Crosswords and copyright; Washington Post, 3/15/16

David Post, Washington Post; Crosswords and copyright:

"What’s interesting, to me, in all this, aside from the light it sheds on puzzle construction, is that it illustrates how “plagiarism,” though it is often conflated with copyright infringement, actually covers very different territory and involves very different interests. A crossword’s “theme” is probably one element of the puzzle-creator’s work that is not protected by copyright; copyright law doesn’t protect “ideas,” only the expression of ideas, and a puzzle’s theme is, in my opinion, just such an unprotectable “idea,” free for the taking (as far as copyright law is concerned). But it’s precisely this kind of taking — theme theft — that gets the angriest response from those in the puzzle-writing business.

This has a direct parallel in academic writing. There, too, the plagiarism norms focus on a kind of borrowing that the law of copyright deems permissible: taking another’s ideas or expression without attribution. Nobody in the academic world will complain if you use their ideas or quote their work — in fact, that’s very much the whole point of the enterprise. But to do so without citation — that will get you into the hottest of hot water. [Just ask Doris Kearns Goodwin, or Stephen Ambrose or Joseph Ellis]. Yet copyright law gives an author no enforceable right to have his/her work properly attributed to him/her — a fact that surprised the hell out of many of my law prof colleagues when they first learned of it (insofar as proper attribution was really the only thing they cared about)."

Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging; Intellectual Property Watch, 3/16/16

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Asia On The Heels Of US And Europe In Patent Applications At WIPO; Developing Countries Lagging:

"China, Japan and South Korea are among the top five countries filing international patent applications at the World Intellectual Property Organization, while the United States continues to lead in patent and trademark applications. Far behind, developing countries seem to be having a hard time catching up...

The top 10 countries filing under the PCT in 2015 were the US (57,385), Japan (44,235), and China (29,846), followed by Germany, South Korea, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden.

According to a WIPO press release, the US has filed the largest annual number of international patent applications for 38 years running. Patent-filing activity by China-based innovators accounted for much of the overall growth in applications, according to the release.

Computer technology and digital communication saw the largest numbers of filing in 2015, each exceeding 16,000, according to the release."

Status of gene patents in Canada unresolved, despite successful challenge; The Canadian Press via CTV News, 3/20/16

The Canadian Press via CTV News; Status of gene patents in Canada unresolved, despite successful challenge:

"One of the most contentious issues in genetics is whether researchers should be allowed to patent human genes found to cause disease and to commercialize diagnostic tests based on those mutated snippets of DNA.

Courts in the U.S. and Australia, for example, have banned the practice, but in Canada no law prohibits scientists from taking out patents on bits of the human genome and their associated products for use in patients.

But an out-of-court settlement earlier this month between an Ottawa hospital and a global company that holds patents on genes and a related test for a potentially deadly heart rhythm disorder may have vastly altered the Canadian gene-patenting landscape.

In what could be characterized as a David and Goliath contest, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) launched a court challenge in late 2014 against U.S.-based Transgenomic Inc., which holds patents on five of the flawed genes underpinning long QT syndrome and the diagnostic test for the inherited disorder."

Open Data: Why We Should Care; Huffington Post, 3/17/16

Apolitical, Huffington Post; Open Data: Why We Should Care:

"Excited by the connectivity revolution, governments all over the world are trying to find clever uses for the enormous amounts of digital information they now possess. One of the Big Data movements with the most momentum is Open Data — making this information available to the public. But what good does this actually do? Apolitical spoke to three pioneers in the field in Burkina Faso, Brazil and India, who told us about fighting corruption, ensuring free elections and preventing crime. These real, substantive issues go beyond the inevitably vague buzzwords of transparency and accountability. Here we discover what Open Data can really do about them."

