Copyright

Swedish Public Domain

Sweden, Swedish law and Swedes have a low understanding of the public domain (basically the time after copyright protection when the public is free to copy, use and adapt works, see for example Wikipedia) especially if one compares with the US approach.

One of the problems is that Swedish law does not have the concept of public domain but only the time after copyright. Americans have always been able to put things into the public domain, the closest Swedish version is extremely weak and involves releasing work anonymously (but this is NOT the same).

This â??lack of conceptâ?? makes the public domain more abstract and incomprehensible. The question is how can one increase the understanding of the public domain?

One way of not improving this concept is when the national public service radio & television begin to open up their archives but require users to have RealPlayer which is a closed standard. The whole concept is very much â??look-but-donâ??t-touchâ??

On the positive side one of the more inciteful writers on the topic is the Swedish scholar Eva Hemmungs-Wirtén her excellent 2004 book â??No Trespassingâ?? was published by Toronto University Press and in 2007 her work â??On Common Ground: a Cultural History of the Public Domainâ?? (working title) will be out.

Posted on by mklang

German Copyright

The German Bundesrat on the 19th May voted to change German copyright law (The Bundesrat position) which was implemented in 2003 and has received heavy criticism. (Press release)

The Bundesrat recommends a copyright legislation which is more positive towards teaching, research and education in an effort to promote scientific information and public access to such information. The public right to information has been laid out in the government plan â??Informationsgesellschaft Deutschland 2006â??

Unfortunately my German is too weak to understand this more fully. Anyone seen any translations/comments?

Posted on by mklang

Pearl Jam & CC

The video for Pearl Jamâ??s new single â??Life Wastedâ?? is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs license, so that the people around the world can legally copy, distribute, and share the clip.

This is the first music video by Pearl Jam in eight years that Pearl Jam and also the first time that the band has licensed work under one of Creative Commonsâ?? copyright licenses.

Pearl Jam and J Records are offering the video as a free download at Google Video and Pearl Jamâ??s website from May 19th, through May 24th. After May 24th, the clip will be made available for sale.

Posted on by mklang

Orphaned Work

While I was visiting Uppsala University I attended a guided tour which included the famous anatomical theatre built by Olof Rudbeck during 1662-63. The theatre has place for about 200 people and was used to teach anatomy. Between 1663 and 1766 there were only about 10 demonstrations since only the corpses of criminals executed locally could be used.

While on tour I had a discussion with the guide about literature on the theatre. The best work on the subject is a book which is no longer in print. Even worse the publisher no longer exists and the author cannot be identified. The university wants to publish the book but since it is an orphaned work* they do not dare to do so.

One idea would be to find the book and to scan it and put it online anonymously! While this should not be the way to go but it may be the only way to goâ?¦

*Orphaned works are any copyrighted works where the rights holders are hard to find. Because the cost of finding the owner is so high, creators cannot build on orphan works, even when they would be willing to pay to use them.

Posted on by mklang

Powerbook Engraving

I have been interested in engraving my Powerbook since I saw this it has taken a while but now I am on the way. In much the same way as choosing a tattoo should be done with careful consideration the choice of image was not a simple one. Where to begin?

My search began online â?? where else. After looking at tons of Chinese and Japanese woodcuts I even picked up a couple of Dover image books but I still could not find anything I wanted. So it was back online for more Chinese and Japanese woodcuts, on to medieval artworks and a long digression into the history of anatomy and in particular the works of Galen and Vesalius.

The question was (and is) one of symbolism and technology. Symbolism: Do I want a skeleton, samurai, tidal wave or dragon engraved on my computer? Technology: The image has to be good and clear so as not to mess up when engraved. This last part is what got me stuck on the monochrome illustrations but I could not find the right motif.

So then I began scouring the pictures I have collected over my computer user years and I came across a wonderful drawing of Don Quixote called â??Reflectionsâ?? by Gene Colan from 1998.

Since I want to accentuate the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza I removed the background and their reflections in the water. What is left is the two riders.

The next step was permission. I realise that this is not a question of copyright law but I still would like to have permission from the artist. So an email later permission arrived. No problem. On Monday morning I am going to the engravers…

The revolution will not be televised (Gil Scott-Heron), but it will be blogged…

Posted on by mklang

Plagiarism again!

Right â?? its official. Teaching students about plagiarism is absolutely pointless (see earlier post). Once again my university has sunk to a new low-point.

Background: At the department of business studies two students wrote their masters thesis. Their supervisor then took parts of the text and included it word for word in an article she presented at an international conference. The students were not acknowledged in any way. The head of department defended the supervisorâ??s actions in the student press â?? which is sad, but in a sense an understandable defence. Still sad and it shows a definite lack of backbone.

The errand was to pass through the research ethics committee (Rådet för ärenden om oredlighet i forskning) of the university. Great, honour will be served. A blow will be struck for academic integrity and also show that the stealing student work cannot be considered to be the praxis of our university.

But! I do not believe it. The majority of the research ethics committee found that while it was wrong that the supervisor did not ask the students, it was too far to say that the supervisor had cheated. This position was motivated that by calling the supervisor actions plagiarism would effectively be damage scientific research.

