Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor; Why Google's deal with Italy is a good thing for readers:
"Good news for Google and also for readers hoping to brush up on their Dante: The Italian government and the search-engine giant have agreed that Google will digitize up to 1 million books from the national libraries in Florence and Rome. The books to be digitized were all published before 1868 (which means that copyright laws do not apply) and will include antiquarian texts, including works by Dante, Machiavelli, and Galileo.
Although Google has struck similar deals with universities in England and Spain and a state museum in Germany, The Wall Street Journal notes that this is Google's "first publishing partnership with a national government."
It's a good deal for Google, which will be able to expand the offerings – and particularly the non-English-language offerings – of its Book Project, which currently lists about 12 million books. The deal also means a win in Europe where recent Google-related headlines have been unfortunate for the company. (A French court has ruled that Google committed copyright violation by scanning certain French-language titles, and an Italian court recently slapped Google officials with jail sentences in connection with an ugly abuse-related video made popular on YouTube.)
It's also a good deal for the Italian government. Google will bear all costs for the project just at a moment when budget cuts are making it harder for Italian libraries to preserve their valuable texts. The Italian libraries will also be able to share digitized copies of the scanned books with readers on other platforms, including Europeana, the online publishing project of the European Commission.
But most of all it's a good deal for readers. A million years ago (well, in the 1980s), when I was at grad school in New York studying Italian renaissance poetry, I went to the New York Public Library to consult an antiquarian text. Holding my credit card as collateral, they gave me a pair of gloves, ushered me into the Rare Book room, and let me handle (very carefully) a yellowing text printed in Naples several centuries earlier.
It was a thrill I will never forget. There is no substitute for laying your hands on a text like that.
However, for every bibliophile and/or Italophile who does not live in the shadow of a major cultural institution with the stature and holdings of the New York Public Library (and that now includes me), the Google deal is a very good thing."
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/0311/Why-Google-s-deal-with-Italy-is-a-good-thing-for-readers
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Kirby heirs sue Marvel and Disney for stake in characters, profits; ComicBookResources.com, 3/15/10
Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; Kirby heirs sue Marvel and Disney for stake in characters, profits:
"The children of legendary artist Jack Kirby have sued Marvel and Disney to terminate copyrights to, and receive a share of profits from, characters created or co-created by their father.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, follows the 45 copyright-termination notices sent in September to Marvel, new owner Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and others who have made films and other forms of entertainment based on characters that Kirby co-created. Marvel responded in early January with a lawsuit asserting that Kirby's work for the company was "for hire," and asked that a judge invalidate the claims of the heirs.
In the Kirby lawsuit, attorney Marc Toberoff lays out the characters and comic books at the heart of the family's claims: properties created or co-created by Jack Kirby between 1958 and 1963, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Nick Fury and Ant-Man. (The extent of Kirby's involvement in the creation of Spider-Man is the subject of much debate.)
Under U.S. copyright law, authors or their heirs and estates may file to regain copyrights, or partial copyrights, at a certain period of time after the original transfer of rights. However, if the property is determined to be "work made for hire," the copyright would belong to the company that commissioned it.
Marvel argues that the company's editors determined which titles Kirby and other creators worked on, "and always retained full editorial control."
However, the family's lawsuit asserts that Jack Kirby wasn't an employee but rather a free-lancer who "authored or co-authored" numerous stories that Marvel and its predecessors then purchased and published. That echoes the earlier response to Marvel's January lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim it wasn't until May 1972 that Kirby assigned his copyrights to the properties to Magazine Management Co., then the parent company of Marvel Comics, for "additional compensation."
Lisa Kirby, serving as trustee for the Rosalind Kirby Trust, also alleges that Marvel didn't return all of Jack Kirby's original artwork in its possession -- a bitter dispute that goes back decades -- despite its claims to the contrary. The company's alleged efforts to conceal the art are characterized as "willful, wanton, malicious, and oppressive, and justify the awarding of exemplary and punitive damages."
The plaintiffs also seek damages under the Lanham Act, claiming that Kirby wasn't properly identified as co-creator of the original works in the advertising and promotion of the movies The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the latter presumably because of the X-Men, Professor X, Scott Summers and the Blob, not Wolverine). The lawsuit contends the omissions amount to "false or misleading descriptions or representations of fact in interstate commerce," prohibited by the Lanham Act, and cause injury to the interests of the Kirby estate. The plaintiffs assert they're entitled to "up to three times the damages they sustained and will sustain" because of the omissions, but don't give an actual figure.
