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Techdirt has published a number of posts that explore the issue of whether art organizations
can stop people sharing images of works in their collections when the
latter are indisputably in the public domain. Even if museums might be
able to claim copyright in their "official" photographic images, the
more important question is whether they ought to. The good news is that
some institutions are beginning to realize that using copyright
monopolies in this way contradicts their basic reason for existing -- to
share the joy of art. Here, for example, is a wonderful statement of
that principle from the Getty Museum entitled "Open Content, An Idea Whose Time Has Come":
On
Techdirt.
You may remember a rather wonderful court case from 2012 that pitted
copyright lawyers against patent lawyers over the issue of whether
submitting journal articles as part of the patenting process was fair
use. Well, we now have the judge's decision, as GigaOm reports:
On
Techdirt.
The use of Web blocks -- usually "for the children"
-- is becoming depressingly common these days. So much so, that many
people have probably come to accept them as a fact of online life. After
all, the logic presumably goes, we can't do much about it, and anyway
surely it's a good thing to try to filter out the bad stuff? Techdirt
readers, of course, know otherwise, but for anyone who still thinks that
well-intentioned blocking of "unsuitable" material is unproblematic,
the following cautionary tale from the British blogger W.H. Forsyth may prove instructive:
On
Techdirt.
A couple of months back, Techdirt wrote about Australia's proposals to shift from the current fair dealing approach to fair use
as part of wide-ranging reform of copyright there. When something
similar was mooted in the UK as part of what became the Hargreaves
Review, it was shouted down by the copyright maximalists on the grounds
that it would lead to widespread litigation.
As Mike pointed out at the time, that's nonsense: the existence of a
large body of US case law dealing with this area makes it much easier to
bring in fair use without the need for its contours to be defined in
the courts.
On
Techdirt.
Techdirt has noted the increasing demonization of hackers (not to be
confused with crackers that break into systems for criminal purposes),
for example by trying to add an extra layer of punishment on other
crimes if they were done "on a computer." High-profile victims of this
approach include Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, Jeremy Hammond, Barrett Brown and of course Edward Snowden.
On
Techdirt.
One of the central problems of laws that deal with copyright is that
they are essentially products of a time when the distinction between
creator and audience was clear-cut. The move to digital and the rise of
the Internet has changed all that, allowing hundreds of millions of
people to become new kinds of creators. They may not write entire
symphonies or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but what they
lack in scale and intensity they make up for in frequency and
spontaneity.
On
Techdirt.
Around the world, we have been watching the gradual taming
of social media, especially in countries where governments keep
mainstream media on a tight leash. But even against that background,
this news from the Bangkok Post about Vietnam's latest moves to censor online content is pretty extraordinary:
On
Techdirt.
Last week we wrote about how the Russian equivalent of SOPA had been amended in order to ban swearing
online. Although that was worth noting for its entertainment value,
probably more important is the fact that the same law -- originally
brought in to take down sites about drugs, suicide and child pornography
-- has also been widened to include copyright infringement, as TechWeekEurope reports:
On
Techdirt.
One of the heartening recent developments in the world of digital
copyright is that we have moved on from manifestly biased surveys about
the evils of piracy and how the solution to everything is harsher
punishment for infringement and longer copyright terms, to independent
analyses that seek to understand rather than judge and lecture. There's
also been a new focus on learning what the public thinks might be an
appropriate balance for modern copyright -- something that nobody cared
about in the past.
On
Techdirt.
One of the myths perpetuated by governments taking part in major
international treaty negotiations like ACTA, TPP and TAFTA/TTIP is that
somehow no national sovereignty is given up during the process, and that
therefore the public shouldn't worry about what goes on in those secret
meetings. That's clearly absurd, because negotiations involve
concessions, usually by the weaker parties, which often touch on
national competences.
On
Techdirt.
As a recent DailyDirt noted, opinions on the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
are sharply divided. But that heated argument tends to obscure another
problem that Techdirt has often written about in other fields: the use
of patent monopolies to exert control, in this case over the food chain.
By inserting DNA sequences into plants and animals and obtaining
patents, the biotech industry is granted surprisingly wide-ranging
powers over how its products are used, as the Bowman case made clear. That's potentially problematic when those products are the foods that keep us alive.
On
Techdirt.
Techdirt has run a number of posts about David Cameron's dangerous plans to apply default online censorship and make porn opt-in in the UK, supposedly to "protect the children". Now it looks like Peru is following suit (original in Spanish):
On
Techdirt.
Two massive trade agreements currently being negotiated -- TPP and
TAFTA/TTIP -- could potentially affect most people on this planet,
either directly or indirectly through the knock-on effects. Like all
such agreements, they have been justified on the grounds that everyone
wins: trade is boosted, prices drop, profits rise and jobs are created.
That's why it's been hard to argue against TPP or TAFTA -- after all,
who doesn't want all those things?
On
Techdirt.
There are few areas in tech policy where the waters are so muddied as
those swirling around net neutrality. That's as true for the EU as it
is for the US. The latest statement by the person responsible for this
area in the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, does little to clarify things.
On
Techdirt.
Last week Mike wrote how frustration at the unremitting secrecy
surrounding TPP, and the refusal to allow members of the public in
whose name it is being negotiated to express their views, has led to the
creation of a new participatory Web site by the "Fair Deal Coalition."
Many of the best-known groups fighting for more balanced copyright laws
in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have signed up, including
Techdirt.
On
Techdirt.
A year ago, we wrote about a Russian law
that introduced a blacklist designed to block access to information on
drugs, suicide and child pornography (all for the children, of course.)
Strangely, that same law was then used to silence leading reporters who dared to criticize the government (bet nobody saw that coming....)
On
Techdirt.
The story of open data in the UK has been fairly uplifting in recent
years, as more and more public datasets are released under liberal
licences. Even the big holdouts - things like Ordnance Survey - have
gradually loosened their grip. The same is true for the Postcode
Address File (PAF), which has a surprising long history:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
At the start of this year I flagged up
the likelihood that hugely important trade negotations between the EU
and US would start in due course. A few months later, I gave some more background to that move, as well as the text of a document calling for the participants to avoid repeating the grave mistakes of ACTA, which ultimately led to that agreement being rejected in the European Parliament on July 4 last year.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Yesterday I wrote
about the slide into censorship and self-censorship that the UK
government's misbegotten plans to impose a default set of Net blocks
could bring about. Of course, the UK is not alone in seeking to
introduce disproportionate schemes. Here's one from Russia:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock, you will have
heard and probably read plenty about the UK government's grandstanding
proposals to make pornography opt-in. I won't waste your time by going
through the many reasons why that is a foolish idea and won't achieve
the things the government says it will. Instead I'd like to concentrate
on some disturbing hints about where this could be going, and why we
need to start fighting any such plans now.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
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