In the News

["Jack Boeve" <JBoeve@xxxxxxxx>]

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RECENT ITEMS FROM THE CIP COLLECTANEA BLOG:

Blog: Doctorow's CC licensed book, Little Brother, now at 4 weeks on NYT
Bestseller List. By Georgia Harper, Collectanea, June 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/4rcfvj

Speaking of the future, here's a glimpse...Hooray for Cory Doctorow,
showing the world (again) that free digital can sell (lots of) paper.
Mmm. Smell that coffee.

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Blog: Scattering thought across the Web.  By Georgia Harper,
Collectanea, June 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/4jdtya

[T]his morning I was clearing out some email and noticed a message with
a link to an Atlantic article (The Atlantic Online; July/August 2008; Is
Google Making Us Stupid? By Nicholas Carr). The article is about the way
technology can affect the actual wiring of our brains. It is fascinating
reading. I really enjoyed it and I'm sure you will too.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

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Copyright bill strikes discordant note with Canadian musicians, consumer
groups. By Nestor Arellano, ITBusiness Canada, June 17, 2008.
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=48805&cid=10

Canadian artists as well as other consumers will be singing the blues,
while big businesses reap mega profits if Bill C-61 - the proposed
amendment to the Copyright Act - is passed into law, say local musicians
and consumer rights advocates.

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Letter to the Editor: Canadian approach to copyright. By Jim Prentice,
The Star, June 17, 2008.
Re: How the U.S. got its Canadian copyright bill, June 16, 2008.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/444332

Despite what Michael Geist would like readers to believe, we introduced
important amendments to the Copyright Act on June 12 using a
made-in-Canada approach that will benefit all Canadians. It was
necessary to bring the act up-to-date with advances in technology.

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How the U.S. got its Canadian copyright bill. By Michael Geist, The
Star, June 16, 2008.
http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/443867

Last week's introduction of new copyright legislation ignited a
firestorm with thousands of Canadians expressing genuine shock at
provisions that opposition MPs argued would create a "police state." As
opposition to the copyright bill mounts, the most common question is
"why"?

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Japan plans copyright fees on Blu-ray recorders, discs: report. Market
Watch, June 16, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/3vl6c3

The Japanese government plans to charge copyright fees on Blu-ray
recorders and Blu-ray discs for recording TV programs, the Asahi Shimbun
reported Tuesday.
The government has, for the time being, decided not to charge such fees
on sales of iPods and other digital devices that use hard disk drives
for recording copyrighted materials, the report said.

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Public will be consulted on copyright policing plan. By Stephen Bell,
The Industry Standard, June 16, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6rfqhp

The New Zealand public will be consulted on the controversial
international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), details of
which were leaked on the whistleblower website wikileaks.org. Contrary
to scepticism expressed in blogs and mailing-list discussions, there
will be more than one opportunity for public comment on the provisions
of ACTA, says George Wardle, who is coordinating local response at the
Ministry of Economic Development.

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Blog: The Associated Press, Bloggers, Boycotts, and Copyright Issues.
DigitalJournal.com, June 16, 2008.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/256191

The Associated Press filed six Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown
requests against the Drudge Retort claiming that the users linking to
its stories are violating its copyright and committing "'hot news'
misappropriation under New York state law.

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Blog: BitTorrent Users Refuse To Pay Copyright Fines. TorrentFreak.com,
June 15, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/5tskr7

During the last couple of years, hundreds of people have received
letters from lawyers demanding compensation for the alleged uploading of
copyright works. Their demands state that if you don't pay up, you will
be taken to court and dealt with severely. However, when people refuse
to pay - nothing happens.

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Mixed reaction to new copyright act. By David George-Cosh, National
Post, June 12, 2008.
http://www.nationalpost.com/most_popular/story.html?id=583085

New legislation introduced by the federal government on Thursday will
open the door for hefty fines on Canadians found guilty of copyright
infringement, but advocates of the bill say it will only target heavy
traffickers of pirated content and not the average citizen who makes a
few illegal copies for private use.

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Blog: Judge Says You Can Sell Your CDs. By David Kravets, Wired Blog
Network, June 11, 2008.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/judge-says-you.html

A federal judge is trashing UMG Recordings' claim that it retains
perpetual ownership of promotional CDs it sends out before an album's
release. The case was brought by the recording label against a
California man who was auctioning off the promo discs on eBay. The music
concern claimed Troy Augusto was violating its copyright because the
discs were labeled with messages that they could not be resold.

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The Future of Copyright. By Rasmus Fleischer, CatoUnbound, June 9, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/4r6xgv

How relevant is it to declare oneself to be "for" or "against"
copyright? Neither the stabilization nor the abolition of the copyright
system seems within reach. All we see is a seemingly endless assembly
line of new extensions to the law being proposed and enacted. The most
recent is the proposed "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement"
(ACTA)...This is just one example of how copyright law is mutating into
something qualitatively different than what it has been in previous
centuries.

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Copyright bill would burden artists. By Nick Anderson, Politico.com,
June 11, 2008.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10984.html

I've been drawing all my life, or at least since I discovered crayons
were more constructively used for marking on paper than for throwing at
the cat. I started my cartooning career humbly, getting cartoons
published in my high school paper almost 30 years ago. Although no
sentient being with even minimally functional vision would find those
early works aesthetically bearable, let alone worth stealing, everything
I've ever published was protected by U.S. copyright law.

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Blog: Copyright Has Stretched So Far That It Has Broken. By Mike
Masnick, TechDirt.com, June 10, 2008.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080609/1950311357.shtml

The Cato Institute is running a series of articles on "The Future of
Copyright," a subject that the think tank has been discussing for a
while now. The first piece in the series, by Rasmus Fleischer, is an
absolutely fantastic read, detailing all of the reasons why those
pushing for stronger copyright laws are doing so, and why copyright
itself is being stretched way beyond its initial purpose.

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Canadian copyright law white paper. P2pnet.net, June 10, 2008.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16118

Canadian consumer advocates have released a joint open letter to
Canadian ministers responsible for Canadian copyright policy. "We are
concerned that proposals to change Canada's copyright laws do not
represent the interests of Canadian consumers," says the group.



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