lessig

Lessig asks for help in Fairy defence

Lessig is asking for help in the Shepard Fairy/AP case. He writes on his blog:

As mentioned, the Fair Use Project at Stanford’s CIS is representing Shepard Fairey in his suit against the AP. To that end, we’d be grateful for some net-based knowledge. How many photos are there “like” the beautiful photograph that Mannie Garcia took (the one on the left; the one on the right is a CC licensed photo taken by Steve Jurvetson)? Can you send any examples to shep_use@pobox.com?

Also, please send any favorite examples of photos used as visual references for other works of art. We lawyers don’t know much, but we can learn pretty quickly.

Posted on by mklang

Free licenses upheld

Lessig reports:

So for non-lawgeeks, this won’t seem important. But trust me, this is huge.

I am very proud to report today that the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (THE “IP” court in the US) has upheld a free (ok, they call them “open source”) copyright license, explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others. (The specific license at issue was the Artistic License.) This is a very important victory, and I am very very happy that the Stanford Center for Internet and Society played a key role in securing it. Congratulations especially to Chris Ridder and Anthony Falzone at the Center.

In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you’re simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license.

Important clarity and certainty by a critically important US Court.

Posted on by mklang