Can you copyright a tattoo? Yes, you can. But there's more to it. The idea raises a lot of questions and concerns—for the artists, the inked-skin owners, and certain parties seeking to represent or showcase the work. Shortly after Marisa Kakoulas wrote The Tattoo Copyright Controversy guest article, featured at BMEZINE.com, she encountered a small legal battle of her own.
posted on Jul 28, 2008 - View this thread

"Happy Birthday to You" is the best-known and most frequently sung song in the world. Many - including Justice Breyer in his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft - have portrayed it as an unoriginal work that is hardly worthy of copyright protection, but nonetheless remains under copyright. Yet close historical scrutiny reveals both of those assumptions to be false. [Full pdf here.] [via]
posted on Jun 19, 2008 - View this thread

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright A fascinating illustrated historical tour, looking at how different technologies have shaped how we think about copyright and intellectual property.
posted on Jan 31, 2008 - View this thread

A proposal for the monetization of the file sharing of music from the Songwriters and Recording Artists of Canada. "Most Canadians are aware that the Internet and mobile phone networks have become major sources of music. What they may not know is that songwriters and performers typically receive no compensation of any kind when their music is shared or illegally downloaded... We believe the time has come to put in place a reasonable and unobtrusive system of compensation for creators of music in regard to this popular and growing use of their work."
posted on Jan 29, 2008 - View this thread

Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap. [pdf]
posted on Nov 26, 2007 - View this thread

They stole an image of my son and just had to pay $4000. About a year ago I was surprised when I saw an image of my son in an ad for a shop called “Vinderen Elektriske”, selling electronics.
posted on Oct 9, 2007 - View this thread

The non-profit group, Public.resource.org, are challenging the Smithsonian Institution by downloading all 6,288 (mostly) public domain photographs from the very restrictive Smithsonian Images site and reposting them to Flickr. [more: here, here] {via Ramage}
posted on May 18, 2007 - View this thread

Gonzales pushes plan to criminalize copyright infringement, making it punishable by life imprisonment; to increase wiretaps; and to require Homeland Security to notify the RIAA in certain circumstances. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime." I'd comment on this, but I'm afraid that someone might think I was copying someone else. The Intellectual Property Protection Act (official press release) appeared previously in a speech (2005) and as a draft (2006) - now the Justice department is pushing Congress to bring it forward. [newsfilter]
posted on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

While Courtney pulled an Albini, Jeff handed out the bread. Are the peasants acting like emperors, or do they still want something shiny, aluminum, plastic, and digital? Debacle or cage, something's got to give (pdf). Alternatively, you can just roll your own.
posted on Feb 4, 2007 - View this thread

Make a mixtape highlighting a young artist, have that artist proclaim his delight about the project on the CD, reignite that artist's career, repeat, then, the RIAA has you arrested for counterfieting. The RIAA continues its vain struggle to understand the new music economy. In the meantime, at least one company gets it, offering DRM-free CD downloads of obscure titles.
posted on Jan 18, 2007 - View this thread

"U2, Kaiser Chiefs, Maximo Park and about 4,000 other bands have taken out a full page newspaper ad calling for the improvement of British copyright law. " wtf
posted on Dec 30, 2006 - View this thread

It's over. YouTube is taking down Daily Show and Colbert Report clips.
posted on Oct 27, 2006 - View this thread

Ernest and Bertram --short film, formerly one of the best films you can't see after debuting at Sundance in 2002, with Sesame's lawyers then cracking down and forcing it to be pulled--now on youtube.
posted on Aug 15, 2006 - View this thread

Last week US District Court Judge A. Howard Matz ruled against Google and found them to be in copyright violation for thumbnailing images from the soft core magazine/site Perfect10 (NSFW)... more inside
posted on Feb 27, 2006 - View this thread

The RIAA would like to remind you that copying purchased music to your iPod is illegal without first gaining permission from the copyright holder. Thank you.
posted on Feb 16, 2006 - View this thread