The Kirby lawsuit doesn't state how much money the family believes it's owed in total but, as The Hollywood Reporter's Eriq Gardner notes, "any termination of copyrights could be worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.""
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/03/kirby-heirs-sue-marvel-and-disney-for-stake-in-characters-profits/
"The children of legendary artist Jack Kirby have sued Marvel and Disney to terminate copyrights to, and receive a share of profits from, characters created or co-created by their father.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, follows the 45 copyright-termination notices sent in September to Marvel, new owner Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and others who have made films and other forms of entertainment based on characters that Kirby co-created. Marvel responded in early January with a lawsuit asserting that Kirby's work for the company was "for hire," and asked that a judge invalidate the claims of the heirs.
In the Kirby lawsuit, attorney Marc Toberoff lays out the characters and comic books at the heart of the family's claims: properties created or co-created by Jack Kirby between 1958 and 1963, including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, The Avengers, Nick Fury and Ant-Man. (The extent of Kirby's involvement in the creation of Spider-Man is the subject of much debate.)
Under U.S. copyright law, authors or their heirs and estates may file to regain copyrights, or partial copyrights, at a certain period of time after the original transfer of rights. However, if the property is determined to be "work made for hire," the copyright would belong to the company that commissioned it.
Marvel argues that the company's editors determined which titles Kirby and other creators worked on, "and always retained full editorial control."
However, the family's lawsuit asserts that Jack Kirby wasn't an employee but rather a free-lancer who "authored or co-authored" numerous stories that Marvel and its predecessors then purchased and published. That echoes the earlier response to Marvel's January lawsuit. The plaintiffs claim it wasn't until May 1972 that Kirby assigned his copyrights to the properties to Magazine Management Co., then the parent company of Marvel Comics, for "additional compensation."
Lisa Kirby, serving as trustee for the Rosalind Kirby Trust, also alleges that Marvel didn't return all of Jack Kirby's original artwork in its possession -- a bitter dispute that goes back decades -- despite its claims to the contrary. The company's alleged efforts to conceal the art are characterized as "willful, wanton, malicious, and oppressive, and justify the awarding of exemplary and punitive damages."
The plaintiffs also seek damages under the Lanham Act, claiming that Kirby wasn't properly identified as co-creator of the original works in the advertising and promotion of the movies The Incredible Hulk and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (the latter presumably because of the X-Men, Professor X, Scott Summers and the Blob, not Wolverine). The lawsuit contends the omissions amount to "false or misleading descriptions or representations of fact in interstate commerce," prohibited by the Lanham Act, and cause injury to the interests of the Kirby estate. The plaintiffs assert they're entitled to "up to three times the damages they sustained and will sustain" because of the omissions, but don't give an actual figure.
The Kirby lawsuit doesn't state how much money the family believes it's owed in total but, as The Hollywood Reporter's Eriq Gardner notes, "any termination of copyrights could be worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.""
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/03/kirby-heirs-sue-marvel-and-disney-for-stake-in-characters-profits/
British Put Teeth in Anti-Piracy Proposal; New York Times, 3/15/10
Eric Pfanner, New York Times; British Put Teeth in Anti-Piracy Proposal:
"When asked how governments ought to deal with freeloaders who illegally copy music and movies on the Internet, James Murdoch, head of News Corp.’s European and Asian operations, does not mince his words: “Punish them.”
“There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff,” he said last week at a media conference in Abu Dhabi. “We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball.”
In Britain, where Mr. Murdoch is based, lawmakers have taken up the challenge — to the consternation of Internet companies and civil liberties groups, which are ratcheting up their own arguments against a tough anti-piracy bill that is nearing the make-or-break stage in Parliament.
The measure, championed by the business secretary, Peter Mandelson, would give the British authorities new tools to clamp down on piracy, including the right to cut off the Internet connections of persistent copyright cheats. Such a system has been approved, though not yet implemented, in France.
The British proposal, set to be taken up by the House of Commons on Monday, goes further. Under an amendment to the bill in the House of Lords this month, courts would be empowered to order Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that provide pirated movies, music and other media content.
