DC universes collide in epic final ‘Justice League: Crisis’ fan trailer; ComicBookResources.com, 12/18/15

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; DC universes collide in epic final ‘Justice League: Crisis’ fan trailer:

"UltraSargent has debuted what’s described as the “final trailer” in the series that began in October, and it’s by far the longest and most ambitious yet. Using footage from DC Comics live-action adaptations dating back to Christopher Reeve-era Superman, the four-and-half-minute trailer offers a new take on Crisis on Infinite Earth, with Grant Gustin’s Flash at its center... As it stands, thought, Crisis draws from wide array of sources, from 1989’s Batman and 1990’s The Flash to Smallville and Supergirl. NBC’s short-lived Constantine even shows up."

Exceptions To Copyright To Remain On Agenda Of WIPO Copyright Committee; Intellectual Property Watch, 12/17/15

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Exceptions To Copyright To Remain On Agenda Of WIPO Copyright Committee:

"Copyright exceptions for libraries, archives, educational and research institutions and persons with disabilities other than visual impairment will remain on the agenda of the next session of the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee. The subject is touchy as developing countries deem those exceptions vital for development and developed countries say that the current global copyright framework leaves enough space for national exceptions to copyright.

The topic of exceptions and limitations to copyright in favour of libraries and archives has made more progress than the other topics on exceptions and limitations and last week, during the 31st session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), delegates considered a chart, which had been prepared by the committee chair, Martin Moscoso of Peru.

The chart [pdf], according to the foreword by Moscoso, was “designed to serve as a useful tool to provide a structure to discuss the substance for each topic.”"

6 Men Admit to Running a Global $100M Software Piracy Ring; Wired.com, 12/17/15

Andy Greenberg, Wired.com; 6 Men Admit to Running a Global $100M Software Piracy Ring:

"On Thursday the Department of Justice announced that it’s reached plea agreements with all six individuals charged in a six-year massive fraud scheme, which prosecutors say sold more than 170,000 copies of Adobe and Microsoft programs including Windows, Office, Photoshop, and Creative Suite, complete with valid registration codes and even physical certificates of authenticity. The men, who were tracked by investigators at the Department of Homeland Security, offered those pirated copies of the software at a discount through sites including Amazon, Overstock, eBay, Craigslist, and in some cases their own individual websites. Five of the convicted men face up to five years in prison (the sixth faces just three years) and up to a quarter million dollars in restitution each.

“It appears to be one the biggest software piracy cases, if not the biggest, the department has ever handled,” US Attorney Tammy Dickinson told WIRED in a phone interview."

FAN TRAILER BRINGS "X-MEN: APOCALYPSE'S" GRAVITAS TO '90S CARTOON; ComicBookResources.com, 12/16/15

Brett White, ComicBookResources.com; FAN TRAILER BRINGS "X-MEN: APOCALYPSE'S" GRAVITAS TO '90S CARTOON:

"Thanks to the "X-Men" cartoon from the 1990s, Apocalypse was introduced to an entire generation of fans as an intimidating figure with a booming voice that stood in contrast to his purple armor and big blue lips. Surprisingly, a lot of the odd details of Apocalypse's design have made their way into the live action version of the character, who Oscar Isaac plays in 2016's "X-Men: Apocalypse." But for many fans, the definitive version of En Sabah Nur exists in the cartoon -- and now there's a trailer for those very fans.

YouTube user Phillysteak took the audio track from the first "X-Men: Apocalypse" trailer, which debuted last week, and paired it with scenes from the '90s "X-Men" cartoon."

Open Access and Academic Freedom; Inside Higher Ed, 12/15/15

Rick Anderson, Inside Higher Ed; Open Access and Academic Freedom:

"As they have gained momentum over the past decade, the open access (OA) movement and its cousin, the Creative Commons licensing platform, have together done a tremendous amount of good in the world of scholarship and education, by making high-quality, peer-reviewed publications widely available both for reading and for reuse.

But they have also raised some uncomfortable issues, most notably related to academic freedom, particularly when OA is made a requirement rather than an option and when the Creative Commons attribution license (CC BY) is treated as an essential component of OA.

In recent years, major American and European funding bodies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust, the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Research Councils UK have all instituted OA mandates of various types, requiring those whose research depends on their funding to make the resulting articles available on some kind of OA basis. A large number of institutions of higher education have adopted OA policies as well, though most of these (especially in the United States) only encourage their faculty to make their work openly accessible rather than requiring them to do so."

The 4 worst patents of 2015; Washington Post, 12/14/15

Larry Downes, Washington Post; The 4 worst patents of 2015:

"This was another depressing year for patent law, which long ago lost sight of its constitutional moorings as a balanced and limited source of incentives for innovators. Though Congress, the courts and the Patent and Trademark Office each tried in their own way to rein in a system widely-regarded as out of control, in the end nobody made much progress...

The polite name for such companies is “non-practicing entities,” but most of us know them as patent trolls. And according to the Consumer Technology Association, these parasites have drained over $150 billion from the U.S. economy since 2013, at a pace that is accelerating.

Beyond the trolls, there’s a more fundamental problem. The mismatch between expanding patent coverage and the quickening pace of disruptive change has become one of the greatest sources of danger to the innovation economy.

That’s especially true of patents granted for basic software and abstract business methods — categories that have only recently been recognized in the first place."

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ lines up trademarks for ‘Star Wars’ mayonnaise, wind chimes, baby blankets and pretty much everything else; New York Daily News, 12/17/15

Gersh Kuntzman and Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News; ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ lines up trademarks for ‘Star Wars’ mayonnaise, wind chimes, baby blankets and pretty much everything else:

"The new sci-fi epic opens on Friday — but “Star Wars” corn chips, diaper bags, marshmallows, cork screws, dry erase writing boards and a host of other mundane products may be hitting stores soon after.

And you can thank the moviemakers’ legion of lawyers, which has been hard at work for months locking down trademarks on pretty much everything in the film that moves...

“They need to be aggressive about protecting the franchise’s new characters right out of the gate,” says New York lawyer Kenneth Falcon (no relation to Millennium), who focuses on copyright and trademark litigation. “People will try to rip off the ‘Star Wars’ brand forever because it’s so lucrative.”

The company began securing the rights to all products back in 2014, Patent and Trademark Office documents show. Some other trademarks were sought earlier this year, as plotlines and characters were being finalized."