9th Circuit revisits Dancing Baby copyright case: No fair use via algorithm; Ars Technica, 3/18/16

Joe Mullin, Ars Technica; 9th Circuit revisits Dancing Baby copyright case: No fair use via algorithm:

"In September, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued its ruling in the "Dancing Baby" copyright takedown case, initiated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation more than eight years ago. It was a victory for the EFF, but a very mixed one. Today, the court issued an amended opinion that makes the EFF's win stronger."

The latest news on 'To Kill a Mockingbird' shows how big corporations control copyright law; Los Angeles Times, 3/14/16

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times; The latest news on 'To Kill a Mockingbird' shows how big corporations control copyright law:

"According to a March 4 notice issued by Hachette to booksellers and reported by the New Republic, permission for the mass-market edition has been withdrawn by the novel's publisher, HarperCollins. (HarperCollins also brought out "Go Set a Watchman.") Hachette can sell off its remaining copies, which it's doing at a further discount, but henceforth "Mockingbird" will be available chiefly in a HarperCollins trade paperback edition, which lists for $14.99.

The burden will fall on school districts that traditionally laid in a large volume of mass-market books for their pupils. Hachette says that more than two-thirds of the 30 million copies sold worldwide since publication have been its low-priced edition. Hachette told bookstores, according to the New Republic: "The disappearance of the iconic mass-market edition is very disappointing to us, especially as we understand this could force a difficult situation for schools and teachers with tight budgets who cannot afford the larger, higher priced paperback edition that will remain in the market."

The real problem this development points to is with copyright law, which has been getting consistently rewritten in the United States and other countries to extend the length of authors' rights to the point where their heirs, and heirs of heirs, are the chief beneficiaries of the copyright. But that's only superficially. The real beneficiaries are corporations, which continue to profit from successful works of art for decades after their creators have passed on. Corporations such as HarperCollins...

Yet as we can see from the extinction of the mass-market paperback of "Mockingbird," such extensions stifle the dissemination of creative works rather than encourage it. The squabble over the copyright to Anne Frank's diaries, which we reported on here, also illustrates how the grip of copyright law leaves the control of creative works in the hands of people who may not share the desires of the works' creators. Harper Lee has passed on, Anne Frank is long gone, and Walt Disney is represented in the marketplace by a corporation that is hopelessly far removed from his artistic and even his business creation."

Photo Copyright: Oscar Wilde, Richard Prince, and Your Instagram Content; Huffington Post, 3/15/16

Kim Farbota, Huffington Post; Photo Copyright: Oscar Wilde, Richard Prince, and Your Instagram Content:

"Richard Prince, an "appropriation artist" well-known in creative spheres, is showing blown-up screen shots from his Instagram feed in renowned Manhattan galleries. The contemporary counterparts of Wilde's Gilded Age fan base buy the inkjet-on-canvas prints for upwards of $100,000. The original snappers hear through the proverbial grapevine that their filtered selfies are featured in high-end art shows.

Copyright law has evolved markedly in the century separating Richard Prince from Napoleon Sarony. On the shoulders of Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, Prince has made a decades-long career selling slightly altered versions of other people's images. He evades copyright infringement liability through legal principles that allow certain "transformative works" to make use of copyright-protected materials without the owner's consent. Broadly, a transformative "fair use" alters or recontextualizes the original work for the purpose of commentary, criticism, or parody. All of the pieces in the Instagram-based New Portraits series include Prince's own original "comment" within the captured frame, submitted via his Instagram handle, "richardprince1234". He also enlarges the images and moves them from digital to print media. The original photos, which cover most of the space on the printed canvases, remain otherwise untouched.

Donald Graham, a career photographer whose portrait of a Rastafarian man was involuntarily featured in New Portraits, is not impressed. In a complaint filed in federal court this January, Graham calls Prince's work a "blatant disregard of copyright law". Graham's suit challenges whether Prince's transformations are sufficient to trigger "fair use" protection...

At the intersection of copyright and social media, balancing the benefits of exposure with the risks of theft and appropriation is an evolving challenge."