Supporters of the amendment say it would finally give copyright holders the tools to tackle the piracy problem at the supply and demand levels, after more than a decade of largely futile efforts. But critics of the bill say it raises the specter of censorship on the Internet, and could undermine the development of Britain’s digital economy, currently among the most advanced in the world.
“Put simply, blocking access as envisaged by this clause would both widely disrupt the Internet in the U.K. and elsewhere, threatening freedom of speech and the open Internet, without reducing copyright infringement as intended,” opponents of the proposal wrote in a letter to The Financial Times. It was signed by Internet service providers, Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Facebook, and other groups.
Britain is not the only country considering tougher measures to fight piracy. Along with France, South Korea also recently approved a system under which Internet pirates who ignore two warnings to stop illegal downloads face the loss of their Internet connections. Lawmakers in Spain have proposed a measure that, like the British proposal, could require Internet service providers to block access to certain sites.
The British government says a tougher approach on piracy could provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the “creative industries,” which already account for more than 6 percent of British economic output.
But critics say the proposals would be expensive to enforce and would generate very little new revenue.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns against restrictions on the Internet, said the bill contained unusually broad scope for abuse. Individuals or companies, he said, might try to use it to suppress any Web content they found objectionable, under the pretext of protecting their copyrights.
British libel laws, which put the burden of proof on the defendant, are already employed in this way by wealthy plaintiffs, critics say; rather than mount expensive defenses, bloggers and others accused of libel often back down and withdraw whatever statements drew offense."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/technology/15iht-piracy15.html?scp=2&sq=piracy&st=cse
"When asked how governments ought to deal with freeloaders who illegally copy music and movies on the Internet, James Murdoch, head of News Corp.’s European and Asian operations, does not mince his words: “Punish them.”
“There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff,” he said last week at a media conference in Abu Dhabi. “We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball.”
In Britain, where Mr. Murdoch is based, lawmakers have taken up the challenge — to the consternation of Internet companies and civil liberties groups, which are ratcheting up their own arguments against a tough anti-piracy bill that is nearing the make-or-break stage in Parliament.
The measure, championed by the business secretary, Peter Mandelson, would give the British authorities new tools to clamp down on piracy, including the right to cut off the Internet connections of persistent copyright cheats. Such a system has been approved, though not yet implemented, in France.
The British proposal, set to be taken up by the House of Commons on Monday, goes further. Under an amendment to the bill in the House of Lords this month, courts would be empowered to order Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that provide pirated movies, music and other media content.
Supporters of the amendment say it would finally give copyright holders the tools to tackle the piracy problem at the supply and demand levels, after more than a decade of largely futile efforts. But critics of the bill say it raises the specter of censorship on the Internet, and could undermine the development of Britain’s digital economy, currently among the most advanced in the world.
“Put simply, blocking access as envisaged by this clause would both widely disrupt the Internet in the U.K. and elsewhere, threatening freedom of speech and the open Internet, without reducing copyright infringement as intended,” opponents of the proposal wrote in a letter to The Financial Times. It was signed by Internet service providers, Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, eBay and Facebook, and other groups.
Britain is not the only country considering tougher measures to fight piracy. Along with France, South Korea also recently approved a system under which Internet pirates who ignore two warnings to stop illegal downloads face the loss of their Internet connections. Lawmakers in Spain have proposed a measure that, like the British proposal, could require Internet service providers to block access to certain sites.
The British government says a tougher approach on piracy could provide hundreds of millions of dollars for the “creative industries,” which already account for more than 6 percent of British economic output.
But critics say the proposals would be expensive to enforce and would generate very little new revenue.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns against restrictions on the Internet, said the bill contained unusually broad scope for abuse. Individuals or companies, he said, might try to use it to suppress any Web content they found objectionable, under the pretext of protecting their copyrights.
British libel laws, which put the burden of proof on the defendant, are already employed in this way by wealthy plaintiffs, critics say; rather than mount expensive defenses, bloggers and others accused of libel often back down and withdraw whatever statements drew offense."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/technology/15iht-piracy15.html?scp=2&sq=piracy&st=cse
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Duplicating Federal Videos for an Online Archive; New York Times, 3/14/10
Brian Stelter, New York Times; Duplicating Federal Videos for an Online Archive:
"Dust off a disc. Maybe it’s video of a Bob Hope Christmas show, or maybe it’s the Apollo 11 moon landing. Insert a blank disc. Duplicate.
