'a term coined by Jason Mazzone (Associate Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School) to describe situations where individuals and institutions illegally claim copyright ownership of the public domain and other breaches of copyright law with little or no oversight by authorities or legal consequence for their actions.' Good term (via Nelson)

'This site is intended to give the public a chance to comment on, and hopefully [collaboratively] improve, the text of a proposed submission to the [Irish] Copyright Review Commission.' (ie. CRC2012, deadline 31 May.)

'some portions of the experience, such as the sky, may be replaced by personalised advertising.' Uploading your consciousness in the age of copyright maximalism, as Nelson Minar put it (via Nelson)

In response to a letter received by a charity, warning of dire penalties for 'reproducing copyright content without permission', since doing so 'is theft'. It gets better, since in correspondence they were then informed that “a licence is required to link directly to an online article even without uploading any of the content directly onto your own website”. Looking forward to seeing how this one plays out...

The original article is now paywalled, but the comments thread contains a fantastic discussion between some very smart young, and old, musicians, discussing music in a digital age where copying is trivial, the future of the music business, copyright, etc.

Good discussion and some great points, particularly this one for pro-copyright comments from "creative class" types: "there are few absolutes in copyright. To the question of motivation, if no copyright equaled no work, the fashion business would collapse, as their products are not covered by copyright. Money is one form of reward, but there are others (many non-fiction authors make more money doing things ancillary to their writing than they do from the writing, and then there is the explosion in labors of love), and copyright is one way to arrange the flow of money, but it's a less good one than it used to be, because we are in an environment that makes that model of control less salient, and the other forms of reward moreso. So the logic of "It's copyright or chaos" isn't holding up well."

Truly amazing outcome from Mark Tighe's FOI request regarding lobbying on the copyright SI. It turns out that (a) IRMA want all Irish ISPs to enact "3 strikes", and view the SI as a way to force this; but (b) Eircom are of the opinion that "3 strikes" is now illegal and unenforceable under EU and Irish law. Despite knowing this, Sherlock then went ahead and signed the SI into law *anyway*, just to avoid the hassle of IRMA's members bringing the government to court. Which they did anyway, regardless. What an utter shambles

95 questions for the public, corresponding to the Copyright Review Committee's Consultation Paper at http://www.djei.ie/science/ipr/crc_index.htm . I need to sit down and get through these at some stage...

All spot on. 'Despite all this, the government - through Minister Sherlock - has passed this statutory instrument.
In all likelihood, Sherlock’s department had decided to do it a long time ago (probably before the last election), in a (now failed) effort to get the music companies off its back.
It’s a shame that Sherlock has gone along with this so easily: he is taking all the flak. It’s also not that common to see a government determined to pass new law that it knows - or strongly suspects - won’t work.'

'our page clearly is not infringing. This is a 100% bogus DMCA takedown -- something we only discovered by complete accident over a month later -- hiding one of our key articles in an important fight about abusing copyright law to take down free speech. Seems like a perfect example of how copyright can be -- and is -- abused to suppress free speech.'

more on the Rumblefish-owns-birdsong Youtube fiasco

'This is Fine Gael Junior Minister Sean Sherlock. It's probably not important that you remember his face because his career in Irish politics may soon be over. [...] What's particularly galling is the government's high handed act. In the United States they dropped SOPA legislation because voters objected, but in Ireland they just waited for the controversy to die down and railroaded it through. I had hoped Ireland had learned enough in recent years to move beyond this style of governance.'

