Creative Librarian » Copyright

US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus

laura — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:39:05 +0000

We've all seen the studies trumpeting massive losses to the US economy from piracy. One famous figure, used literally for decades by rightsholders and the government, said that 750,000 jobs and up to $250 billion a year could be lost in the US economy thanks to IP infringement. A couple years ago, we thoroughly debunked that figure. For years, Business Software Alliance reports on software piracy assumed that each illicit copy was a lost sale. And the MPAA&;apos;s own commissioned study on movie piracy turned out to overstate collegiate downloading by a factor of three. Can we trust any of these claims about piracy? The US doesn't think so. In a new report out yesterday, the government's own internal watchdog took a close look at "efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods." After examining all the data and consulting with numerous experts inside and outside of government, the Government Accountability Office concluded (PDF) that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts." via US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus.

PLA 2010 Conference: DRM-Free Downloadable (Sony) Music at the Library

laura — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:06:09 +0000

In a significant step toward offering public library patrons DRM-free downloadable music, Library Ideas LLC, a new company that has previously hooked up libraries with Redbox video dispensers, has joined with Sony Music Entertainment to launch the Freegal Music Service, offering public library subscribers access to hundreds of thousands of songs in Sony’s catalog.

Sony includes more than 50 labels, in genres ranging from rock and country to rap and classical.

The libraries must pre-pay for a minimum number of downloads from Freegal, and each library user will be limited to, at most, 20 downloads per week. Libraries that see a spike in use can limit the number of systemwide downloads in a week or month to ensure wider access, and library card holders can also reserve downloads.

No download manager is required—a step that has complicated audiobook downloading. The songs are delivered as MP3 files and thus are compatible with iPods and other devices, some of which have not been compatible with library audio.

via PLA 2010 Conference: DRM-Free Downloadable (Sony) Music at the Library - 3/24/2010 - Library Journal.

Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years under the DMCA | Electronic Frontier Foundation

laura — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:36:01 +0000

This document collects reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors. It will be updated from time to time as additional cases come to light. Previous versions remain available. via Unintended Consequences: Twelve Years under the DMCA | Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Why DRM Doesn’t Work

laura — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:37:22 +0000

via The Brads – a comic about web design » The Brads – Why DRM Doesn’t Work. Why file-sharing is still so popular.

iPad in libraries – Unshelved Answers

laura — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 02:01:23 +0000

iPad in libraries – Unshelved Answers.

A great discussion on the future of ebooks in libraries.

After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site | The New York Observer

laura — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:46:35 +0000

After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?

The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.

via After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site | The New York Observer.

O’Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales Boing Boing

laura — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:48:01 +0000

It's been 18 months since O'Reilly, the world's largest publisher of tech books, stopped using DRM on its ebooks. In the intervening time, O'Reilly's ebook sales have increased by 104 percent. Now, when you talk about ebooks and DRM, there's always someone who'll say, “But what about [textbooks|technical books|RPG manuals]? Their target audience is so wired and online, why wouldn't they just copy the books without paying? They've all got the technical know-how.”

So much for that theory.

Instead, expect to hear DRM apologists (either DRM vendors or technologically naive people in publishing who believe what DRM vendors tell them) now saying, “Oh sure, it works for O'Reilly, but those are tech books. Regular trade books can't possibly work the same way!”

via O’Reilly drops ebook DRM, sees 104% increase in sales Boing Boing.

OK Go explains the screwed-up state of the music industry Boing Boing

laura — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:38:51 +0000

Damian Kulash of the band OK Go has published a tremendously informative, frustrating, and important open letter about the reason that the band's videos can't be embedded on sites like this. OK Go rose to prominence on the strength of its viral Internet videos, but now EMI, its label, won't allow embedding for its videos, because no embedding is possible. Kulash is clearly frustrated by this impasse, and his ruminations on how the industry got to this place and where it might go are required reading:

via OK Go explains the screwed-up state of the music industry Boing Boing.

CBS uncovers rare Jack Benny treasures, puts them back and tosses out the key Boing Boing

laura — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:24:23 +0000

When Jack Benny fans discovered that the CBS vaults contained some 25 original Jack Benny TV show episodes previously thought lost, they rejoiced. They approached the network for release of the public-domain footage, even offering to foot the bill for digital transfer and preservation. CBS balked, insisting that the fan club get approval from the Benny estate. No problem: Jack Benny's descendants were only too glad to have his original TV shows rescued from obscurity and given to the world. But CBS balked again, citing unspecified "issues" (presumably potential copyrights in the score or other materials). Basically, CBS has decided that it could cost too much to pay a lawyer to figure out if they can release these films -- or even turn them over to Benny's fans and family for release -- and so it has decided to simply abandon them, sealing them back up in the vault forever. This isn't how it's supposed to work. In the Constitution's progress clause, Congress is empowered to "promote the progress of the arts" through copyright. When copyright creates these deadlocks that doom America's artistic heritage to history's scrapheap, copyright needs to change. via CBS uncovers rare Jack Benny treasures, puts them back and tosses out the key Boing Boing.

Burning the library in slow motion: how copyright extension has banished millions of books to the scrapheap of history Boing Boing

laura — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:26:47 +0000

Jamie “Public Domain” Boyle sez, “When Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic, Fahrenheit 451 was published, it was scheduled to enter the public domain this month — January 1, 2010. But then we changed the law. And Bradbury's firemen look like pikers compared to the cultural conflagration that ensued. The works may not be physically destroyed — although many of them are; disappearing, disintegrating, or simply getting lost in the vastly long period of copyright to which we have relegated them. But for the vast majority of works and the vast majority of citizens who do not have access to one of our great libraries, they are gone as thoroughly as if we had piled up the culture of the 20th century and simply set fire to it; and all this right at the moment when we could have used the Internet vastly to expand the scope of cultural access. Bradbury's firemen at least set fire to their own culture out of deep ideological commitment, vile though it may have been. We have set fire to our cultural record for no reason.”

Remember folks, thanks to 11 copyright term extensions in the past 40-some years, more than 98% of all works in copyright are “orphaned” — still in copyright, but no one knows to whom they belong.

via Burning the library in slow motion: how copyright extension has banished millions of books to the scrapheap of history Boing Boing.