Lessig receives take down notice from Warner Music

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/lessig-presentation-on-youtube-hit-with-dmca-takedown-notice.ars

A New Study Shows Copyright Exception for Legalising File-Sharing is Feasible, as a Cease-Fire in the “War on Copying” Emerges

From the Intellectual Property Watch

"A landmark study by the Institute of European Media Law (EML) found that a levy on internet usage legalising non-commercial online exchanges of creative works conforms with German and European copyright law, even though it requires changes in both. The German and European factions of the Green Party who had commissioned the study will make the “culture flat-rate,” as the model is being called in Germany, an issue in their policies. The global debate on a new social contract between creatives and society is getting more pronounced by the day. Two models are emerging: a free-market approach based on private blanket licences and voluntary subscriptions, and a legal licence approach based on exceptions in copyright law and mandatory levies, that now has been proven legally feasible and appropriate by the EML study."

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/05/11/the-world-is-going-flat-rate/

Questions that arose during the DMCA 2009 rulemaking hearings

Some issues arose during the 2009 DMCA rulemaking hearing that took place in the US Copyright Office. One of these issues was concerning the use of screen-capturing software such as snag-it, camtasia, and morae. Snag-it was the only application mentioned by name. These discussions took place both during the educational exemption panel (afternoon May 6), and the general exemption panel (the vidders, morning May 7).

No one in the room, either those representing the motion picture industry, the copyright office panelists, nor those testifying in favor of the use, could say whether or not such screen capturing software is accomplishing a "circumvention" of technological protection measures.

So that question was left open.

Another question that arose, was whether or not an exemption for copying is even needed, since the DMCA was never intended to prohibit circumvention for purposes of copying as opposed to circumvention for purposes of gaining access. The MPAA and those opposing the exemption, argue that since both the access and copying controls are folded into one, to circumvent for copying is the same as circumventing for gaining access. I asked the copyright office to address this in its recommendations. They discussed it in the April 3, 2006 transcript, but never made a determination on this issue. The legislative summary I quoted from during my testimony clearly states that it is not the intention of congress to stop people from circumventing in order to make copies.

Another interesting development, was that there was consensus from the other side of the aisle, those opposing the exemption, that the kind of use I showed, a student created montage done for an academic conference, a course seminar, and submitted towards degree completion, was certainly a "fair use" under section 107.

DMCA Rulemaking Hearings Resources and Links

Mp3 files have been posted by the US Copyright Office (the agenda appears below the Mp3 files):

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/hearings/2009/

General info about the DMCA rulemaking hearings:

http://www.copyright.gov/1201

Audio files for the educational exemption hearing, created by the EFF (my testimony is an Mp3 file here).

http://www.screencast.com/users/hotdog2/folders/DMCA%20Hearings%20May%206

Mp3 of my testimony on the educational use exemption.

http://www.screencast.com/users/hotdog2/folders/DMCA%20Hearings%20May%206/media/9377d9d3-ce84-4936-b7bb-757c1d0dcae0

Rebecca Tushnet's blog

http://tushnet.blogspot.com/2009/05/copyright-office-dmca-hearings_7679.html

Boing Boing

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/07/mpaa-to-teachers-don.html

Center for Social Media Coverage

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/blogs/future_of_public_media/dmca_fair_use_and_educators/

I will add to this resource list as information becomes available.

Southeast Alaska Funerary Object to be Repatriated

Notice appearing in the Federal Register, E9-10577:
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-10577.htm

Quote:

In 1976, an object was removed from a cave in Port Malmesbury, Kuiu
Island in Southeast Alaska, by a Forest Service archeologist. The
object is a wooden artifact that is believed to be a funerary object
since the cave where it was removed from contained human remains and
associated funerary objects. The human remains and associated funerary
objects that were removed from Port Malmesbury, Kuiu Island were
repatriated to the Organized Village of Kake in 1998, and are described
in a Notice of Inventory Completion previously published in the Federal
Register (63 FR 18034-18035, April 13, 1998). Due to an administrative
oversight this funerary object was not included.
   Historical and ethnographic records, along with Tlingit oral
history, indicate that a smallpox epidemic in the 1800s decimated the
Tlingit communities on Kuiu Island and the survivors moved to Kake and
Klawock. The members of the Killerwhale clan in these villages are the
descendants of these survivors.
   Officials of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Tongass National
Forest have determined that, pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(3)(B), the one
object described above is reasonably believed to have been placed with
or near individual human remains at the time of death or later as part
of the death rite or ceremony and are believed, by a preponderance of
the evidence, to have been removed from a specific burial site of a
Native American individual. Officials of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Tongass National Forest also have determined that,
pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 3001(2), there is a relationship of shared group
identity that can be reasonably traced between the unassociated
funerary object and the Klawock Cooperative Association and Organized
Village of Kake.

US Copyright Office Quickly Posts MP3s of Rulemaking Hearings

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/hearings/2009/transcripts/index.html

What a great resource!

Canada put on 301 list

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/05/02/special-301-process-acclaimed-by-industry-assailed-by-public-interest-groups/

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3911/125/

I cannot understand why the US ignores that fact that inserting its laws in other countries, is inserting its culture. Some of these cultures are incommensurable with the western IP paradigms . . .there are ways to accomplish goals of protecting IP, but not by ignorning the real problems of cultures with very conflicting paradigms about authorship, individuals, and ownership.