copyright - Page number 4

At the start of the summer, you may recall Project Harmony causing a certain amount of controversy on the subject of contributor agreements in open source communities. My position on them was and is that they are a rarely needed and exceptional tool that should be avoided unless essential, because of their negative effects on the dynamics of open source communities.
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It's the heat of summer here in North America, so it's time to reprise our summer reading list with this year's choices. Some are recent releases; others are older favorites and perhaps new to you. Regardless of age, they're what our open source authors are reading this summer and would like to recommend to you.

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After you vote, chime in on the comments with your thoughts on copyrights and why you voted the way you did.

Some time ago, at the very beginning of opensource.com, I wrote a post on the possibility of using some archaic forms of law – champerty, barratry and maintenance – against patent trolls. And lo and behold someone is taking a run at it, although against a copyright troll, not a patent troll. » Read more

attachments: 

Righthaven v. Hill, April 7, 2011 Order

Eiser v. Righthaven, Complaint

Righthaven v. Democratic Underground, June 14, 2011 Order

Righthaven v. Hoehn, June 20, 2011 Order

Righthaven Strategic Alliance Agreement

When it considers Golan v. Holder in the coming months, the United States Supreme Court could potentially put an end to a decade-long copyright battle whose outcome significantly affects educators' abilities to use public domain works. In the process, it will wrestle with a thorny question of copyright's power: Is removing works from the United States public domain—and bringing them back under copyright's umbrella—constitutional? » Read more

The Hargreaves Report issued last month has some thought-provoking things to say about the problems of software patents, lengthy copyright terms, and other intellectual property issues. It doesn't propose complete solutions, but its approach seems directionally sound. Officially titled "Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth," the Report was commissioned by the British government and addresses the UK's IP system, but much of its discussion of the economics of intellectual property applies to the US. » Read more

I've long been under the impression that copyright began with the Statute of Anne in 1710, as is generally taught. But have you ever heard of Saint Columba (521-597)? If not, the story is going to sound pretty familiar compared to modern copyright battles. But fortunately, mp3 downloads rarely result in 3,000 deaths. » Read more

The Belgian Court of Appeals ruled this week that Google is infringing the copyrights of Belgian newspapers by linking to and posting portions of the articles on Google news. Google must remove all articles and photos from Belgian newspapers in French and German or face a fine of 20,000 euros per day.
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One of the keys to a successful open source community is appropriate transparency. A community with strong values around transparency will also be likely to respect its participants privacy. Such a community will also be unlikely to have a copyright assignment benefiting a commercial party. Here's why.

An open source community arises from the synchronization of the individual interest of many parties. Each person: » Read more

As I wrote previously concerning indemnity, I constantly encounter both governments and companies claiming they have policies permitting or even favouring open source software. Yet there's still a huge amount of proprietary software being procured by them. » Read more