What?? The lack of backbone from the research ethics committee is what damages research. This weak, spineless position legitimises cheating by academics and drags our university through the mud.

Shame on you.
With any luck the students will take the supervisor/university to court and win easily in a copyright violation case. This is not a good development but one which the university has begged for through its spineless attitude.

Posted on by mklang

Bah, lazy hypocrites!

Its soon time for me to lecture on plagiarism again. I give this lecture every year to groups of students who are about to write their thesis. The idea is both to help them understand the boundaries between quote, citation, paraphrase & plagiarism and to get them to start thinking about the nature of property in relation to intellectual goods.

Giving this lecture today is aided by the current discussion on copyright and file sharing. In my IT & ethics course I regularly attempt to discuss the problem of file sharing and ask my students what they believe is the moral position of the person who illegally downloads music or films. Usually among my students 80-90% of those who download music do not consider there actions to be morally wrong and nor do they consider themselves to be stealing. The most often used legitimisation of their actions:
1. that they are not depriving anyone of use.
2. the entertainment industry is rich enough.
3. they would not buy that which they download and therefore there is no loss to the industry.

Considering these points it is interesting to attempt to raise awareness about plagiarism. In one way it is pretty easy: if you get caught you will be punished and it is humiliating. But this is not a good starting point since the stress is on not getting caught as opposed to building awareness.

Attempting to discuss student plagiarism is made more difficult recently when two professors have been accused (correctly) of plagiarising others work in their books. One is a professor at the University College of BorÃ¥s who has been sloppy when quoting others his/her own defence other are harsher and call it plagiarism (DN 29/4 â?? 2006)

The second is a professor at the University of Göteborg who has stolen other peopleâ??s works and included them in his work. The excuses for this theft was that the book was written under a very short deadline and the works from which he borrowed material are included in the bibliography.

We would never accept these excuses from our own students then why would these professors even think that the excuses would work for them?

Posted on by mklang

So where the bloody hell are you?

In an attempt to grab attention the Australian Tourism has created a typical beautiful tourist add but with a twist. The tagline at the end is â??So where the bloody hell are you?â?? (referring to the tourists I guess!) The original ad can be seen here or here.

The tagline has sparked some debate. In Japan it simply does not work so it was changed to the more polite â??So why donâ??t you come?â?? (The Age). The television ad was banned in the UK for the use of â??bloodyâ??, in Canada for the line â??weâ??ve bought you a beerâ?? (Wikipedia).

The media company (Downwind Media) made a parody of the film which has caused lawyers for Tourism Australia (TA) to threatened legal action over the use of the music used in the parody (the music is similar but tune and tempo are different), TA claim that the offending tune still infringed on their copyright regardless of the musical differences. TA demanded the parody be removed from Downwind Media’s website.

See the spoof on You Tube.

The parody of the tourist advert is a legitimate form of cultural remix. It is particularly relevant since the ad sells Australian cultural icons/stereotypes. Therefore there is a great deal of legitimacy in providing alternative images of that which is sold. As in many cases such as these we can see that the supression has only increased the longevity of the spoof.

The main idea of the spoof is to juxtapose the “traditional” tourist images of tourism & Australia (e.g. outback, hospitality, kangaroos, pubs, watersports, nightlife, aborigines and beaches)

with the more negative images of Australia: violence, racism, drugs, immigration detention centers, dingos, human rights violations.

Posted on by mklang

Copyright Europe

A proposed ammendment in German copyright will remove the small scale copying for private home consumption. If this proposal is accepted all copying of copyrighted material (in Germany) will be illegal. (via Suburbia)

The French Parliament supported a stricter implementation of copyright (nicknamed the Vivendi-Universal Amendment). The change sets the fine for each downloader/filesharer at 38 euro per download and 150 euro per upload. Spreading software “obviously” intended for illegal file sharing can be punishable by three years imprisonment and up to 300 000 euros in fines. (via Free the Mind)

Not a good week for the file sharers…

Posted on by mklang

Art Plagiarising Life

The Modern Museum in Stockholm is being involved in an interesting plagiarism case. The artist Markus Andersson has painted a picture containing an image of Christer Pettersson. This image seems to be based upon a photograph taken by Jonas Lemberg. The photographer has demanded that the picture be removed from its exhibition at the Modern Museum.

The Modern Museum states it will not remove the picture and also defends Markus Andersson by stating he has used his right to quote other works (citaträtten). This right to quote other works has been discussed in Sweden and when it refers to works of art it is legitimate only (1) if it is a newspaper reporting on current events, or (2) that it is carried out in a critical or academic setting. At first glance it would seem that the right to quote does not adequately help unless the artist can claim that he is conducting a critical, academic (whatever that would mean in this situation) debate.

A news article from Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) contains both the photo and the painting.

What I find very interesting is the fact that the discussion is focused on plagiarism and not copyright violation. Legally the question is one of copyright violation. Therefore the question is one of whether copyright violation becomes the more plagiarism when it involves the higher cultural institutions?

Footnote on the image: “Christer Pettersson (April 23, 1947 – September 29, 2004) was a suspect in the assassination of Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden. He was tried and acquitted in Swedish court, although Palme’s widow insisted that he was the man she saw commit the crime.” (From Wikipedia)

Posted on by mklang