The Heir’s Not Apparent: A Legal Battle Over Vivian Maier’s Work; New York Times, 9/5/14

Randy Kennedy, New York Times; The Heir’s Not Apparent: A Legal Battle Over Vivian Maier’s Work:

"The state public administrator’s office for Cook County, in Chicago, which is charged with overseeing estates until relatives or others are approved by the courts to do so, created an estate for Maier on July 1 and has sent letters to Mr. Maloof and others who sell her work — prints can cost more than $2,000 apiece — warning them of possible lawsuits over Maier’s assets. The Stephen Bulger Gallery, in Toronto, which lists dozens of Maier prints on its website, received a letter on Aug. 19 from a Chicago law firm, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun, representing the estate, asking it to preserve all documents related to her work and its sale.

“We are investigating the potential misuse and infringement of copyrighted works whose rights are held by the estate,” the letter said, adding that the firm anticipated “filing litigation against the responsible parties upon completion of our investigation.” An exhibition of her work is on view at the Toronto gallery."

Conan Doyle Estate Told to Pay Legal Fees; New York Times, 8/5/14

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; Conan Doyle Estate Told to Pay Legal Fees:

"A federal court has ordered the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle to pay $30,679.93 in legal fees to the plaintiff in a successful copyright challenge, calling its practice of demanding licensing fees for use of the character Sherlock Holmes “a form of extortion” with “no legal basis.”...

The reimbursement of legal fees, the ruling noted, was necessary to level the playing field between creators and copyright holders, who capitalize on people’s willingness to pay use fees rather than take the costly risk of litigation. It cited the example of the song “Happy Birthday to You,” for which a subsidiary of Warner Music Group, in the words of a 2009 decision, “receives approximately $2 million per year” in royalties, “despite the fact that the song is most likely in the public domain.” Last year a documentary film company filed a suit arguing that the song is no longer under copyright and requesting that the millions of dollars in use fees collected over the years be returned."

Open data's Achilles heel: re-identification; ZDNet, 9/3/14

Rob O'Neill, ZDNet; Open data's Achilles heel: re-identification:

'Governments around the globe are embracing the mantra of open data and talking up its productivity benefits, but none have so far made the re-identification of this mass of anonymised data illegal... The possibility of outlawing re-identification is now being discussed in New Zealand, with both the Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, and a May report (pdf) from the New Zealand Data futures Forum suggesting legal protections against re-identification may be necessary.

Edwards told ZDNet he is trying to look towards the future and ensure that the value in government data can be safely extracted in ways that maintain public confidence.

“One of the methods might be a prohibition on re-identification. If we did that we would be world leaders," he said.

Similarly, the Data Futures Forum report said it is necessary to develop a "robust data-use ecosystem" and to get the rules around open data right. This should include a data council to act as guardians and advisers, and a broad review of legislation."

Hard Cases Make Bad Law; Library Journal, 9/4/14

Kevin L. Smith, Library Journal; Hard Cases Make Bad Law:

"From both of these cases we can learn some basic truths; basic, but not universally recognized, which means that we need to remind ourselves and others about them. Copyright is a human institution that protects human creative effort within specific limits. One of those limits is the public domain, which has always been a part of copyright and which itself protects the ability of future authors to exercise their own creativity. Copyright is a set of economic rights held by authors, but it is not a form of mind control; simply knowing something, or remembering it, is not—and cannot ever be—a copyright problem.

All laws need limits, lest they become an excuse for tyranny. These are some of the limits that are built into copyright, and they protect us from the unique types of tyranny that such a law might be prone to, including the illusion that every piece of culture must be owned by someone and that every use, even in one’s own mind, must be paid for."

Tap millions of copyright-free book images via Flickr; CNet, 9/2/14

Michelle Starr, CNet; Tap millions of copyright-free book images via Flickr:

"The Internet is a magnificent resource -- and, Internet Archive believes, it has a lot of potential as a free library for researchers, historians, scholars and those who are just plain curious about the world.

And, with a new project, that library is getting bigger. In collaboration with the Internet Archive, Georgetown University academic Kalev Leetaru is in the process of uploading more than 14 million images from more than 2 million public domain e-books (more than 600 million pages) to Flickr.

The books, which are from the Internet Archive's library, span a period of 500 years and are automatically tagged thanks to a tool that scrapes the text before and after each image, making for a fully searchable database...

Leetaru and the Internet Archive plan to share the code with library partners, allowing them to add to the already extensive archive. Meanwhile, the Internet Archive Book Images Flickr page is available online for anyone to use."

Here’s How Celebs Can Get Their Nude Selfies Taken Down; Time, 9/2/14

Alex Fitzpatrick, Time; Here’s How Celebs Can Get Their Nude Selfies Taken Down:

"Some of the celebrities, like Lawrence, have pledged to go after whoever’s responsible for the privacy violation. While the hacker remains unidentified, the victims have at least one weapon to try and stop the images from spreading any further: Copyright law.

Here’s how that could work: In the United States, copyrights on photos are granted to whomever took the image. Since so many of the stolen images are reportedly selfies, that means the women in the images took the photos themselves — and, therefore, they get the copyright on them."

Deep Throat production company fails in Lovelace copyright claim; Guardian, 8/27/14

Ben Child, Guardian; Deep Throat production company fails in Lovelace copyright claim:

"Producers of the most successful porn movie of all time, Deep Throat, have lost a legal battle against the makers of a biopic about its tragic lead, Linda Lovelace.

A New York judge ruled on Monday that Lovelace, the 2013 biographical drama starring Amanda Seyfried as the title character, does not infringe copyright of the infamous 1972 porn film that inspired it...

The decision will presumably cause some relief in Hollywood, which routinely recreates famous scenes for biographical films. Had the ruling gone differently, movies such as My Week With Marilyn, the 2011 film that depicted the shooting of scenes from the 1957 romcom The Prince and the Showgirl, might conceivably have found themselves mired in legal difficulties."