Carl Malamud, who conceived the project, calls it an “experiment in crowd-sourced digitization.”
It sounds monotonous because it is. But every time Liz Pruszko presses the start button on a DVD machine, she knows she is helping to unlock the thousands of videos tucked away in the National Archives.
“It just seems like such a shame to not have this content out there,” Ms. Pruszko said.
When she says “out there,” she is talking about the Web, where it might seem that every conceivable video clip of federal importance is already stored, just waiting to be searched for. That is far from true. But she is nudging the government in that direction.
Ms. Pruszko is a volunteer for the International Amateur Scanning League, an invention of the longtime public information advocate Carl Malamud. The league plans to upload the archives’ collection of 3,000 DVDs in what Mr. Malamud calls an “experiment in crowd-sourced digitization.”
Armed with nothing but a DVD duplicator and a YouTube account, the volunteers have copied and uploaded, among other video clips, an address by John F. Kennedy; a silent film about the Communist “red scare”; a training video on farming; and a Disney film for World War II soldiers about how to avoid malaria, in Spanish. So far, nothing elusive has emerged — but the project is in its infancy.
“It’s a cornucopia of information,” said Justin Grimes, another league volunteer.
The league is a small demonstration that volunteers can sometimes achieve what bureaucracies can’t or won’t. The government’s 10-year broadband plan, to be submitted to Congress this week, will include a vision for Video.gov, a proposed home for video from federal agencies. The proposal is sure to be cheered by people who want the government to put more materials online. But Mr. Malamud and his volunteers are not waiting.
Mr. Malamud, who spends most of his time pushing for broader access to legal documents online, had already uploaded 1,300 videos from other government sources, like the Federal Aviation Administration and National Technical Information Service. But “the motherlode is the archives,” he said.
To put those DVDs online, he needed volunteers, and he found them at CopyNight, a monthly gathering of copyright law enthusiasts that he visited at a restaurant near Union Station last December. (CopyNight members are generally supportive of relaxations to copyright laws.) Mr. Malamud raised the idea a month later.
Though it may seem to be an odd pursuit, especially for no pay, Ms. Pruszko, who is a project manager for a Web development company, took to the idea. Ms. Pruszko said she explained to her fiancé that “copying DVDs sounds boring, but it’s not the copying that counts — it’s what it represents and what it results in.” What it represents, she said, is access to information, a cornerstone of democracy.
Although the DVDs are all technically available to the public, they are hard to see unless a person visits the archive or pays for a copy via Amazon.com. With the scanning project, they are a few mouse clicks away.
Ms. Pruszko started doing the copying last month, and returned to the archives building last Saturday to copy her 50th DVD.
At No. 50, “Carl promised me a poster,” she joked.
There are also laminated badges and “Public Domain Merit Badges,” all meant to convey a seriousness of purpose along with a sense of humor.
In red envelopes labeled “FedFlix,” his DVD-by-mail variation on Netflix, the volunteers mail the DVD copies to Mr. Malamud’s home in Northern California, where he uploads them to YouTube, the Internet Archive Web site and an independent server. Mr. Malamud said that the volunteer work hardly reduces the need for the government to increase its own digitization efforts.
“I try to get the government to change by showing them what’s possible,” he said.
David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said the archives were fully supportive of what the citizen group was doing.
“My goal is to make available electronically as much content as possible,” he said, adding that the FedFlix copies are sufficiently high-quality that the archives would not have to duplicate them once more.
The scanning league is starting with the 3,000 or so DVDs in the collection, because they are the easiest to duplicate. But there is much more to be done: the archives are said to house more than 200,000 videos.
“Knowing Carl, he has other things planned,” Ms. Pruszko said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/technology/15fedflix.html?hpw
"Dust off a disc. Maybe it’s video of a Bob Hope Christmas show, or maybe it’s the Apollo 11 moon landing. Insert a blank disc. Duplicate.
Carl Malamud, who conceived the project, calls it an “experiment in crowd-sourced digitization.”
It sounds monotonous because it is. But every time Liz Pruszko presses the start button on a DVD machine, she knows she is helping to unlock the thousands of videos tucked away in the National Archives.