Boards' new post-SOPAIreland copyright policy, at least for the Rugby forum. Wonder how widespread this is to the rest of the site

Sean Sherlock says the new SI will "establish Irish copyright law on a firm footing to encourage innovation, foster creativity", which is pretty bloody hilarious. plus a nice little dig at the online campaign: "As there are clearly many diverse interests, it is important that interested parties come together and work in a constructive way to map the path forward." They really don't have a clue what they've done. After 20 years of Labour first prefs, I'm never voting Labour again

Alan Toner on library.nu's shutdown. 'The case of library.nu is significant because the demand for the works offered there demonstrates that filesharing is not just about pop music, porn and cams of action movies, but also those forms and sources of knowledge whose acquisition are ritually celebrated within ‘enlightenment’ culture. Many of those whose works were offered derive income not from royalties, but from related activities such as teaching and research. Such people were themselves an important component library.nu’ user base. Some have other means to access the same materials, others, especially those in countries with weaker education infrastructures and more emaciated library budgets, do not. Outside of formal education, the millions of online autodidacts may be denied access to material, seriously impinging on their lives and possibilities. When one considers the cost of text books and more especially scholarly articles, that is no hyperbole, and applies not only to the global south but the post-industrial north as well, awash in its dreams of knowledge economies and human capital.'

'The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce that a copyright lawsuit threatening an important database of time zone information has been dismissed. The astrology software company that filed the lawsuit, Astrolabe, has also apologized and agreed to a 'covenant not to sue' going forward, which will help protect the database from future baseless legal actions and disruptions.

Software engineers around the world depend on the time zone database to make sure that time-stamps for email and other files work correctly no matter where you are. However, last September, Astrolabe filed a lawsuit against Arthur David Olson and Paul Eggert – the researchers who coordinated the database's development for decades – because the database includes information from an atlas in which Astrolabe claimed to own copyright. But facts – like what time the sun rises – are not copyrightable. EFF, along with co-counsel Adam Kessel and Olivia Nguyen at the Boston office of Fish & Richardson P.C, promptly signed on to defend Olson and Eggert and protect this essential tool. In January, EFF advised Astrolabe that Olson and Eggert would move for sanctions if Astrolabe did not withdraw its complaint. Today's dismissal followed.'

'The agreement reached last month with the licensing agency includes provisions defining e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student and surveillance of academic staff email.' wow, incredibly bad terms

'Do intellectual property (IP) rights on existing technologies hinder subsequent
innovation? Using newly-collected data on the sequencing of the human genome by
the public Human Genome Project and the private rm Celera, this paper estimates
the impact of Celera's gene-level IP on subsequent scientic research and product
development. Genes initially sequenced by Celera were held with IP for up to two
years, but moved into the public domain once re-sequenced by the public eort.
Across a range of empirical specications, I nd evidence that Celera's IP led to
reductions in subsequent scientic research and product development on the order of
20 to 30 percent. Taken together, these results suggest that Celera's short-term IP
had persistent negative eects on subsequent innovation relative to a counterfactual
of Celera genes having always been in the public domain.' (via Tony Finch)

'I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around.'

An amazing article, via Nelson Minar -- careful examination of the evolution of chess programs over the past 8 years appears to show clear signs of code/algorithm copying and unauthorised reverse engineering -- by many of the developers. 'Dr Søren Riis of Queen Mary University in London shows how most programs (legally) profited from Fruit, and subsequently much more so from the (illegally) reverse engineered Rybka. Yet it is Vasik Rajlich who was investigated, found guilty of plagiarism, banned for life, stripped of his titles, and vilified in the international press – for a five-year-old alleged tournament rule violation. Ironic.'

'The Court judgement therefore goes well beyond saying what a court may decide, by means of an injunction: it also sets out the limits of Member States’ powers to legislate to draft ISPs as copyright police. It will be a crucial precedent in future arguments about the Digital Economy Act, in the UK, HADOPI in France, various blocking requirements in Italy, and numerous other schemes across the EU. As victories for ISPs in the copyright wars go, this one was comprehensive. It will be seen as a landmark ruling for years to come.' woot