Top Ten Sources takes posts from RSS feeds and aggregates them in full for the public to see. Some take offence; some say it goes beyond expected usage; some call it plagiarism - others say it's legal, that detractors should get a life or are even thinking about investing. Some people don't appear to want their RSS feeds to be aggregated at all. Will this discussion set blogging policy for the future? Or will it block the web 2.0 pipe?
posted on Jan 19, 2006 - View this thread

The Columbia Law School Music Plagiarism Project is a repository of the music industry's most famous copyright infringement cases of the past 100 years. Each case contains links to samples of the original song and the alleged infringer, and there's even a song list for easy browsing. (My favorite: Gilbert O'Sullivan v. Biz Markie).
posted on Dec 17, 2005 - View this thread

A new, controversial law making its way through the Finnish parliament is confusing, but its implementation may infringe on already existing Finnish laws of free speech. With decisions set to be made later this week, a demonstration has already been planned for Tuesday. On the other hand, some sources seem to be saying that this new law should present no major issue. Thus, it seems like there's a small amount of confusing legal voodoo going on: while the law wouldn't make it illegal to copy music to MP3 players, it would mean that "the breaking of copy protection for the copying of the content of a sound or video recording for personal use would be prohibited." It looks like no one knows exactly what they want out of this law, or how to interpret it. DMCA, anyone?
posted on Oct 2, 2005 - View this thread

Electronic rights in the UK A foundation is being set up in Britain to defend our citizens in digital information matters, in a similar way to the US model. This is scary stuff -- the government is trying to push through a data retention proposal which would make all ISPs and telecos retain communications traffic data for up to three years and there are also moves afoot to criminalise copyright infringement -- approaches which are also gaining support in the EU. So thank goodness people are signing the pledge to support the new British EFF.
posted on Aug 18, 2005 - View this thread

Illicit downloading is now tantamount to domestic terrorism. I wonder if "CleanPlay" will still censor my illegally downloaded DVDs.
posted on May 3, 2005 - View this thread

Copyright a yoga move? If yoga has been around for 5,000 years, can a 21st century businessman claim to own a piece of it? Bikram Choudhury says yes. The Beverly Hills yoga mogul, who popularized his style of yoga and then franchised a chain of studios bearing his name, has long rankled traditionalists, who dislike his tough business tactics and brash outspokenness. Now Choudhury is facing a challenge in a San Francisco courtroom, where a federal judge is hearing arguments in a lawsuit that some legal experts say could define a new frontier in intellectual property. At issue: Can Choudhury take a sequence of two breathing exercises and 26 yoga poses from an ancient Indian practice, copyright it and control how it is practiced? The Open Source Yoga Unity people say he can't. More inside.
posted on Mar 21, 2005 - View this thread

Thomas Shine, a former Yale student, is suing David Childs for copyright infringement Mr. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for copyright infringement over the design of the Freedom Tower located at Ground Zero. Shine alleges in his lawsuit that the proposed Freedom Tower was "strikingly similar" to his "Olympic Tower" design for the proposed 2012 Olympic Games in New York.
posted on Nov 10, 2004 - View this thread

Lobby Now! Alan McLeod, Canadian Lawyer, writes "Make sure you are heard as Canada decides to revamp its Copyright Act." He goes on to encourage Canadians to contact the Heritage Minister and weigh in as the Copyright rules in Canada may be about to change.
posted on Apr 14, 2004 - View this thread

In response to Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruling that file sharing was legal in Canada (previously discussed here), Federal Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer has stated that "As minister of Canadian Heritage, I will, as quickly as possible, make changes to our copyright law".

