Archive for March, 2007

Help pick the best of StayFree!

Friday, March 23rd, 2007

If you've ever been a fan of StayFree! Magazine, you can help pick the best articles from the magazine's history. Sadly, Carrie McLaren & Co. are calling it quits on the published mag, but at least they'll keep the StayFree! blog up and running. Print pubs take a lot of time ...

Lessig on Grokster and Viacom

Sunday, March 18th, 2007

In an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig describes the legal uncertainty surrounding the Viacom suit as impending "copyright chaos." Lessig blames the 2005 Grokster decision for inviting Viacom's lawsuit of YouTube. The Supremes overstepped their bounds, usurping Congressional authority to damn new technologies, heightening the ...

Viacom v. YouTube

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

I'm in the middle of a 2-week vacation in Colorado, but I guess I have to say something about Viacom's suit against YouTube--or, at least, I have to link to some people who say something. At News.com, Declan McCullagh says the case depends on how you view 17 USC ยง 512, ...

Copyright Office trying to kill webcasting

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Thanks to a recent US Copyright Office ruling, webcasters will pay royalties to copyright holders at a rate nearly three times that paid in 2005, threatening their very ability to stay online. In 2002, the Copyright Royalty Board set the royalty rate at $.0007 per song per listener. This may not ...

japanese classic in public domain

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

Apparently a Japanese court ruled in July 2006 that all Japanese films produced before 1953 are part of the Public Domain. That includes one of the most brilliant movies in film history: Rashomon by Kurosawa. if you haven't seen it yet, you have no excuse but to check it out ...

Torture: As Seen on TV

Friday, March 2nd, 2007

Much media violence research focuses on at-risk populations, such as the imitation of violent scenes among children. The U.S. Army has recognized its own cadets as another sort of at-risk population, it seems, requesting that Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer on TV's 24) visit West Point to tell cadets that torture ...

Debating the DMCA reform bill

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA) have introduced a bill that would scale back the effect of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA and limit the liability of technological innovators, sparking debate among all stakeholders. The Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007, or FAIR USE Act ...