Copyright

Public Domain Comic

Law books are traditionally text heavy with little or no pictures. Very rarely including humor or light entertainment. Therefore it is great to see what law professors can do when they want to change this!

The Center for the Public Domain have created a cool comic explaining copyright and the public domain. It takes the form of classic horror comics and describes the adventures (or misadventures) of the hero Akiko, the documentary film maker. I thought it was geat! So go look at “Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law” by Aoki, Boyle & Jenkins

Read it online or download it here.

Posted on by mklang

Reading tip

In an chapter entitled “Exploring Creative Commons: A Skeptical View of a Worthy Pursuit” Niva Elkin-Koren writes:

It may well be that there is nothing wrong with copyright per se, but only with the way these rights were exploited by copyright owners in recent years. Changing social practices may have a powerful signalling effect, the importance of which could not be overstated. Yet, establishing a workable and sustainable alternative to the current copyright regime would require enforceable legal measures that would restrain the power of copyright owners to govern their works. To achieve this goal it would not be sufficient to facilitate self-restraint and encourage copyright owners to treat their copyright as guardians, protecting it from any attempt to restrict access and reuse. In the long run, creating an alternative to copyright would require a copyright reform.

The chapter is part of the book The Future of the Public Domain, (P. Bernt Hugenholtz & Lucie Guibault, eds.)
Kluwer Law International, forthcoming 2006. It is also available at SSRN.

Posted on by mklang

Da Vinci Code in Court

Two of the three authors of “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” are suing the publisher of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” for for breach of UK copyright in the UK editions of the book. Today through a series of takeovers Random House is the publisher of both books.

“The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” was published in 1982 and claimed that Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene and had a child by her.

The legal problem is that an idea for a book is not itself protected, but the actual content of a book is. So its not copyright infringement if two books appear with the same idea as long as they dont directly copy or adapt the earlier text.

So both books are about the same thing – not copyright violation. But what about the architecture of the book? It may be plagiarism but is it copyright violation to describe a similar scene in two different books?

Posted on by mklang

Cookyright

Georg at Freedom Bits writes about the proposed copyright for culinaric art – thats food to you and me…

German star-cook Heinz Beck of the restaurant “La Pergola” in Rome asks to introduce a copyright on cooking recipes. His argument is based on cooking also being a creative form of art.

Now Giorgio Assuma considers “culinaric art a serious issue” and asks for a EU directive to introduce a kind of cookyright. One can only marvel at the horrors of a European Cookyright Directive.

Posted on by mklang

Memory & Art

This painting has been with me since I was born. Its almost strange to have had something for this long and still discuss who owns it. Does it belong to the culture from where it came? Many cultures claim art that has ended up in foreign countries. Does it belong to the artist? Intellectual property is life + 70 years and moral rights last forever… What did my distant relative agree upon (and with whom) when he bought the painting in Africa and transported it to Sweden? It has since then travelled to many other places in the world. Does it matter? One day I must write a longer analysis on this topic… a book maybe?

pilipili

About the artist: Pilipil Mulongoy
Born in 1916, he occupies an exceptional place in Congolese painting; they call him the Sorcerer of African luxuriance. Son of a fisherman from Lualaba, he participated in hunting and fishing where he gathered these themes which he later transposed onto his canvas. Pilipili Mulongoy studied in the atelier and later, the Academy of Beaux-Arts of Romain Desposes in Lubumbashi where he developed an essential understanding and skill in the plastic arts in the vast African subcontinent. Pilipili became a professor and integrated a new studio, the “Hangar” at the Academy.
The text was taken long ago from somewhere else… I would love to acknowledge the source but I cannot remember or find where I found it. Another flaw with a copyright system is that you have to remember things like this! (last part in italics added later).

Posted on by mklang

Vatican closes source

Richard Owen has written an article Vatican ‘cashes in’ by putting price on the Pope’s copyright in The Times.

The Vatican has been accused of trying to cash in on the Popeâ??s words after it decided to impose strict copyright on all papal pronouncements.

For the first time all papal documents, including encyclicals, will be governed by copyright invested in the official Vatican publishing house, the Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

The edict covers Pope Benedict XVIâ??s first encyclical, which is to be issued this week amid huge international interest. The edict is retroactive, covering not only the writings of the present pontiff â?? as Pope and as cardinal â?? but also those of his predecessors over the past 50 years. It therefore includes anything written by John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI and John XXIII.

The decision was denounced yesterday for treating the Popeâ??s words as â??saleable merchandiseâ?? and endangering the Churchâ??s mission to â??spread the Christian messageâ??.

