copyright - Page number 5

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

What does authentic open source community governance look like? An open source community will involve many people gathering for their own independent reasons around a free software commons with source code licensed under an OSI-approved open source license. But there's more to software freedom than just the license. » Read more

A few events took place that affirmed for me that pushing forward with the agenda to rid our room of copyright violations and plagiarism is the right course of action.
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Over the holidays I thought a bit about the copyright conundrum. Is copyright a vital source of creativity, or more of a hindrance?  Most of us assume that we need strong laws to prevent copying of certain forms of expression, including books, movies and computer programs. We generally take it as given that unless unpermitted copying is quashed, creators would have no incentive to create, and society would lose the benefit of their creative work. We've erected a powerful system of copyright laws, with broad scope, lengthy terms, and draconian penalties, based on these basic assumptions. » Read more

I wrote last week about the "Typhoid Mary" of internet restriction laws, observing how Wikileaks has confirmed that a wing of the US Government - the US Trade representative (USTR) - has been systematically bullying European and other world governments. » Read more

A funny thing happens as a Congressional session comes to a close. Priorities, whether political or policy, rocket to the surface.  It becomes a war of attrition, of who can keep things 'out of sight, out of mind' before people get tired and want to go home.  

But, there are always numerous pieces of legislation that don’t get much love either way. The problem is, although they technically “go away” for now, the ideas behind them aren’t dead.
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Several years back, I sought one rather elusive cookbook. I first spotted The Use-It-Up Cookbook (A Guide for Minimizing Food Waste) in a used bookshop during a weekend getaway in Seattle. At $8.00, the price was right, but my suitcase had a serious lack of room for additional purchases. I reluctantly placed it back on the shelf and decided it would be simpler to order a copy online when I returned home to North Carolina.

How wrong I was. » Read more

Imagine a 20-year-old musician publishing his work today. Let's pretend he's living the fast and reckless life of a rock star and will die young at 45. Because the copyright term has been ratcheted up to life of the author plus 70 years (or 95 years from publication for corporate works), you won't be able to sample his work without permission (for your heartfelt tribute song, of course), until 2105. But since you're not living his rock star lifestyle, maybe you can hang on another 95 years to grab your chance. » Read more

Our society and its lawmakers are notoriously bad at predicting the effects of new technologies. I think of the ongoing battles over new distribution formats, like the assumption that "the VCR [would be] to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone." Jennifer Jenkins, one of the authors of Theft! A History of Music, has an even more basic and older example: musical notation. » Read more

Why did Plato argue that remixing should be banned by the state? What threats did jazz and rock 'n roll pose? And what does all of that mean for the conflicts between artists and copyright today? » Read more