

British and Dutch police have shut down a “widely-used” source of illegally-downloaded music. A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK. The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year alone, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough was arrested on Tuesday morning. …

Then, on Wednesday: Anti file-sharing laws considered

The UK government could legislate to crack down on illegal file-sharers, a senior politician has told the BBC’s iPM programme [and here’s iPM’s blog post on the story]. Lord Triesman, the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Innovation, Universities and Skills [with special responsibility for Intellectual Property and Quality], said intellectual property theft would not be tolerated.

“If we can’t get voluntary arrangements we will legislate,” he said.

The comments could prove controversial with privacy advocates and internet service providers. Lord Triesman called on internet service providers to take a “more activist role” in the problem of illegal file-sharing.

…

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How long should the copyright term be?

| 3 Comments
| Copyright

'Scales of Justice', a public domain IP image, via wikipediaAt present, at Irish law, the basic copyright term is the life of the author plus seventy years (see section 24 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (see also here)).

We have come a long way from the eighteenth century’s 14 year term (renewable once). Or have we? Peter Black points to the following story in Ars Technica in which an economist is now arguing that 14 years is the optimal level for copyright protection [with additional links]:

Researcher: Optimal copyright term is 14 years

By Nate Anderson | Published: July 12, 2007 – 01:36PM CT

It’s easy enough to find out how long copyrights last, but much harder to decide how long they should last—but that didn’t stop Cambridge University [link] PhD candidate [link] Rufus Pollock [link] from using economics formulas to answer the question. In a newly-released paper, Pollock pegs the “optimal level for copyright” at only 14 years.

…

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Simpsons’ Law

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Copyright, Privacy

Having had the pleasure of seeing The Simpsons Movie (imdb | wikipedia | and see here for a legal dispute about the domain name), I’m going to leave the reviews to the movie professionals (not perfect, but … the funniest animated film in years, writes Donald Clarke in The Ticket supplement to today’s Irish Times), and make only three quick comments from the perspectives of legal issues often raised on this blog. Warning, there are mild movie plot spoilers here.

First, copyright. When the movie reaches the tv series credit sequence, this remade sequence has Bart write on the chalkboard “I will not illegally download this movie”.

Second, privacy. There is a wonderful sequence where Marge and Lisa chat on a train and the scene cuts to an ominously huge government listening operation, where the operative listening in on their conversation celebrates wildly on having found the only useful piece of information (ever?).

Third, legal research. Last week’s “Friday Fillip” on Slaw meditated on the linkages between The Simpsons and Legal Research; and there’s more in the same vein here.

As I have often seen online: share and enjoy.…

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The future of the author in copyright law

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| Copyright

'Smaller Martian' via Tim Wu's siteThe fundamental role of the author in copyright, though essential, is thorny. On the one hand, copyright works require an author to have created them, and the term of copyright is usually expressed running for the life of the author plus a number of years (at present, in most common law jurisdictions, and for most works, that number is seventy). Of course, this simple picture needs modification in the light of: the kind of work created, corporate authorship, jointly created works, works by employees, and so on. But this modification does not undercut the essential view that the author is central to copyright. And yet, on the other hand, overprotection of one author is capable of restricting the next (as I have had occasion to observe on this blog, on more than one occasion). This has given rise to significant scholarship and debate on the role of the author in the history of modern copyright law. The next logical step is to attempt to conceptualise and reconceptualise the role of the author in the face of the myriad challenges to modern copyright law. Tim Wu (blog | log | personal site | work site | wikdipedia) has recently begun to meet that challenge, in a provocative paper “On Copyright’s Authorship Policy” (SSRN) (hat tip: Ray Corrigan on B2fxxx; see also boing boing | in propria persona).…

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Two Digital Developments Today

| 2 Comments
| Copyright, Digital Rights, Privacy

Creative Commons support button, via their siteEagle eyed readers of this blog (well, there are two readers – hi, mum and dad – and at least one of you must be wearing your glasses as you read this) will have spotted the CC button at the bottom of the right tool bar, and its accompanying text, that “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License”.

The Creative Commons organisation helps webauthors to make their works freely available to be shared and reused, either by helping them put the works into the public domain or by retaining copyright whilst while licensing the work as free for certain uses, on certain conditions. …

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Speech just wants to be free – II

| 6 Comments
| Blogging, Copyright, Election 2007, Fair use

picture-1.pngRTÉ were quick off the mark. Further to my letter to the Director General yesterday, mentioned in my previous post, RTÉ rang the Law School in Trinity where I work, to explain to me that all the Prime Time programmes are available on the RTÉ website and that this should answer my enquiry.

I should say at once that I think that it is a splendid website, especially since its recent revamp. Moreover, I am impressed with the amout of material that they make available online. However, I don’t think that this is a full answer. My concern is not so much with availability as with lawful sharing and reuse. …

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Fair Use, again – briefly

| 4 Comments
| Copyright, Fair use

'Scales of Justice', a public domain IP image, via wikipediaI have on this blog called for a thoroughgoing re-examination of the current balance between reward and innovation in copyright law by the enactment of a broad legislative right of fair use. Via What if . . . and Copyright on madisonian.net (Mike Madison) and What Ifs? Copyright Law III on 43(B)log (Rebecca Tushnet, personal site; Georgetown site), I learn that Abraham Drassinower, of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, in a paper entitled “What if copyright were really about authors?” at the What If, and Other Alternative Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw Stories IP Symposium argued:

If authorship were central, copyright would be less extensive. There would be no grounds for liability for copying for personal use, and the defense of fair dealing/fair use would not be a mere exception. It would be a user right.

Great stuff, this! (At the link above, Mike Madison explored similar territory). It bears repeating: in my view, fair use ought to be a right, and not merely an exception, exemption, license, or privilege.…

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Fair Use – Recalibrating the balance in Fair Dealing

| 17 Comments
| Copyright, Fair use, Irish Law, James Joyce, Politics

'Scales of Justice', a public domain IP image, via wikipediaThis is a call to arms; or at least, a call for legislation which would radically recast EU copyright law.

Intellectual property law and policy are all about innovation, both encouraging it and protecting its fruits. But these are potentially opposing, perhaps even incompatible, goals: if we reward one innovator with a monopoly over the fruits of the innovation, prohibiting others’ use of those fruits, then we risk preventing the next round of innovation. The challenge to law-makers is to strike the an appropriate balance between reward and innovation, by pitching the length of the monopoly at the right level, both in the breadth of its coverage and the length of its term, beyond which others might also use it.

The story of copyright provides a good example of this dilemma. …

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