Who owns Sherlock Holmes?
The Economist | Feb 20, 2013
“LESLIE KLINGER knows more about Sherlock Holmes than nearly any other living scholar. Among his two-dozen books about the fictional detective is the exhaustive “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes”, which offers notes on the four novels and 56 stories written about Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
But when it comes to imagining new adventures for the London-based Holmes, Mr Klinger has run into trouble. At issue is a new compilation of Holmes-derived stories which Mr Klinger has edited with Laurie King, a mystery novelist. Conan Doyle’s heirs claim that they have the right to extract license fees or suppress publication. Mr Klinger has responded by filing a lawsuit in a federal court in Chicago, arguing that he has not infringed copyright as the content in question is now in the public domain.”
For more on the story see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/02/public-domain
University Libraries test ebook sharing
New ebook collection freely loaned among libraries
Chris Putnam | January 18, 2013 | unews.ca
A group of Nova Scotia university libraries is testing a new approach to ebook lending that offers unprecedented levels of access to students and faculty.
Novanet – a consortium of 10 academic libraries founded in 1988 – has negotiated a new deal with publishers to allow the sharing of electronic books among libraries as freely as the sharing of print books.
In a pilot project that began in November, the member libraries deposited a total of $100,000 to access a shared collection of about 16,000 ebooks through vendor EBL. Patrons of any of the 10 libraries can instantly access these books through the Novanet system.
For more on the story see: http://unews.ca/university-libraries-test-ebook-sharing/
Apropos Appropriation
RANDY KENNEDY | December 28, 2011 | New York Times
“In March a federal district court judge in Manhattan ruled that Mr. Prince – whose career was built on appropriating imagery created by others – broke the law by taking photographs from a book about Rastafarians and using them without permission to create the collages and a series of paintings based on them, which quickly sold for serious money even by today &s gilded art-world standards: almost $2.5 million for one of the works.”
For more on this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/arts/design/richard-prince-lawsuit-focuses-on-limits-of-appropriation.html
Who Owns my Blog and Blog Post?
Nov 14, 2012 | FBC
I blog, therefore I own my blog. This is a presumption that may not be true in all circumstances. So what does Canadian copyright law say about ownership? First, all bloggers need to know that there are copyright law rules on the ownership of blogs. We are not talking netiquette or what &s ethical when blogging or using Twitter or Facebook.
For more see: http://www.foodbloggersofcanada.com/2012/11/who-owns-my-blog-and-blog-posts/?doing_wp_cron=1353093683.6224720478057861328125
Mike Rugnetta: My Little Rights Management Story
Youtube | IgniteNYC | October 19, 2010
Mike lives in New York City and makes the majority of his living as a composer writing only Creative Commons licensed works. Not only does he think it important for makers to know Copyleft and non-restrictive licenses are a viable option for making their living, but also that they are preferable in so many ways to the broken, confusing media rights management system which takes advantage of all but the most accomplished and pays the consumer absolutely no mind (and yet somehow, we are not all collectively outraged). He would like to tell his Little Rights Management Story in the hopes that – at the very least – someone in the audience won’t make the same stupid mistakes he did based entirely on false assumptions.
Copyright Modernization Act – Coming into Force
November 7, 2012 | Michael Geist Blog
This morning, the majority of Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill, took effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian copyright law in decades. While there are still some further changes to come (the Internet provider notice-and-notice rules await a consultation and their own regulations, various provisions related to the WIPO Internet treaties await formal ratification of those treaties), all the consumer oriented provisions are now active. These include:
•The addition of education, parody, and satire as fair dealing purposes.
•The creation of a non-commercial user generated content provision that creates a legal safe harbour for creators of non-commercial UGC (provided they meet four conditions in the law) and for sites that host such content.
•The adoption of several new consumer exceptions including time shifting (recording of television shows), format shifting, and the making of backup copies.
•Changes to the statutory damages rules that distinguish between commercial and non-commercial infringement. The law now includes a cap of $5000 for all non-commercial infringement. The change reduces the likelihood of lawsuits against individuals for non-commercial activities and would apply to educational institutions engaged in non-commercial activity and significantly reduce their potential liability for infringement.
•The inclusion of an exception for publicly available materials on the Internet for education. This covers the content found on millions of websites that can now be communicated and reproduced by educational institutions without the need for permission or compensation.
•The adoption of a technology-neutral approach for the reproduction of materials for display purposes. The current law is limited to manual reproduction or on an overhead projector. The provision may be applicable in the online learning context and open the door to digitization activities.
•The implementation of a distance learning provision, though use of the exception features significant restrictions that require the destruction of lessons at the conclusion of the course.
•The inclusion of a restrictive digital inter-library loans provision that will allow for digital transmission of materials on an inter-library basis, increasing access to materials that have been acquired by university libraries.
•A new exception for public performances in schools, which will reduce licensing costs for educational institutions.
See the Canada Gazette II (p45-47) for the specific sections: http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2012/2012-11-07/pdf/g2-14623.pdf
HathiTrust “Fair Use” ruling
Kim Nayyer | October 11, 2012
The crux:
HathiTrust and related university defendants saw near-entire success in their summary judgment motions, failing only on a standing question not consequential to the result. The outcome: Fair use protects the defendants’ participation in the HathiTrust mass digitization project and HathiTrust Digital Library from the plaintiffs’ copyright infringement claim.
And, this part, with quotes from the opinion:
The essence of Judge Baer’s fair use analysis lies in his determination that the digitization use was transformative in purpose, irrespective of whether the copy made was exact: “A transformative use may be one that actually changes the original work. However, a transformative use can also be one that serves an entirely different purpose.” He explains:
The use to which the works in the HDL are put is transformative because the copies serve an entirely different purpose than the original works: the purpose is superior search capabilities rather than actual access to copyrighted material. The search capabilities of the HDL have already given rise to new methods of academic inquiry such as textmining.
The use of digital copies to facilitate access for print-disabled persons is also transformative.
Librarians and digital humanists might be interested to read of the influence of amicibriefs filed by representatives of those constituencies:
In addition to the briefs submitted by the parties, the two memoranda filed by amici further confirm that the underlying rationale of copyright law is enhanced by the [HathiTrust Digital Library]. See Library Amici Br. (The public derives tremendous benefit from HDL, and authors stand to gain very little if the public is deprived of this resource.); Digital Humanities Amicus Br. (describing the use of metadata and text mining,which could actually enhance the market for the underlying work, by causing researchers to revisit the original work and reexamine it in more detail). Although I recognize that the facts here may on some levels be without precedent, I am convinced that they fall safely within the protection of fair use such that there is no genuine issue of material fact. I cannot imagine a definition of fair use that would not encompass the transformative uses made by Defendants & [Mass Digitization Project] and would require that I terminate this invaluable contribution to the progress of science and cultivation of the arts
See Also Kenneth Crews analysis of the case: http://copyright.columbia.edu/copyright/2012/10/11/court-rules-on-hathitrust-and-fair-use/
Read the case at: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nasims/HathivAG10_10_12.pdf
Association of Research Libraries Webcast on the Case: https://youtu.be/FTuxXGEYvvQ
Majority sign Access Copyright License
July 9, 2012 | University Affairs | Peggy Berkowitz
A third of Canadian universities did not sign the Access Copyright license and chose to rely on digital licensing, educational exception and open access copyright or pay publishers on a case by case basis.
For full article see: http://www.universityaffairs.ca/majority-of-canadian-universities-sign-licence-with-access-copyright.aspx
Parliament passes Copyright Bill
Friday, June 29, 2012
Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act received royal assent on Friday June 29, 2012.