MetaFilter posts tagged with copyfight

Opening the Ordnance Survey

acb — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:31:41 -0800

The British government has announced plans to make Ordnance Survey map data freely available online. The Ordnance Survey is the government-funded agency which maps the country at high resolutions. Unlike the US Geological Survey's public-domain data, Ordnance Survey maps are proprietary, and licensed only under restrictive terms and for hefty fees, including to local governments; setting the data free is said to produce a £156 net economic gain. (Previously) The government's move is expected to release other data, including train and bus timetables, currently controlled by entities charging monopoly rents for access. (Fact: the tenth highest-grossing application in the UK iPhone App Store is the "National Rail Enquiries" application, which costs £4.99 , and has exclusive access to the National Rail website's APIs.)

HP15 0TH

acb — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:40:11 -0800

The British postcode system, one of the things which Britain arguably does better than anyone else, is 50 years old. The system divides the entire UK into alphanumeric postal districts organised in a hierarchy, with the first one or two letters denoting a postal area (typically a city or the environs of one, though London has several). Unlike systems elsewhere (such as the US, Australia, and most of Europe), it doesn't stop at the neighbourhood level, with each 5-to-7-character full postcode denoting a segment of a street. This makes it useful for applications other than addressing mail, such as navigation; as such, you can enter a postcode into Google Maps or a satellite navigation unit and be shown exactly where it refers to. Unfortunately, though, the database of postcodes and their locations is another victim of the British institutional custom of copyrighting taxpayer-funded databases and licensing them only at great expense and under onerous terms (see also: the Ordnance Survey), effectively restricting them to moneyed corporations. However, there are several unofficial efforts to assemble this data from scratch and release it into the public domain.

Damien Hirst and the the £500k pencils

acb — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:25:03 -0800

A teenaged graffiti artist in London has been arrested after stealing a box of pencils which were part of a Damien Hirst sculpture. The purloined pencils have been valued at £500,000, making this potentially one of the highest value art thefts in modern Britain. The graffiti artist, named only as "Cartrain", took the pencils in protest at Hirst having some of his artworks seized from an online gallery, on grounds of copyright violation. (The originally disputed artworks were collages, which used photographs of Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull, "For the Love of God".) After taking the pencils, Cartrain made a "wanted" poster, demanding the release of his artworks in return for the pencils, and threatening to sharpen them if the demand wasn't met. A few weeks later, he and his father were arrested by the Art and Antiques Squad. The box of pencils was, according to the police, a very rare "Faber Castell dated 1990 Mongol 482 Series", worth half a million pounds, whose theft damaged a £10-million public artwork.

Ship ahoy, Captain!

jaduncan — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 10:40:42 -0800

You've heard of the Swedish Pirate Party. You may have seen their their elected MEP, and their 50,000 members. You may even have heard of the German Pirate Party's thousand members. But now the Open Rights Group does not stand alone in the UK's digital rights movement. On June 30th, the British Pirate Party was registered. Press reaction is here. The initial policies: • Reform copyright and patent law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it's the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. We want a patent system that doesn't stifle innovation or make life saving drugs so expensive that patients die. • End the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people by Government and big businesses. • Ensure that everyone has real freedom of speech and real freedom to enjoy and participate in our shared culture. Shared policy discussion currently takes place on the wiki (and the Copyright Policy Working Group may be of particular interest). Twitter | Facebook Group | Forums

Mark Helprin vs The Mouth Breathing Morons

shoesfullofdust — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:56:15 -0800

The overall effect is like listening to an erudite gentleman employing $20 words while he screams at a bunch of punk kids to get off his front lawn. A review of Mark Helprin's Digital Barbarism : A Writer's Manifesto. This is an insanely long review of Helprin's book by Lawrence Lessig. You can read Helprin's 2007 NYT editorial, the impetus behind all of this, here. [previously]

Is it because I'm an auto-pirate?

acb — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:26:51 -0800

In the 1980s, songwriter, artist and cultural critic Momus recorded a number of albums for the legendary indie label Creation Records, combining influences as diverse as Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop and Balearic acid-house. These have largely languished in Sony Music's vaults over the past few years, occasionally fetching hefty prices on eBay. Now, Momus has taken the step to commit auto-piracy and release his Creation albums online, for free; over December, he will post MP3s of all six albums to his LiveJournal blog, each with freshly written liner notes. The first one, 1987's The Poison Boyfriend, is here. Momus explains his decision: "Six Momus albums -- the ones I recorded for Alan McGee's Creation label between 1987 and 1993 -- are out of print. Creation doesn't exist any more, and in theory Sony owns the rights to these albums, but isn't doing anything with them and probably never will. In the meantime, only Russian pirates are profiting, charging punters for illegal downloads. "So, during the rest of December, I've decided to release mp3s of my six Creation albums here on Click Opera, for free. Think of it as a sort of Creation Advent Calendar, with a new old Momus album every couple of days. If you're the sort of person who likes to donate to the artist when you download, do it here. But it's not really necessary; these albums paid for themselves long ago. Think of this as a Christmas present. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

Why doesn’t the IFPI dare to stand up for its own history?

mr.marx — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:47:04 -0800

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA

The Man Who Could Kill YouTube

srboisvert — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 08:13:43 -0800

The Man Who Could Kill YouTube. Bob Tur is the little guy who is suing one giant (Google) to do what another giant (Viacom) probably never will -- shut YouTube down

Auntie Establishment

Capn — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:50:09 -0800

The Contrarians is a CBC radio program about the things you can't say. Stream it live Tuesday mornings at 9:30 or Wednesday nights. Past topics include feminism, peace keeping, hip-hop and (caution: irony) copyright reform .