TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

Archive for the ‘copyright’ Category

By Steve Jordan

At the 2009 Educause Conference held in Denver, Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard University law professor and renowned open-access advocate, discussed the disconnect between copyright law and the digital world, especially regarding the needs of education, and the need to get it fixed.

Copyright law was originally intended to protect those who create for profit (Lessig used the example of recording artist Britney Spears). But academics also create original works, he said, and they are — or should be — motivated by a desire to advance human knowledge, not line their pockets. Therefore, sealing their work behind copyright barriers does no social good.

The discussion highlighted the changes to publishing and text use that the digital age has wrought, and the fact that existing copyright law does not address those modern concerns.

By Chris Meadows

Ars Technica has a review of a book by a veteran copyright lawyer who accuses the content industry of provoking “moral panics” to strengthen copyright law.

According to Ars, William Patry’s Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars is a powerful screed by a copyright lawyer with 27 years of experience who is currently Senior Copyright Counsel at Google. “Patry wants to show that copyright owners use metaphors—especially that of the ‘pirate’ and the ‘thief’—in order to short-circuit critical thinking on copyright issues.”

To borrow a term from the Free Software vs. Microsoft wars, the book accuses copyright owners of using a classic FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) strategy to have their way with Congress. (Though as Ars points out, Patry flings enough scary metaphors himself that he could be considered to use this strategy as well.)

I have not read the book myself, but from the review it sounds like it might be worth a look.

By Paul Biba

In a press release approving the British government’s initiatives on copyright reform, the Library set forth the principles it sees necessary for any reform. This is a good exercise for looking at reforming our own copyright laws. The Library’s principles are:

1. Many contracts undermine the public interest exceptions in copyright law agreed by Parliament to foster education, learning and creativity. Addressing this issue is crucial so that existing and new exceptions are not over-ridden by contract law.

2. Libraries must be able to make preservation of copies of the material they acquire, including web harvesting of the UK domain.

3. 40% of the British Library’s collections are Orphan Works (where the rightsholder can no longer be found or traced). A legislative solution to Orphan Works would help provide access to the UK’s large historical collections over the internet.

4. Researchers and libraries need to be able to make available ‘fair dealing copies’ of anything in their collections, including sound and film recordings that Fair Dealing does not currently relate to.

5. Computer based research techniques, such as scientific research, needs to be allowed by future copyright law, in the same way that in the analogue world research activity is protected through ‘fair dealing’.

You can find the full press release here. Thanks to Resource Shelf for the link.

By Paul Biba

Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums is a new book published today by the Library. It is based on an Australian manual and revised to conform to American practice.

It addresses the basics of copyright law and the exclusive rights of the copyright owner, the major exemptions used by cultural heritage institutions, and stresses the importance of “risk assessment” when conducting any digitization project. Case studies on digitizing oral histories and student work are also included.

Available for purchase at https://www.createspace.com/3405063, and for free download here and here. The full press release is here.

By Paul Biba

Dear Author has started a thread for authors so that they can post and talk about piracy and related issues. Jane says that some authors believe they need more of a forum to discuss their frustrations. A laudable goal, and I, too, wish we had more author postings in the comments and in articles on the site. Any authors want to send me their thoughts?

Here is a quote from her post, a quote that makes a lot of sense to me:

Yes, publishing is tough these days. Publishers are turning away books they may have bought in the past. Booksellers are cutting back on their orders and contracts are being canceled. This is not the result of piracy, but you can certainly try to sell me on the idea that it is. I am convinced that the best thing for authors and publishers to do is to make sure that the pirate has the least attractive option. This is a phenomenal article on the futility of fighting piracy. Piracy, like the poor as Matthew says, will always be with us. Nothing the RIAA or MPAA has done in terms of anti pirate measures has worked. The pirates will always make material available for free. The goal then must be to make the legitimate purchase equal to or better than the pirating experience.

By Paul Biba

This is a great idea, as there is no question that many companies issue bogus takedown notices to force websites to remove content that is fully protected by the “fair use” exemptions in the Copyright Act. This is a blow to free speech every time it happens. But, even if the notices are bogus, who can afford to take a chance of being sued or having their ISP drop them? Big money wins again.