“It just seems like such a shame to not have this content out there,” Ms. Pruszko said.
When she says “out there,” she is talking about the Web, where it might seem that every conceivable video clip of federal importance is already stored, just waiting to be searched for. That is far from true. But she is nudging the government in that direction.
Ms. Pruszko is a volunteer for the International Amateur Scanning League, an invention of the longtime public information advocate Carl Malamud. The league plans to upload the archives’ collection of 3,000 DVDs in what Mr. Malamud calls an “experiment in crowd-sourced digitization.”
Armed with nothing but a DVD duplicator and a YouTube account, the volunteers have copied and uploaded, among other video clips, an address by John F. Kennedy; a silent film about the Communist “red scare”; a training video on farming; and a Disney film for World War II soldiers about how to avoid malaria, in Spanish. So far, nothing elusive has emerged — but the project is in its infancy.
“It’s a cornucopia of information,” said Justin Grimes, another league volunteer.
The league is a small demonstration that volunteers can sometimes achieve what bureaucracies can’t or won’t. The government’s 10-year broadband plan, to be submitted to Congress this week, will include a vision for Video.gov, a proposed home for video from federal agencies. The proposal is sure to be cheered by people who want the government to put more materials online. But Mr. Malamud and his volunteers are not waiting.
Mr. Malamud, who spends most of his time pushing for broader access to legal documents online, had already uploaded 1,300 videos from other government sources, like the Federal Aviation Administration and National Technical Information Service. But “the motherlode is the archives,” he said.
To put those DVDs online, he needed volunteers, and he found them at CopyNight, a monthly gathering of copyright law enthusiasts that he visited at a restaurant near Union Station last December. (CopyNight members are generally supportive of relaxations to copyright laws.) Mr. Malamud raised the idea a month later.
Though it may seem to be an odd pursuit, especially for no pay, Ms. Pruszko, who is a project manager for a Web development company, took to the idea. Ms. Pruszko said she explained to her fiancé that “copying DVDs sounds boring, but it’s not the copying that counts — it’s what it represents and what it results in.” What it represents, she said, is access to information, a cornerstone of democracy.
Although the DVDs are all technically available to the public, they are hard to see unless a person visits the archive or pays for a copy via Amazon.com. With the scanning project, they are a few mouse clicks away.
Ms. Pruszko started doing the copying last month, and returned to the archives building last Saturday to copy her 50th DVD.
At No. 50, “Carl promised me a poster,” she joked.
There are also laminated badges and “Public Domain Merit Badges,” all meant to convey a seriousness of purpose along with a sense of humor.
In red envelopes labeled “FedFlix,” his DVD-by-mail variation on Netflix, the volunteers mail the DVD copies to Mr. Malamud’s home in Northern California, where he uploads them to YouTube, the Internet Archive Web site and an independent server. Mr. Malamud said that the volunteer work hardly reduces the need for the government to increase its own digitization efforts.
“I try to get the government to change by showing them what’s possible,” he said.
David S. Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said the archives were fully supportive of what the citizen group was doing.
“My goal is to make available electronically as much content as possible,” he said, adding that the FedFlix copies are sufficiently high-quality that the archives would not have to duplicate them once more.
The scanning league is starting with the 3,000 or so DVDs in the collection, because they are the easiest to duplicate. But there is much more to be done: the archives are said to house more than 200,000 videos.
“Knowing Carl, he has other things planned,” Ms. Pruszko said."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/technology/15fedflix.html?hpw
Peers 'set to offer digital economy bill concessions'; (London) Guardian, 3/12/10
Jason Deans, (London) Guardian; Peers 'set to offer digital economy bill concessions':
"Peers will reportedly offer concessions over controversial anti-piracy legislation that would lead to websites being blocked without due judicial process, following criticism from internet companies including Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
The Liberal Democrats are planning to publish changes to an earlier amendment to the digital economy bill, 120A, that seek to address concerns about the anti-piracy proposals raised by internet service providers and leading web companies, according to today's Financial Times.
Last week Lib Dem and Conservatives peers added amendment 120A to the bill giving a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a website accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. The amendment was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140.
Under three changes proposed by the Lib Dems, of which the FT reports the Conservatives are broadly supportive, a judge could order copyright owners to pay legal costs and other compensation for asking a service provider to block a site. Content owners must also inform owners of sites they accuse of infringing their copyright before asking that it be blocked, and list the works illegally hosted.