'At this point IPKat team member Jeremy dons his old academic hat and excitedly draws attention to some research he did on the St Columba case.  The goodly saint was given access to a psalter that was in the possession of Abbot Finian in around the year 560.  A psalter is a book of psalms -- definitely public domain stuff, having been compiled during the reign of King David, who is generally reckoned to have died around 970 years before the common era.  Even on a life + 70 year basis, copyright would have expired around getting on for 1,500 years before Columba came on to the scene.  Having illicitly copied the psalter he refused to deliver it up to King Dermot of Tara, who famously said “to every cow its calf, to every book its copy” -- not "to every cow its calf, to every author his work".  Anyway, to cut a long story short, Columba refused to hand it over, fled the country for the safety of England (like the founder of Wikileaks), converted the Picts to Christianity, settled in Iona and became a saint.  You can read this all in "St Columba the Copyright Infringer" [1985] 12 European Intellectual Property Review 350-353.' (via Eoin O'Dell). Someone fill in the misquoting High Court judges....

This is how you do it -- bravo to Alice Taylor, who got them fair and square as they did their usual trick of lifting copyrighted content without permission

full of good commentary on the rather horrific result. here's one: "I wonder how the photographer would feel if the company that manufactured the trumpet played by Miles Davis had claimed that his photograph violated the copyright of their "sculpture" and the tailor Miles got his suit from also protested. Of all art forms, photography has some of the least claim on being an entirely original creation of the artist."

"They did not have the right to sell it and have infringed his copyright. It is as simple as that." Scummy -- some company called "News Team International" taking YouTube content and passing it off as their own

The Age with a cynical take on pro-music-biz anti-piracy "reports". "The quality of data and analysis is very weak as its political objective is so clear. It does not use actual ABS data but data taken from Europe. It's an elemental statistical error, it's fudging with numbers to come out with a figure which is 'kinda sorta' plausible."

'The publication of Digital Opportunity follows a six-month independent review of IP and Growth, led by Professor Ian Hargreaves. He was asked to consider how the national and international IP system can best work to promote innovation and growth.' Some fantastic recommendations here. I hope this provides clear direction to similar Irish efforts...

scummy. don't use TwitPic if they are planning to monetize your photos, even if it's currently just for a "small number of celebrities". (via my dad)

the Joyce estate playing their usual role. 'are we now nearing a point where copyright law can result in the retraction of a life form?' (via John Looney)

'some first thoughts on how the just-published coalition agreement (Fine Gael and Labour) in Ireland proposes to deal with issues of interest to cyberlaw and media law.'

At least one of the sites seized by DHS was an mp3 blog which posted authorised, promotional mp3s, sent from record label VPs and artists -- ie. none of the supposedly "infringing" files, actually were infringing. (via Tony Finch)

'UNLESS CHANGES are made to Ireland’s legal and regulatory framework in areas like copyright and defamation, digital businesses will be discouraged from locating operations here, say legal experts and businesses.'

this is not looking good -- the Seanad debate on the subject of filesharing and internet filtering in Ireland is going in the direction that IRMA have been lobbying for; only the Labour senator came up with something sensible, by at least reading an email he'd received into the record

open-source classical music: now very well-funded. awesome!

it's with Mr Justice Peter Charleton again -- the Colmcille-misquoting judge from the Eircom case. here's hoping the Data Protection Commissioner gets off their arse and does their job this time around

"There is a huge Digital Single Market for audiovisual material. The problem is that it's illegal [...] We have effectively allowed illegal file-sharing to set up a single market where our usual policy channels have failed." "While the internet is borderless, Europe’s online markets are not. It is often easier to buy something from a US website than online from the country next-door in Europe. Often you cannot buy it at all within Europe."

incredible. Almost every single modern camera capable of recording video now requires that you obtain a license from MPEG-LA to use recorded footage for commercial purposes. These clauses are currently not enforced, but could be. Horrifying (via Tony Finch)

excellent post on the 'three strikes' judgement

'Of course you have to appreciate the irony – the agency in charge of enforcing France’s new anti-piracy legislation using a pirated proprietary font in its very own logo.' hoho! hoist by their own petard