Here’s what the Electronic Frontier Foundation has to say:

“Free speech in the 21st century often depends on incorporating video clips and other content from various sources,” explained EFF Senior Staff Attorney and Kahle Promise Fellow Corynne McSherry. “It’s what The Daily Show with Jon Stewart does every night. This is ‘fair use’ of copyrighted or trademarked material and protected under U.S. law. But that hasn’t stopped thin-skinned corporations and others from abusing the legal system to get these new works removed from the Internet. We wanted to document this censorship for all to see.” …”The DMCA encourages a ‘take down first, ask questions later’ approach, creating an unfair hurdle to free speech,” said EFF Activist Richard Esguerra. “People who abuse this law to silence critics should be shamed publicly, and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”

Right now the Wall of Shame includes: NPR, Warner Music Group, De Beers, NBC, Polo Ralph Lauren, CBS News and others.

By Paul Biba

In one of the more bizarre lawsuits recently, ASCAP sued cell phone carriers saying that when ringtones went off in a public place it was a “performance” and so infringed the author’s copyright and royalties were due. This suit was brought despite the fact that operators already pay ASCAP royalties for use of the tones.

Yesterday a federal court, showing a degree of sanity in an ever stranger copyright world, held that a ringtone going off in public was not a “public performance” and did not infringe copyright as the playing was done “without the purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage”. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out this ruling will also keep the driver of a car who is playing of music with the windows down from infringing copyrights.

For the full details you can take a look at the EFF’s report and you can go to bed tonight listening to music and leave your windows open without fear that ASCAP will prosecute you.

By Paul Biba

I’m publishing the following as a public service.

Copyright Office Publishes Notice of Inquiry and Request for Comments on Facilitating Access to Copyrighted Works for the Blind or Other Persons with Disabilities

The Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office seek comment on possible solutions to enhance the accessibility of copyrighted works for the benefit of the blind or other persons with disabilities. Comments are specifically sought on the objectives and potential impact on existing U.S. law of a draft treaty prepared under the auspices of the World Blind Union and proposed formally at the May 2009 session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. Interested parties are invited to submit comments on the topics outlined in the supplementary information section of the Federal Register notice. Initial comments are due on or before November 13, 2009. Reply comments are due on or before December 4, 2009. For further information, go to the Copyright Office website at www.copyright.gov.

You can get the full PDF document here. Thanks to ResourceShelf for the link.

By Chris Meadows

This morning, a friend linked to an Associated Press article, and tweeted, "we feel that the time has come for the cat to wear a bell, and are confident in swift enbellment of the cat." And looking at the article, I have to agree.

The article in question covers the leaders of the Associated Press and News Corp making a lot of noise at the World Media Summit about how the time has come for news services to stand up to news aggregators and search engines and demand payment.

AP chief exec Tom Curley said that more people were using websites such as Wikipedia and Facebook to catch breaking news, rather than traditional news sites, and that services such as AP and News Corp need to act now to regain control of the news content they provide.

That’s right, Tom! Take back the web! Why, how dare those search engines and news aggregators and other such sites have the temerity to publicize your content for you? Let’s not forget, this is the organization that once claimed they would charge bloggers $675 a word for the “fair use” of excerpts longer than ten words, and then retracted the claim but refused to be specific about any new guidelines.

I really like the paragraph further down the page where it talks about the AP planning to set up a plagiarism-detection system to “help boost revenue for the not-for-profit news cooperative”. Did they actually write that with a straight face? If they’re not-for-profit, shouldn’t they be concerned about things other than their revenues?

(Well, all right, to be fair, the quote also mentions the AP’s member newspapers. Still, it looks funny on first read-through.)

You know what Google should do? Google should simply remove the AP and its member papers from its services entirely. No Google News, no Google Blogs if the papers host blogs, no Google search engine indexing at all. Let the AP be entirely defunct as far as Google is concerned.

Then the AP could just find out what would happen to its precious revenue.

Edit: Edited to remove direct link to and quoting in excess of ten words from the AP article. Just in case.

