How To Carry Your Books At School

Bound By Law: the "Understanding Comics" of copyright

by Cory Doctorow, October 24, 2008 4:14 AM [via]

Duke University Press has just released an expanded edition of “Bound By Law”, the comic book by three law professors about copyright, fair use, and documentary film. It includes a new Introduction by Cory Doctorow and Foreword by Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, and is freely available under a Creative Commons license.

From Cory’s Introduction: "This is a sensible book about a ridiculous subject. It’s an example of the principle it illustrates: that taking from the culture around us to make new things is what culture is all about, it's what culture is for. Culture is that which we use to communicate.

"The comic form makes this issue into something less abstract, more concrete, and the Duke Public Domain folks who produced this have not just written a treatise on copyright, they’ve produced a loving tribute to the form of comics.

"It’s a book whose time has come. Read it, share it. Get angry. Do something. Document your world."

Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain, New Expanded Edition

Copyright law needs a digital-age upgrade

by Pamela Samuelson Sunday, September 26, 2010 [via]San Francisco Chronicle September 26, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Did you ever imagine you could be held liable for copyright infringement for storing your music collection on your hard drive, downloading photos from the Internet or forwarding news articles to your friends? If you did not get the copyright owner's permission for these actions, you could be violating the law. It sounds absurd, but copyright owners have the right to control reproductions of their works and claim statutory damages even when a use does not harm the market for their works.

The statutory damage rule of U.S. copyright law originally was designed to provide some compensation to copyright owners when harm from infringement was difficult to prove. U.S. law authorizes judges and juries to award such damages in any amount between $750 and $30,000 per infringed work - and up to $150,000 per work if the infringement is deemed willful - without proof of any actual harm. The statute says the award should be "just" but provides no guidance about what this means. In one extreme case, a jury ordered an individual file sharer to pay nearly $2 million in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs. Is that really "just"?

The statutory damage rule might have made sense in the 1960s, when the copyright law was drafted. Back then, copyright mattered only to professional authors, publishers and the like and mainly was designed to deter commercial-scale infringements. The copyright landscape has, however, changed radically since then.

Copyright law today touches the lives of ordinary people in ways that were unimaginable in the 1960s because advances in computing and communications technologies have transformed how we use and access content, most of which is copyrighted automatically by law. Millions of ordinary people also are becoming authors of user-generated content, such as videos, digital photographs and blogs, which they share on Web 2.0 platforms. This makes them copyright stakeholders, although the law was not drafted with them in mind, and it does not meet their needs.

Moreover, virtually every firm today has some copyright asset it wants to protect, such as a logo, an advertising motif, software, databases or website content. They have become copyright stakeholders, too. Technological advances have destabilized many traditional copyright industry sectors because the economics of creating, publishing and disseminating information-rich works have dramatically changed. Many copyright industry groups have been slower to see the promise than the risk of the new digital environment.

Perhaps the most troublesome phenomenon of the current era is peer-to-peer file-sharing of commercially valuable music and movies. Although the recording industry has sued more than 30,000 individual file sharers and has succeeded in convincing courts that file sharing is illegal, the practice has not subsided. Several copyright experts have endorsed a licensing solution to this problem, but Congress has yet to seriously consider it. Unfortunately, some entertainment industry executives are pressing for adoption of a "three strikes" policy, under which people would be kicked off the Internet if they are caught infringing three times. That would be a bad idea.

With so many new participants and technologies in the copyright system, it is time for copyright law to receive an upgrade. It must become more flexible to accommodate new uses and technologies. It must also become simpler, so that everyone who creates and consumes copyrighted works can understand and use the law effectively without having to call a lawyer every time they want to download a file from the Internet.

Damage awards

Jammie Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $80,000 per song she downloaded (for a total award of $1.92 million), even though judges have ordered file sharers to pay the statutory minimum of $750 per infringed song in other cases. The Minnesota mom is in settlement negotiations with the recording industry after several years of litigation.

Legg Mason, a Maryland financial services firm, was ordered to pay $19.7 million in 2003 for photocopying parts of newsletters to which it subscribed so that its research teams could share information.

A judge in New York state in 2000 threatened to award $118 million in statutory damages because MP3.com had ripped music from CDs to build its "beam-it" service for users to listen to music they had already purchased. Faced with this threat, MP3.com settled the case for $53 million, even though it had not even started offering the service to consumers.

Revamping copyright law

"The Copyright Principles Project: Directions for Reform," of which Pam Samuelson is a co-author, explores 25 ideas for copyright reform. They include:

Modernize copyright office:Instead of one registry for all copyrighted works, certify registries run by third parties for photos, films, computer programs and more. The model is akin to the domain name registration system.

Refine scope of exclusive rights: Weigh commercial value when determining whether someone's exclusive right has been infringed. This shields non-harmful activity from the threat of highly punitive copyright claims and commercial harm.

Limit damage awards: Guidelines for awarding statutory damages need to be consistent and reasonable.

Reform judicial infringement tests: Courts apply different tests to assess copyright violations, leading to mixed interpretations of complex copyright law. Develop consistent tests to ensure greater coherence in rulings.

Limit orphan works liability: Enable libraries and others to preserve a part of our cultural heritage by allowing greater use of orphan works - copyrighted materials whose owners can't be found.

Create "safe harbors": Protect online service providers from excessive damage claims if they undertake reasonable, voluntary, measures to discourage peer-to-peer file-sharing. Providers that comply would be shielded from liability for user infringements.

Pamela Samuelson is a distinguished professor of law and director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at UC Berkeley School of Law. She convened a group of legal experts over the past three years to draft reforms to U.S. copyright law. The project's proposals, in a report titled "The Copyright Principles Project: Directions for Reform," will be released this week and can be seen at links.sfgate.com/ZKIK.

