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Four short links: 13 November 2009
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 13, 2009
Open Source Enters The World of Atoms -- an academic statistical analysis of open design. We indicated that, in open design communities, tangible objects can be developed in very similar fashion to software; one could even say that people treat a design as source code to a physical object and change the object via changing the source. Why I...
William Patry delivering Frey Lecture in Intellectual Property Law at Duke
By Andrew SavikasNovember 7, 2009
via ustream.tv Google Senior Copyright Counsel Bill Patry, who will be one of our keynote speakers at TOC 2010, delivered a great lecture at Duke last month dissecting the...
Four short links: 27 August 2009
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 27, 2009
Second Degree Murder and Six Other Crimes Cheaper Than Pirating Music -- I'm outraged that the Obama administration is supporting the RIAA on the case against Jammie Thomas, a single mother of four who has to pay them $1.92 million for downloading songs. That's more expensive than murder and six other crimes... (via Br3nda) Bill Drummond Talk (MP3) --...
My Canadian Copyright Consultation submission
August 24, 2009
The Parliament of Canada recently started a public consultation on what changes should be made to Canadian copyright law, after loud public condemnation of a set of proposals a few years ago. Having made more instead of less, because "Using Samba" was available electronically, it behooved me to tell Parliament that.
Four short links: 24 July 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJuly 24, 2009
Are Tweets Copyright-Protected (WIPO) -- According to an Internet posting on blogherald.com by Jonathan Bailey, every time a new communication technology emerges, it shifts the copyright landscape, and new copyright issues that do not fit existing intellectual property (IP) standards arise. With Twitter, for example, while its terms of service clearly state that tweeters own anything they post on...
Four short links: 14 July 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJuly 14, 2009
Twenty Questions about GPLv3 (Jacob Kaplan-Moss) -- twenty very challenging questions about the GPLv3. foo.js is a JavaScript library released under the GPLv3. bar.js is a library with all rights reserved. For performance reasons, I would like to minimize all my site’s JavaScript into a single compressed file called foobar.js. If I distribute this file, must I also distribute...
Four short links: 3 July 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJuly 2, 2009
OECD Factbook -- Flash-built impressive data explorer from OECD. Go to Indicators > Load and, in the words of Ben Goldacre, "prepare for nerdgasm". (via bengoldacre on Twitter) James Boyle is on Twitter -- author of the book The Public Domain. Sewers and Startups (Pete Warden) -- designing to last, reminds me of Saul Griffith's heirloom design riff. When...
Stealing Presets
By Gene McCullaghJune 27, 2009
Last week, Matt Kloskowski on his blog Lightroom Killer Tips (which, by the way, is an excellent Lightroom resource. If you haven't been there yet ... What are you waiting for?) posted an article Is it wrong to steal Lightroom presets? discussing the ethics/legality/morality of copying someone else's presets and applying that to your own work. With the exception of Matt's drug company argument (drug companies use patents to protect their drugs. It's only when the patents expire that others can produce generic copies) I have to agree with him. To equate the process with the final product is not something copyright law contemplates. It's ludicrous to think that Michaelangelo could sue because you happened to sculpt using marble because he used marble! You could give me all the marble you want and there's no way you'll get a David or a Pieta out of me! LOL
Four short links: 23 June 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJune 23, 2009
Easter Eggs for Real Life (Neil Gaiman) -- ok, I know easter eggs are already part of real life, but this is still cool. Gaiman recommends a restaurant run by a friend, and the friend has set up a special phrase that to mention to the server, at which point something good and special will happen for them to...
Four short links: 18 June 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJune 18, 2009
Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society (Michael Geist) -- Given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public access conclude that "weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society." This is consistent with the authors' view that weaker copyright is "uambiguously desirable if it does not lessen the incentives of artists and entertainment companies...
Four short links: 14 May 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMay 13, 2009
Open Library Book Reader -- the page-turning book reader software that the Internet Archive uses is open source. One of the reasons library scanning programs are ineffective is that they try to build new viewing software for each scan-a-bundle-of-books project they get funding for. Should Libraries Have eBooks? -- blog post from an electronic publisher made nervous by the...
Four short links: 7 May 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMay 6, 2009
How To Use An iPhone To Fly RC Airplanes and Helicopters -- So I had my basic idea down. iPhone joins the Linksys router network. It gets an IP address. Then, I open up my pilot program. The pilot program interfaces with the router via SSH (I couldn’t think of a better way that has redundancy, and speed, and...
Four short links: 7 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 7, 2009
Maps, meaning, makers, and orphaned works: Lens Tools and Fisheye Map Browsing -- a summary of magnification in maps through history, culminating in use of the fisheye/lens as a way to explore layers and data in thematic maps. (via Titine's delicious stream) Socially Relevant Computing -- frustrated by the meaningless examples and work in computer science classes, Mike Buckley started...
Four short links: 25 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 25, 2009
IT, AI, IQ, and UK today: Definition IT -- a blog about the ways in which IT is becoming a problem and not a solution. In the absence of any independent global standards or best practice models that guide the delivery of technology into businesses we have relinquished control to the suppliers of our technology. The suppliers are in a...
Four short links: 23 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 23, 2009
Digital rights, digital wrongs, newspaper science, and hardback socializing. Just another four short links: Twitter Mistrial -- this isn't a calamity for justice, we're just able to do something we couldn't do before (were there many jurors running pamphlets off on their printing presses in the old days?) so we need to figure out whether we want it or not....
