Movie Industry Insiders Unreceptive to Plugging the A-Hole February 28, 2006
In an article from Peter Pollack of Arstechnica, a recent talk given at a retreat found many hollywood insiders unreceptive to the idea of trying to eliminate the analog hole as he put it. Many seemed in disagreement as the speaker proposed that consumer education be placed into the hands of the retailers. More information here
Blast from the past
You may be new to the issues surrounding fair use or you may have been following them for a long time and simply forgot about some of the wonderful humor that comes out of the mess. Which ever the case may be, I would be delinquent in my duties if I didn’t pass on this news,
The onion reports LOS ANGELES—The Recording Industry Association of America filed a $7.1 billion lawsuit against the nation’s radio stations Monday, accusing them of freely distributing copyrighted music.
I know! I could hardly believe it myself.
Free downloads 3, Legal Torrents for all February 24, 2006
Here is a site with loads of content under the Creative Commons license with the full permission of the rights holders to download for free. As LegalTorrents.com puts it,
“LegalTorrents is a collection of Creative Commons-licensed, legally downloadable, freely distributable creator-approved files, from electronic/indie music to movies and books, which we have made available via BitTorrent”
If music is what you are after, some of these archives are the better part of a gigabyte in size and some contain hundreds of mp3’s from a great number of artists. There is more than just music though, go explore this pocket of fair use friendly media. Happy downloading!
Head of the US copyright office says copyright is too long February 21, 2006
BoingBoing tells us that
“The head of the US copyright office has accused Congress of making a mistake by extending the length of copyright in America, calling the term “too long,” and saying that Congress made a “big mistake.”
It’s about time! The ability to exercise our fair use rights is evaporating at an alarming pace by increasingly restrictive DRM measures. A shorter copyright term would be a (small) step in the direction of restoring the balance.
Free downloads 2, no law suits February 20, 2006
There are a tremendous number of artists out there who want you to download their work (for free), listen to it, and even use it to create new works. Opsound.org has a large collection of DRM-free music you can download.
Backups and CD ripping is not fair use February 17, 2006
At least that is what the RIAA and friends think and thats what they told The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress during the triennial review of the DMCA (pdf).
Free downloads 1, no law suits February 16, 2006
I’m sure this service is way underused. On CreativeCommons.org there is a very large, very simple button that allows you to “search for Creative Commons audio, images, text, video, and other formats that are free to share on line.” It’s big and square and it has the word “Find” on it. you can’t miss it.
From Slashdot, Libraries concerned over DRM February 9, 2006
“The BBC is reporting that the British Library is concerned about DRM’s effect on its ability to make materials available to the public. Libraries have a legal right to distribute materials under the Fair Use provisions of the copyright law, but DRM systems may block this. Furthermore, they point out that DRM systems don’t automatically switch themselves off when a work goes out of copyright. DRM systems may allow copyright holders to retain control over their material longer than they are legally entitled to. Worse yet, if the software no longer exists to unlock a DRM-protected file, its contents may be lost forever — exactly the thing libraries are intended to prevent.”