This article first appeared on page M - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Obama administration wants encryption backdoors for domestic surveillance

by Xeni Jardin at 11:58 AM Monday, Sep 27, 2010 [via]

In a New York Times article today by Charlie Savage, news that the Obama administration is proposing new legislation that would provide the U.S. Government with direct access to all forms of digital communication, "including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype."

Sound familiar? As Glenn Greenwald points out in his Salon analysis piece,

In other words, the U.S. Government is taking exactly the position of the UAE and the Saudis: no communications are permitted to be beyond the surveillance reach of U.S. authorities. The new law would not expand the Government's legal authority to eavesdrop -- that's unnecessary, since post-9/11 legislation has dramatically expanded those authorities -- but would require all communications, including ones over the Internet, to be built so as to enable the U.S. Government to intercept and monitor them at any time when the law permits. In other words, Internet services could legally exist only insofar as there would be no such thing as truly private communications; all must contain a "back door" to enable government officials to eavesdrop.

On Twitter last night, Ryan Singel pointed out this relevant snip from a National Research Council report rejecting the idea of mandated backdoors in encryption... in 1996.

It is true that the spread of encryption technologies will add to the burden of those in government who are charged with carrying out certain law enforcement and intelligence activities. But the many benefits to society of widespread commercial and private use of cryptography outweigh the disadvantages.

And the lack of backdoors doesn't seem to have put much of a damper on domestic surveillance, anyway:

Law enforcement officials have long warned that encryption technology allows criminals to hide their activities, but investigators encountered encrypted communications only one time during 2009's wiretaps. The state investigators told the court that the encryption did not prevent them from getting the plain text of the messages.

Read the NYT piece: U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet.

And this CNET piece by Declan McCullagh, who's been covering this beat for longer than anyone I know, is an equally essential read. Snip:

Vice President Joe Biden proposed something quite similar in the 1990s. As I wrote in an earlier article, when Biden was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden introduced an anti-encryption bill called the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act. It said: "It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law." It was Biden's bill--and the eventual threat of encryption being outlawed--that Phil Zimmermann said at the time "led me to publish PGP electronically for free that year."

Update: ACLU reaction here. "Mandating that all communications software be accessible to the government is a huge privacy invasion."

How to stop a baby from crying

stolen from channelate.com

Obama Challenges Kids To Design Video Games

Gamers have been advocating the positive effects of video games for years, but today the industry received a considerably more powerful backer: the President of the United States.
Today President Obama announced the launch of the National STEM Video Game Challenge, which aims to motivate children in science, technology, engineering, and math departments with the use of video games. The challenge is being held by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and E-Line Media, with the help of the ESA, Microsoft, and AMD.

"Our success as a nation depends on strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of discovery and innovation," said President Obama. "I applaud partners in the National STEM Video Game Challenge for lending their resources, expertise, and their enthusiasm to the task of strengthening America’s leadership in the 21st century by improving education in science, technology, engineering and math."

There are two competitions in this year's challenge: A Youth Prize, which tasks middle school students with designing their own video game; and a Developer Prize, which challenges game developers to create educational games for young children. The National STEM Video Game Challenge runs until January 5.

Nope. But Chris Brown can.

[via]

School Suspends Boy for Bloodshot Eyes

TROPHY CLUB, Texas - Administrators at Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club suspended a 16-year-old boy on Tuesday because his eyes were bloodshot and they thought he might have been smoking marijuana. The teen said he was not high. Instead his eyes were red because he had been grieving the loss of his murdered father. Kyler Robertson’s father was stabbed to death on Sunday. His mother honored his wishes and let him go to school on Tuesday to be with his friends. “I am sure he had a lot on his mind going to school. I had asked him not to go to school,” said Cristy Fritz.


Before returning to class Kyler had to go to the office to get a tardy slip. That’s when school employees accused him of being high because he had red and watery eyes. Fritz said she got a call from administrators who told her Kyler would be suspended for three days. “I was pleading with her to understand the severity of the situation, his emotional well being. How could they do this to him at this time? What are the alternatives?” she said.


District spokeswoman Lesley Weaver would not discuss the case with FOX 4, but said when administrators suspect a student is under the influence, a school nurse will observe symptoms like their behavior, odor and their eyes. The district does not actually test students, though. That’s left to the parents. Fritz said she was told by the assistant principal that she could have Kyler tested for drugs within two hours and if it was negative he could return to school. She did just that.


Kyler was allowed to return to class after he showed school administrators a copy of his negative test results. The teen’s mom still wants an apology from administrators and she wants the district to remove the suspension from his permanent record. She is in the process of appealing it. “We had other things to do this week than worry about a three day window for an appeal, a two hour window for a drug test and my son’s reputation and high school career,” she said.


Published : Thursday, 09 Sep 2010, 9:32 PM CDT
Sophia Reza FOX 4 News

Adapted for Web by Tracy DeLatte, myFOXdfw.com

Cut and Pasted by Me.

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My Little Overreaction Of The Week

The Hasbro FurReal pony is basically a $US270 stuffed animal that wiggles its ears and neighs. Unfortunately for one little boy or girl, it’s apparently the sort of toy that gets blown up by confused bomb squads.

Apparently the folks at Waterbridge Elementary School in Orange County dealt with quite a bit of panic after an abandoned FurReal pony was discovered in a cul-de-sac near the school. The school was placed under lockdown, the authorities were called, and the bomb squad arrived to remove the potential threat—by blowing it up.

Yep. They blew it up. Blew the shit out of it. Because we all know that insidious terrorists love putting bombs into stuffed toys.

And cops love blowing harmless shit up.

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