Website owners or "any person aggrieved" would be able to appeal against a block under the latest amendments.
The Lib Dems are expected to publish the amendment today and they will be voted on in the Lords on Monday as part of the third reading of the digital economy bill, according to the FT.
Earlier this week a group of internet and technology companies, along with consumer groups, co-signed a letter published in the FT criticising amendment 120A. They said it raised "myriad legal, technical and practical issues" that needed to be reconciled before it could be "considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option".
The letter was co-signed by the heads of the four largest UK internet service providers – BT, Orange, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – as well as Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo, along with consumer groups, academics and the technophile television host Stephen Fry."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/12/piracy-internet
"Peers will reportedly offer concessions over controversial anti-piracy legislation that would lead to websites being blocked without due judicial process, following criticism from internet companies including Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
The Liberal Democrats are planning to publish changes to an earlier amendment to the digital economy bill, 120A, that seek to address concerns about the anti-piracy proposals raised by internet service providers and leading web companies, according to today's Financial Times.
Last week Lib Dem and Conservatives peers added amendment 120A to the bill giving a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a website accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. The amendment was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140.
Under three changes proposed by the Lib Dems, of which the FT reports the Conservatives are broadly supportive, a judge could order copyright owners to pay legal costs and other compensation for asking a service provider to block a site. Content owners must also inform owners of sites they accuse of infringing their copyright before asking that it be blocked, and list the works illegally hosted.
Website owners or "any person aggrieved" would be able to appeal against a block under the latest amendments.
The Lib Dems are expected to publish the amendment today and they will be voted on in the Lords on Monday as part of the third reading of the digital economy bill, according to the FT.
Earlier this week a group of internet and technology companies, along with consumer groups, co-signed a letter published in the FT criticising amendment 120A. They said it raised "myriad legal, technical and practical issues" that needed to be reconciled before it could be "considered a proportionate and necessary public policy option".
The letter was co-signed by the heads of the four largest UK internet service providers – BT, Orange, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – as well as Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo, along with consumer groups, academics and the technophile television host Stephen Fry."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/12/piracy-internet
Should Fashion be Protected by Copyright Laws? A Guest Post; Freakonomics Blog, New York Times, 3/12/10
Last week, Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman took us behind the scenes of fashion copycatting, and explained why the practice is actually good for the fashion industry. This week, they explore historical and current efforts to protect fashion from copycatters. Kal Raustiala, a Professor at UCLA Law School and the UCLA International Institute, and Chris Sprigman, a Professor at UVA Law School, are counterfeiting and intellectual property experts.
Is the Design Piracy Prohibition Act A Good Idea? By Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman
In our last post, we discussed the phenomenon of “red carpet copycats”: those firms that quickly issue copies of the often-striking—and strikingly expensive—dresses worn by the stars at the Oscars. Many apparel firms are very open about this practice, lauding it as a way to provide “bling on a budget.” And, as we explained, this practice is legal under American copyright law, which has never protected fashion in the way that other creative endeavors, such as music or film, are protected.
We also argued that the reason copying is permitted is in part that, in the fashion world, copying has hidden benefits. Styles, as we all know, rise and fall in a ceaseless cycle of trends. That is the nature of fashion. As copies of trendy or noteworthy garments are freely made, fashion-forward consumers recognize that it’s time to jump to the new new thing. The fashion cycle turns even faster.
The interesting effect of copying is to generate more demand for new designs, since the old designs—the ones that have been copied—are no longer special. The overall result is greater sales of apparel. We call this surprising effect the “piracy paradox.”
We think the piracy paradox explains why fashion has remained immune from the steady march toward ever stronger intellectual property rights. From boat hulls to buildings to books, copyright law has been dramatically expanded and strengthened by Congress over the last 50 years. That fashion remains an outlier reflects the unusual incentives of the industry.
Nonetheless, not everyone agrees that copying is beneficial. Indeed, if you are the designer being copied, you may feel otherwise, since you bear many of the costs of copying (such as foregone sales), while others reap the majority of the benefits. For that reason, there have been occasional calls to amend American copyright law to protect fashion designs. To date, none of these efforts have succeeded. But a closer look at them can give us further insight into the economics of fashion...