By Paul Biba

Thanks to Michael Pastore for pointing out this New York Times article by Lewis Hyde, a professor of creative writing at Kenyon College. Professor Hyde quotes Thomas Jefferson:

“Jefferson especially believed that no generation had a right to bind those that followed. “The earth belongs . . . to the living,” he wrote to Madison in 1789; “the dead have neither powers nor right over it.” That being the case, “perpetual monopolies” in arts “ought expressly to be forbidden,” Jefferson’s own suggestion being that copyright run no more than 19 years.”

and Daniel Defoe:

“Daniel Defoe offered a memorable image for the relationship between authors and their work: “A Book is the Author’s Property, ’tis the Child of his Inventions, the Brat of his Brain.” The line comes from an essay Defoe wrote in support of the first-ever copyright act, the 1710 Statute of Anne.”

and James Madison:

“James Madison explained that copyright is best viewed as “a compensation for a benefit actually gained to the community.” There were good reasons, he wrote, to give authors a “temporary monopoly” over their work, “but it ought to be temporary” ”

in an article about the pros and cons of the Google book settlement.

By Paul Biba

It looks as if Google is in legal trouble in France as well as in the US because of its book digitization.

Another battle between Google and the publishing industry begins today, as a court case taken by France’s Publishers Association and Society of Authors kicks off in Paris.

According to AFP, the plaintiffs are contesting Google’s 2005 campaign to digitise books without the prior authorisation of publishers or authors. The complaint was first filed three years ago.

Herve de la Martiniere, whose eponymous publishing group controls the Seuil publishing house, told the newswire: “We need to be able to deal with Google on a solid legal basis . . . It is unacceptable that someone would arrogantly take your books and digitise them without asking.”

He estimated between 3,000-4,000 works published by his group had been digitised by Google without his consent.

You can find the rest of the story here.

Technorati Tags:
copyright, Europe, France, Google, Google book settlement, Paul Biba, TeleRead

By Chris Meadows

We have probably already given perpetual-copyright zealot Mark Helprin more coverage than he deserves, but this TechDirt article from Michael Masnick is too good to pass up.

It seems that Helprin’s book, Digital Barbarism, has been getting nearly universally panned by reviewers. But according to an op-ed by Helprin in the National Review, the reason for that is not that the book might be bad—it is because publishers assigned the very people Helprin slammed in the book to review it.

If nothing else, Helprin does not suffer from an inadequate ego. In the op-ed, he paints himself as some kind of lone holy warrior, defending the sacred trust of copyright against some vast Internet conspiracy theory:

Because corporate defenders of intellectual property think they need only protect established law, they sit inertially in their towers and forfeit the more general debate to their active and numerous opponents. Thus, unwittingly engaged and with neither allies nor organizational support of any kind, I thought the only way to respond to hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of critics mobilized by “public interest” groups richly funded by private interests such as Google, was to write a book.

Right, Mark. Just keep thinking that.

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By Paul Biba

That’s what the Copyright Clearance Center is offering online on Wednesday at 12:00 pm. Here is the description:

Since its announcement in October 2008, there has been a continuous stream of activity surrounding the Google Settlement. The dates to opt-out and object have passed and thousands of documents have been filed with the court. Renowned copyright law and policy attorney Lois Wasoff returns to help sort out the diverse viewpoints in anticipation of the Fairness Hearing, the next important event in this historic lawsuit. Presented in clear and concise terms, the seminar will examine the complex issues facing Judge Dennis Chin as the hearing date approaches.

You can find out more about it here.

Technorati Tags:
copyright, Google, Google book settlement, Paul Biba, public domain, TeleRead

By Paul Biba

The decision by Amazon not to offer public domain books has caused some angst in the ebook community, but from the perspective of a corporate lawyer I think it is the correct decision, at least for now.

Don’t forget that Amazon can be sued, and even be subject to criminal charges, if it violates the copyright laws. One suit against Amazon could easily eat up any of the fees Amazon would collect for public domain books for years to come. These things are extremely expensive to defend – costs in the millions are commonplace. Many plaintiff’s lawyers work on a contingency basis and only get paid if they win or force a settlement, so while Amazon is paying millions in defense fees the plaintiff is able to bring the suit almost for free. (Why do you think there are so many class actions suits over relatively trivial matters.)