The problem is that Canadian copyright law has been going through a slow and thoughtful reformation process. Since the unveiling of A Framework for Copyright Reform in 2001, a lot of progress has been made in updating the laws to reflect the needs and concerns of content producers, and the public domain. Now, however, it seems that all of this work may be bulldozed by Helene Scherrer, who declared her intentions at the Juno Awards last night.
posted on Apr 3, 2004 - View this thread

Vans Stevenson, senior lobbyist for MPAA (the Motion Picture Association of America), was the last to revise a letter California State Attorney General Bill Lockyer is to distribute to other attorney generals. Lockyer is the president of the National Association of Attorneys General. - is your government owned? Lockyer receives thousands in campaign contributions from MPAA, RIAA, and '[via: The Register]..corporate and private donations from the major studios, including The Paramount Pictures Group, Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Warner Bros PAC, AOL Time Warner. Senior executives, such as Alan Horn and Howard Welinsky, respectively CEO and senior VP at Warner Brothers..." Adam Eisgrau of P2P United said that "the draft attributed to the attorney general's office contains many significant factual errors, eyebrow-raising metadata, and articulates a very broad expansion in several important respects of product liability and consumer protection law that would have enormous effects..' It's in The NY Times. Slyck has the original document.
posted on Mar 15, 2004 - View this thread

How I Lost the Big One Lawrence Lessig on losing Eldred v. Ashcroft: "We had in our Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would have made them see differently."
posted on Mar 3, 2004 - View this thread

Europe's not-too-modest anti-piracy proposal. If accepted, it means that "not only could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent to jail under it; so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager happened to use, whether they knew what the teenager was doing or not." The proposal is being spearheaded by French parliamentarian Janelly Fourtou. Coincidentally enough, her husband is the chief executive of Vivendi Universal.
posted on Oct 19, 2003 - View this thread

Senator Orrin Hatch [R-Utah] , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, favors legislation allowing copyright holders to remotely destroy the computers of illegal file traders. Hatch, an accompished songwriter in his own right, is quoted as saying that damaging someone's computer "...may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." Apparently the good Senator is forgetting that our legal system is based on the presumption of innocence.
posted on Jun 17, 2003 - View this thread

Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim This great Q&A between two very well spoken opponents in the copyright wars answers (very clearly) many of the questions that have stemmed from the ongoing erosion of the public domain by copyright law and the degradation of the music industry by file swappers. I was struck by how straight many of the answers were... a fascinating read
posted on Jun 12, 2003 - View this thread

“You can't deny, even if you are a spiritual being, that you are living in a world organized by money." Bikram Choudhury, yoga’s bad boy and proponent of the intense, sweaty version that bears his name, has copyrighted his famous sequences and is suing schools that teach them without his permission. Many adherents of the ancient technique, whose name can be translated as “unity”, are outraged, and are starting to unite against him. The Beverly Hills resident, who calls his style “the only yoga”, says "I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody f*cks with me." (Click through for free Salon day pass)
posted on Apr 4, 2003 - View this thread

Rep. Zoe Lofgren's BALANCE act attempts to protect "Fair Use" rights from harmful legislation like the DMCA. Some related links: [summary] [whats wrong with the DMCA?]
posted on Mar 7, 2003 - View this thread

With negotiations breaking down, the Chicago Cubs have decided to sue "rooftop clubs" that sell tickets to watch games on rooftops surrounding Wrigley Field. Apparently the tickets cost between $70-$130. The Cubs are claiming unjust enrichment and public performance of a copyrighted work, due to the "clubs" showing the games to patrons via television. (via the Trademark Blog)
posted on Dec 19, 2002 - View this thread

This new RIAA lawsuit really frosts my cookies! I can't believe the Recording Industry Ass. of America has the balls to think they can censor the Internet, but they contend that "As a matter of fact, copyright itself was written into the Constitution before the Framers ever even got to the first 10 amendments." Therefore, the RIAA reserves for itself the right to determine which Internet websites you may view. Please discuss.
posted on Aug 17, 2002 - View this thread

Drop the marker and back away from the CD-RW drive. Add Senator Joe Biden (D - Delware) to the list of politicians eager to put the brakes on technology, kowtow to Hollywood and otherwise stop the Earth from turning: Biden's new bill would make it a federal felony to try and trick certain types of devices into playing your music or running your computer program. Breaking this law--even if it's to share music by your own garage band--could land you in prison for up to five years. And that's not counting the civil penalties of up to $25,000 per offense. Biden's bill is on the fast track and not getting the same press attention that Sen. Holling's CBDTPA bill had earlier this year.
posted on Jul 29, 2002 - View this thread