The DPPA is also unwise. Extend copyright to the fashion industry, and designers are going to start fighting over who started a trend. Ligitation of this sort is great for lawyers—and those firms who can afford good lawyers—but not great for small designers or start-ups, who can be easily cowed or crushed by a lawsuit. And in a field where many believe there is nothing new under the sun, creating monopolies in fashion designs is bound to lead to a lot of lawsuits.
There’s one last point to make here. Consumers benefit enormously from the fashion industry’s freedom to copy. Because of copying, the latest styles are not restricted to the wealthy – indeed, copying has played a major role in democratizing fashion.
The bottom line is that there is no shortage of innovation in the U.S. fashion industry. Right now, in studios in New York and Los Angeles, uncounted thousands of designers are busy churning out new designs. And they are also busy copying and “interpreting” one another. And that’s good."
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/should-fashion-be-protected-by-copyright-laws-a-guest-post/?scp=1&sq=copyright&st=cse
Is the Design Piracy Prohibition Act A Good Idea? By Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman
In our last post, we discussed the phenomenon of “red carpet copycats”: those firms that quickly issue copies of the often-striking—and strikingly expensive—dresses worn by the stars at the Oscars. Many apparel firms are very open about this practice, lauding it as a way to provide “bling on a budget.” And, as we explained, this practice is legal under American copyright law, which has never protected fashion in the way that other creative endeavors, such as music or film, are protected.
We also argued that the reason copying is permitted is in part that, in the fashion world, copying has hidden benefits. Styles, as we all know, rise and fall in a ceaseless cycle of trends. That is the nature of fashion. As copies of trendy or noteworthy garments are freely made, fashion-forward consumers recognize that it’s time to jump to the new new thing. The fashion cycle turns even faster.
The interesting effect of copying is to generate more demand for new designs, since the old designs—the ones that have been copied—are no longer special. The overall result is greater sales of apparel. We call this surprising effect the “piracy paradox.”
We think the piracy paradox explains why fashion has remained immune from the steady march toward ever stronger intellectual property rights. From boat hulls to buildings to books, copyright law has been dramatically expanded and strengthened by Congress over the last 50 years. That fashion remains an outlier reflects the unusual incentives of the industry.
Nonetheless, not everyone agrees that copying is beneficial. Indeed, if you are the designer being copied, you may feel otherwise, since you bear many of the costs of copying (such as foregone sales), while others reap the majority of the benefits. For that reason, there have been occasional calls to amend American copyright law to protect fashion designs. To date, none of these efforts have succeeded. But a closer look at them can give us further insight into the economics of fashion...
The DPPA is also unwise. Extend copyright to the fashion industry, and designers are going to start fighting over who started a trend. Ligitation of this sort is great for lawyers—and those firms who can afford good lawyers—but not great for small designers or start-ups, who can be easily cowed or crushed by a lawsuit. And in a field where many believe there is nothing new under the sun, creating monopolies in fashion designs is bound to lead to a lot of lawsuits.
There’s one last point to make here. Consumers benefit enormously from the fashion industry’s freedom to copy. Because of copying, the latest styles are not restricted to the wealthy – indeed, copying has played a major role in democratizing fashion.
The bottom line is that there is no shortage of innovation in the U.S. fashion industry. Right now, in studios in New York and Los Angeles, uncounted thousands of designers are busy churning out new designs. And they are also busy copying and “interpreting” one another. And that’s good."
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/should-fashion-be-protected-by-copyright-laws-a-guest-post/?scp=1&sq=copyright&st=cse
2010 Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) Symposium, "Sustaining Culture in Copyright", Washington, DC, June 22-24
2010 Center for Intellectual Property (CIP) Symposium, "Sustaining Culture in Copyright", Washington, DC, June 22-24:
"Join scholars and experts to discuss today's copyright concerns. Culture flourishes through the creation of new music, videos, and textual works.The CIP symposium will explore better ways to balance the needs of cultural innovation with the rights of owners of creative works."
http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/symposium/2010.html
"Join scholars and experts to discuss today's copyright concerns. Culture flourishes through the creation of new music, videos, and textual works.The CIP symposium will explore better ways to balance the needs of cultural innovation with the rights of owners of creative works."
http://www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/symposium/2010.html
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