A Milanese publishing house that had issued an anthology containing 30 lines from Pope Benedictâ??s speech to the conclave that elected him and an extract from his enthronement speech is reported to have been sent a bill for â?¬15,000 (£10,000). This was made up of 15 per cent of the cover price of each copy sold plus â??legal expensesâ?? of â?¬3,500.

Not too long ago I wrote about the Vatican Ethics in Internet report being pro-Free Software. The times seem to be changing even in the Vatican. Maybe we will see papal lawyers suing for unauthorised copies. Could this lead to a black market or file-sharing of the popes texts? Would you download a papal torrent?

Posted on by mklang

Warhol Foundation on Copyright

Lessig has written (in Wired) about the Warhol foundation’s application of copyright law. Joel Wachs, the president of the foundation says:

“We’re Lessig when it comes to artists and scholars” and “Disney when it comes to commercial use.”

Basically they allow artists to build upon Warhol’s work and academics to use his work for a nominal fee. But are tough on commercial use. This is in keeping with Warhol’s idea of art. Borrow from your surroundings and use it.

More and more I find this the right way to go. Commenting on our surroundings should be permissable – the only real prohibition should be plagiarism. Only copying without adding does not provide anything new.

Partly this position may come from the fact that I teach and many students dont realise what plagiarism is. I have even had students get angry with me when I uncovered their cheats. In the worst case a student attempted to pass off my work as his.

The word plagiarism comes from latin and refers to the activity of stealing anothers slaves. The roman poet Martialis wrote:

The book which you are reading aloud is mine, Fidentinus; but, while you read it so badly, it begins to be yours.
– Epigrams (bk. I, ep. 38)

Oh, and before any of my students come across this and ask: NO bad plagiarism does not make your work original even if you can cite Martialis!

Posted on by mklang

Minister of (in)Justice: Bodström

The Swedish Minister of Justice seemed like a nice man. However, he quickly showed that he was not going to worry too much about civil liberties when it came to legislation. Since becoming minister he has systematically been implementing harsher legislation which threatens civil liberties. When the harsher copyright regime was implemented and concerns were raised about the number of young people breaking the law he attempted to calm the fears of the Swedes by saying that the law would not be used against them.

When asked how one should protect ones privacy from overzealeous police investigations, he told the reporter that the best protection was to commit no crime.

Recently when discussing the new legislation to use telephone surveillance and house searches against people who are not suspected of crimes he stated that the reason was that in practice this already happened and therefore it was better that the law followed practice. In other words if the police do not respect the law then it is better to change the law to follow the police practice.

This is taken from Dagens Nyheter 18 October 2005

Thomas Bodströms uttalande i Ekot pÃ¥ tisdagen är märkligt för att komma frÃ¥n en justitieminister. I en kommentar till regeringens planer pÃ¥ att lÃ¥ta polisen använda tvÃ¥ngsmedel som telefonavlyssning och husrannsakan mot personer som inte är misstänka för nÃ¥got begÃ¥nget brott svarade han: “Ja, det är en ny rättsprincip i lagen, dock inte mot hur det har fungerat i praktiken”.

Med andra ord: eftersom det funnits poliser som inte respekterat lagen är det inte en så stor sak att regeringen vill överge den princip som lagen vilat på.

Han hade kunnat hävda att vÃ¥rt samhälle tidigare levt med en dubbelmoral där en sak sagts offentligt och Säkerhetspolisen i praktiken gjort nÃ¥got annat. Han hade kunnat säga att världen vi nu lever i är sÃ¥ farlig att vi mÃ¥ste offra vissa principer. Det hade varit diskutabelt – men Ã¥tminstone ärligt. Att som nu försöka förminska principfrÃ¥gan inger däremot ingen respekt.

DN – Ledare – En justitieminister utan principer

Posted on by mklang

Fair Use

The Center for Social Media has produced interesting material on Fair Use:

Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use

Peter Jaszi – â??Yes, You Can!â?? â??Where You Donâ??t Even Need â??Fair Useâ?? a guide offers to what falls into the category of free use.

Peter Jaszi – Fair Use: An Essential Feature of Copyright hearing testimony by explains the legal significance of the doctrine of fair use, for creators, consumers and commerce.

Peter Hirtle – How to Find Out What is in the Public Domain explains when copyrighted material falls into the public domain.

Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi – Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers – 2004 study shows how rights clearance problems hobbled creativity in documentary filmmaking.

Or watch the 7 minute video summarizing the results of the study Stories Untold: (43 Mb, streaming)

Posted on by mklang