In January 2008, Kenneth Crews became the founding director of the Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University. There are a variety of useful resources at the CAO's web site about U.S. copyright law, especially fair use.
Of particular interest, are:
The Digital Curation Centre has released "Creative Commons Licensing" as part of its Legal Watch Papers series.
Here's an excerpt:
CC is of great relevance to digital curation in the way it simplifies and increases third party access to and usage of copyright works. Curation is dependant on a range of strategies that require the making of copies and modifications. Unhindered, copyright could impinge on digital curation considerably. However use of these licences may ameliorate the difficulties.
The Senate passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which includes provisions that require higher education institutions to take steps to curb illegal file sharing. The bill now goes to President Bush for signature.
Read more about it at "College Funding Bill Passed with Anti-P2P Provisions Intact" and "Mixed Reviews for Illegal File-Sharing on Campus."
The House passed the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which includes provisions that require higher education institutions to take steps to curb illegal file sharing.
On July 30, 2008, EDUCAUSE issued a letter about the revised copyright provisions of the bill.
Here's an excerpt from that letter:
Section 493 (also below) is the result of much tug-and-pull over the last few months. In the end, it will require every college and university to certify that it "(A) has developed plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including through the use of a variety of technology-based deterrents; and (B) will, to the extent practicable, offer alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property, as determined by the institution in consultation with the chief technology officer or other designated officer of the institution."
The language of (A) represents a weaker requirement on colleges than had been discussed in some previous proposals. In particular, the Report language makes clear (see below) that technological deterrents "include bandwidth shaping, traffic monitoring to identify the largest bandwidth users, a vigorous program of accepting and responding to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices, and a variety of commercial products designed to reduce or block illegal file sharing." Further, the Report states that the bill is to be considered technology neutral. It should be up to the institution to determine its policy and corresponding technology, which can include policies that prohibit the monitoring of content.
The language of (B) is stronger than in the previous version, in that it requires that institutions certify that they "will . . . offer alternatives" instead of simply requiring plans for them. There is considerable flexibility, however, in that the institutions must interpret the "to the extent practicable" qualifier in the context of their own situation. Moreover, access to legal alternative services may be accomplished in a growing number of ways, including institutionally provided on-campus services, providing links to a variety of commercial services, and other procedures, as indicated in the Report language. "The Conferees recognize that there is a broad range of possibilities that exist for institutions to consider in developing plans for purposes of complying with this Section."
Read more about it at "Congress Tackles the Higher Ed Act" and "EDUCAUSE Comments on the File Sharing Provisions in the HEA."
The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 (S.3325) has been introduced in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).
Here's an excerpt from Public Knowledge's statement about the bill:
The provisions allowing seizure of equipment may be harmful to consumers. Seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family's general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate. This bill goes even farther, expanding the penalties under the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to create new grounds for allowing a family's computer to be seized if used to circumvent digital rights management, even if for fair uses.
In addition, this bill would turn the Justice Department into an arm of the legal departments of the entertainment companies by authorizing DoJ to file civil lawsuits for infringement, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill.
The UK's six largest ISPs and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding about restraining illegal file sharing.
Here's an excerpt from the BPI press release:
UK record labels' association BPI today reached a groundbreaking agreement with major internet service providers (ISPs) and government on measures to help significantly reduce illegal filesharing.
Following negotiations facilitated by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), BPI on behalf of hundreds of UK record companies big and small has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the UK's six largest internet service providers. The Motion Pictures Association of America and BERR have also signed.
The MOU places joint commitments on the signatories to continue developing consumer education programmes and legal online services. Most importantly, for the first time ISPs will be required to work with music and other rightsholders towards a "significant reduction" in illegal filesharing.
To achieve this, in the first year hundreds of thousands of informative letters will be sent by participating ISPs to customers whose accounts have been identified by BPI as being used illegally. In addition, under the auspices of Ofcom, the signatories will work together to identify effective mechanisms to deal with repeat offenders.
Alongside the MOU, BERR has today published a consultation on proposed new legislation requiring ISPs to deal effectively with illegal filesharing. It is anticipated that the outcome of this consultation will provide a co-regulatory backdrop to the MOU.
Read more about it at: "ISPs to Send 'Hundreds of Thousands' of File-Sharing Warnings"; "ISPs Yet to Decide on File-Sharer Punishment"; "Online Crackdown: What You Need to Know"; "'This Is Not Three Strikes and You're Out. It Is a Letter'"; and "Transcript from BPI Call with Journalists This Morning."
SHERPA's RoMEO service now contains over 400 publisher self-archiving policies.
Here's an excerpt from the announcement:
The RoMEO service, provided by the award winning SHERPA Partnership, uses a simple colour-code to classify policies and inform authors of what can be done with their articles, and offers users the ability to:
- View summaries of publishers' copyright policies in relation to self-archiving
- View if publisher policies comply with funding regulations, as some publishers are too restrictive and cannot be used to publish funded research
- To search journal and publisher information by Journal Title, Publisher Name and ISSN
RoMEO is seen as an essential resource by many in the Open Access community. RoMEO is funded by JISC and the Wellcome Trust. Journal information is kindly provided by the British Library's Zetoc service hosted by MIMAS
The European Commission has proposed a 95-year copyright term for recorded performances. It has also issued Green Paper: Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
Term of protection. . . .
The extended term would benefit performers who could continue earning money over an additional period. A 95-year term would bridge the income gap that performers face when they turn 70, just as their early performances recorded in their 20s would lose protection. They will continue to be eligible for broadcast remuneration, remuneration for performances in public places, such as bars and discotheques, and compensation payments for private copying of their performances.
The extended term would also benefit the record producers. It would generate additional revenue from the sale of records in shops and on the Internet. This should allow producers to adapt to the rapidly changing business environment which is characterised by a fast decline in physical sales (- 30% over the past five yeas) and the comparatively slow growth of online sales revenue.
In addition, when it concerns a musical composition, which contains the contributions of several authors, the Commission proposes a uniform way of calculating the term of protection. . . .
Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy. . . .
With this Green Paper, the Commission plans to have a structured debate on the long-term future of copyright policy in the knowledge intensive areas. In particular, the Green Paper is an attempt to structure the copyright debate as it relates to scientific publishing, the digital preservation of Europe's cultural heritage, orphan works, consumer access to protected works and the special needs for the disabled to participate in the information society. The Green Paper points to future challenges in the fields of scientific and scholarly publishing, search engines and special derogations for libraries, researchers and disabled people.
The Green paper focuses not only on the dissemination of knowledge for research, science and education but also on the current legal framework in the area of copyright and the possibilities it can currently offer to a variety of users (social institutions, museums, search engines, disabled people, teaching establishments).