There is no protection from copying designs in the fashion industry, so how can police crackdown on knock-offs?
Jul 062010
So, the AP has in the past made a big deal about holding on to the rights to every tiny little bit of what they right (essentially denying that fair use even exists). Who better than those snarky peeps at Woot to call them on the implications of such a scheme?
So illustrious a source as the Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends the new book by Adrian Johns.
May 222010
Randy Picker has a fascinating post on the Faculty Blog of the University of Chicago’s law school of the copyright status of scans (by Google, for example) of public domain works. Does the effort of digitizing the work qualify as enough original effort to create a new copyright?
May 092010
The still-in-draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, beloved of some, is hated by many–including Google, apparently.
300 years ago Saturday, the Statute of Anne created the first modern system of copyright.
Copyright for Librarians is a useful resource for anyone–not just librarians–to learn about the current state of copyright law.
Norman Oder updates us on the arguments at the Google Books settlement hearing. I found the several following points made by speakers at the hearing particulary interesting.
In reaction to claims that copyright exists to protect creators because of the effort they’ve put into their work, Techdirt points us to a Supreme Court case that clearly says otherwise. History and precedent back it up.
Purchasing books on the Kindle has always struck me as a bit of a Faustian bargain: once you enter the Kindle ecosystem and purchase some books, those books are forever locked to Amazon’s e-reader. Now Amazon has made it easier for small-scale publishers and authors to opt-out.
The NIH requires free, public access to research they fund. Now the Office of Science and Technology Policy is considering extending the policy to other federal agencies that fund academic research.
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