Further, if Amazon did offer these books, how is it to vet each and every supposedly public domain book to see if it is, indeed, in the public domain. Again an expensive and time consuming operation for very little return. While there certainly are sites out there offering public domain books there is no question that, legally, they are taking a risk with each book they offer. That may be OK for the little guy, but the big guy is always in the gunsights of the plaintiff’s bar.

To make this risk greater, even if Amazon put on a good faith effort to vet all the “public domain” books, hired staff, did the research, and was wrong, this isn’t a defense if sued. Further, there is a growing tendency to prosecute people who “facilitate” the violation of copyright laws, even if they don’t violate the laws directly – look at Pirate Bay and Scribd. Again, expensive to defend against.

Finally, you get into the very muddy area of having someone take a public domain book, make a few changes or format it in a special way, and then copyright the result. So we have a copyrighted public domain book. How is Amazon to deal with this? Or even determine what the status of the book is?

Nope, if I were on the staff of Amazon’s legal department I would advise them that making public domain books available is subjecting the company to a real risk and could easily result in legal expenses that would eat up any profits the company could make by engaging in their sale. From my perspective they are making the right decision.

Technorati Tags:
Amazon, copyright, Paul Biba, TeleRead, public domain

By Paul Biba

The Copyright office has extended until October 16, 2009 the deadline to submit comments on its proposed revision to regulations on mandatory deposit for electronic works published only online. To see a listing of the comments already submitted you can look at this Resource Shelf post. Here’s a brief summary of the proposed revision:

The amendments would establish that such works are exempt from mandatory deposit until a demand for deposit of copies or phonorecords of such works is issued by the Copyright Office. They would also set forth the process for issuing and responding to a demand for deposit, amend the definition of a ‘‘complete copy’’ of a work for purposes of mandatory deposit of online–only works, and establish new best edition criteria for electronic serials available only online. The Copyright Office seeks public comment on these proposed revisions.

Technorati Tags:
copyright, Paul Biba, publishing, TeleRead

By Ficbot

Editor’s note: Martin Taylor’s latest thoughts are here and here. – D.R.

The recent posts from Martin Taylor, and my dialogue with him about the non-existent state of New Zealand e-book publishing, had me thinking about my own country.

Not enough Canadian titles are buyable as e-books.

Canada may not be the United States, but it’s hardly the jungle hinterlands, and many of our best authors are popular both here and in the U.S,. and elsewhere. Three of the authors I discuss below are winners of the Man Booker Prize, such as Margaret Atwood (photo); one is a Pulitzer winner; and two have been featured in Oprah’s Book Club. If you think that should make the books popular enough to merit e-book versions, though, you would be sadly mistaken.

I made a list of twenty Canadian authors whose works I have enjoyed and who I felt were reasonably popular enough to have at least some name recognition, certainly in Canada and in most cases, abroad as well. And then I went to Fictionwise to see what was available. My results were mixed.

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By Chris Meadows

One of the most commonly misunderstood things about lawyers is that, as with forensic debaters, they may often choose to argue two opposite, competing sides of the same issue. This is hardly unusual for them—it’s their job to advocate for whatever side they choose, or even both sides if they think the particular cases have merit.

Our pop culture tends to latch onto this and portray any lawyer who does not have a Perry Mason- or Matlock-like dedication to proving clients innocent as being some kind of slimy mercenary—but when you get right down to it,  it’s a very important part of our legal system that people be able to hire someone to advocate for them regardless of public or personal opinion.

I bring this up because otherwise, the natural inclination when people hear that the law form that represented Jammie Thomas against the RIAA is now suing Scribd for copyright violation is to consider them two-faced slimy mercenary bastards—and I have little doubt among the Slashdot crowd there will be a lot of that.

Lawyers Joe Sibley and Kiwi Camara are representing the author of a book who found her work being offered on Scribd, but they are seeking class-action status to represent “every author who owns a valid registered copyright in a work infringed by Scribd.”

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