DigitalConsumer.org is trying to get Congress to pass a six-point Consumer Technology Bill of Rights to protect the legitimate rights of honest consumers who buy copyrighted content legally. You can read about the issue and the group in Walt Mossberg's WSJ column.
posted on Mar 14, 2002 - View this thread

Kelly vs. Arriba (PDF) Arriba search engine has been determined to be infringing on the copyright of photographer Leslie Kelly. The reason? Arriba displays thumbnails of copyrighted images in their search results, and displays the original page in a frameset. What kind of precedent will this set for Google and the rest of the web?
posted on Feb 11, 2002 - View this thread

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!! A bit of a repeat, but absolutely justified
posted on Jan 18, 2002 - View this thread

Copy protection for CDs does not have future says Philips. Philips spokesperson Klaus Petri, speaking to Reuters, says its company counts on the fact that the refusal of consumers will convince the music industry to step back from copy-protected CD's. Petri said that Philips could sue the manufacturers of CD's with copy protection (as managers of the world-wide CD patents), because they would not correspond to the standards. "those are silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's". [via Neowin.net]
posted on Jan 9, 2002 - View this thread

The RIAA wants to hack your computer (via Fark ) The RIAA tried to attach a rider to the anti-terrorism bill currently in Congress that would have allowed them to hack anyone's computer without consequence. One more reason why the RIAA is evil.
posted on Oct 15, 2001 - View this thread

This NYT article on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), written by Prof. Lawrence Lessig (author of an excellent book on copyright law and policy in the digital age), raises concerns that were academic prior to the recent arrest of a Russian software programmer at a Las Vegas computer security convention for violation of the act's Sec. 1201(a)(1)(A)'s anticircumvention provision. Is Lessig right that Sec. 1201 essentially makes coders (and their employers) into de facto lawmakers and, if so, is this a bad thing? If Sec. 1201 is bad policy, are there any more reasonable alternatives for effectively protecting access to software and/or providing negative incentives for the unauthorized use of software? (NYT article, registration required)
posted on Jul 30, 2001 - View this thread

The DMCA, a flawed law responsible for such things as the lawsuit against 2600 and adobe's attempt to prosecute Dmitry Sklyarov is spreading! Canada is starting hearings into its own version of the US's DMCA! Where will all this end? Via /.
posted on Jul 28, 2001 - View this thread

Apple lawyers target Mac Themes Project -- Apple has issued a cease and desist order against Mac Themes Project (MTP) for creating a theme editor. Apple claims the editor enables third parties to copy its copyrighted trademark themes by "improperly copying Apple's copyrighted software code and graphic files".
posted on Apr 17, 2001 - View this thread

RIAA reverses its position when it is beneficial to them. Not like this is surprising or anything, but its just so blatant. The irony is getting pretty thick around here.
posted on Mar 16, 2001 - View this thread

It seems Metallica has some high class company. The Cleveland Orchestra has halted distribution of their concerts to about 250 U.S. radio stations because of concerns about streaming audio. The orchestra's contract with its musicians covers radio broadcasting rights of live performances, but not Internet streaming, said Gary Hanson, the orchestra's associate executive director. Does this strike anyone else as strange?
posted on Mar 6, 2001 - View this thread

Wired News reports on the upcoming DMCA review. Via Linux Weekly News: "When music is streamed, webcasters are required to pay a performance royalty. In order to generate smooth playback of incoming streams, computers temporarily store some of the data in memory in a RAM buffer. Music publishers have stated that the data in this buffer should be considered a physical creation that would require webcasters to pay a mechanical royalty, similar to what they pay for downloads or CDs." Anyone need any more on that? Time to get your congressman on the phone...
posted on Nov 30, 2000 - View this thread

You can't copyright the design of a web page in the sense that it's a "form." You can copyright your graphics and text; you can probably copyright your HTML. You can trademark the name of a font, but you can't copyright its design. Discuss amongst yourselves.
posted on Sep 14, 2000 - View this thread