Four short links: 13 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 13, 2009
Museums, Labs, Businesses, and Hash--all in today's four short links: Shelley Bernstein Talks About the Brooklyn Museum at the National Library of New Zealand (Paul Reynolds) -- I've written about Shelley's work before. Brooklyn [Museum] is not about using social media as just another marketing and visitor experience tool-set. Rather, as Bernstein said last night, Brooklyn Museum itself is now...
At Risk: Universal Online Access to All Knowledge
By Linda StoneMarch 11, 2009
"After digesting the proposed Google Book Settlement, it becomes clear that the dizzyingly complex agreement is, in essence, an elaborate scheme for the exploitation of orphan works… The upshot, if the Settlement is approved, would be legal protection for Google, and only for Google, to scan and provide digital access to the orphan works."
Four short links: 10 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 10, 2009
Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation Sets Up Its Own BitTorrent Tracker -- the money shot is not that they're using the same code as Pirate Bay, it's "By using BitTorrent we can reach our audience with full quality media files. Experience from our early tests show that if we’re the best provider of our own content we also gain control of...
Four short links: 3 Mar 2009
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 3, 2009
The problems of Creative Commons around the world, ebook futures, open source biomed research, and a new open source conference: The Case For and Against Creative Commons -- skip straight to page two, where the article talks about the places around the world where CC isn't working. "More exactly, they fear that if you try to convert artists to CC...
Excerpting Best Practices Hinge on Intent
By Mac SlocumMarch 2, 2009
A piece in the New York Times reignites the fair use debate by asking: How much excerpting does fair use cover? It's a reasonable question, particularly since Google News, the...
Four short links: 23 Feb 2009
By Nat TorkingtonFebruary 23, 2009
Work in Small Batches -- I'm obsessed by the pursuit of quality, but at human scale and not in the stultifying ISO9001 process. The ever-wonderful Startup Lessons Learned blog ties together Toyota Quality, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Deployment, with good explanations of why it works. (I'm reminded of "yes it works in practice, but can it work in theory?")...
Copyright activists criticize Hollywood-backed clause in stimulus package
By Andy OramFebruary 11, 2009
I refer without comment to the alert Say No to Copyright Filtering in Broadband Stimulus, put out by the public-interest group Public Knowledge.
Webcast Video: Youth & Creativity -- Emerging Trends in Self-Expression and Publishing
By Mac SlocumFebruary 2, 2009
Below you'll find the full recording from the TOC webcast, "Youth & Creativity: Emerging Trends in Self-Expression and Publishing," with Julie Baher and Bill Westerman....
Four short links: 23 Jan 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJanuary 23, 2009
Potty mouth, piracy, pointers to the future of the web, and Presidential technology woes, all in today's link roundup. F*ck the Cloud - Jason Scott's brilliant (and profanity-strewn) rant about cloud computing and the things people throw away without thinking about. Jason, an Internet historian, has a unique perspective and I think what he says makes a lot of sense....
Creative Commons needs your donations
By Andy OramDecember 13, 2008
Creative Commons is more dependent than ever before on the funds of individuals. More and more people these days are grabbing pictures, text, and other random goods they find online and using them in their own presentations or creative efforts; some of us even build businesses on open contributions. All of us should be promoting the Creative Commons, which has provided licenses to support such sharing in 50 countries and is working with people in many more.
EFF Attorney: Google Book Search Settlement Weakens Innovation
By Peter BrantleyNovember 20, 2008
In an editorial in The Recorder, Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says Google's settlement with publishers and authors signals an implicit abandonment of Google's legal team...
Slides from "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" Webcast
By Liza DalyNovember 13, 2008
Slides from the "What Publishers Need to Know about Digitization" webcast.
Harvard Won't Permit Google Scans of In-Copyright Material
By Mac SlocumOctober 31, 2008
Harvard University Library (HUL) has been a partner in Google's library scanning project since 2004, but the boundaries of that partnership will not expand to the in-copyright works covered...
Reaction to Google Book Search Settlement
By Mac SlocumOctober 28, 2008
Publishing experts, bloggers and interested parties are weighing in on the Google Book Search settlement. I'll be updating this post as new material comes in. If you see something...
News Roundup: Sony Reader Arrives in UK, Google Scanning Newspaper Archives, Blanket Copyright Licenses vs Fair Use
By Mac SlocumSeptember 11, 2008
UK Reaction to Sony Reader Release Sara Lloyd discusses the impact of the Sony Reader's recent release in the United Kingdom: Anecdotally, Waterstones store staff report a great deal of...
Fences in the ether: Brazil's proposed Internet laws
By Andy OramAugust 29, 2008
The subject of this article sounds like a mock-cartoon version of repressive censorship laws. But the proposals are real. They have been widely discussed in the Brazilian blogosphere and to some extent in the Brazilian press and TV, but they've received hardly any attention in the United States.
TOC Recommended Reading
By Mac SlocumAugust 20, 2008
On Being Positive in August (Adam Hodgkin, Exact Editions) Publishers need to consider the possibility that anything that can be published, will certainly be published digitally, and will, in...
Landmark Case Upholds Open Source Licenses
By Roberta CairneyAugust 15, 2008
The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit has issued a wondrously clear and unambiguous opinion that supports the enforceability of open source and public licenses. http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf It is great news for user and contributor communities, and their lawyers. The Back Story: The software in the case is licensed under Artistic License 1.0, which was written by Larry Wall...
How copyright got to its current state (Patry blog ending)
By Andy OramAugust 14, 2008
William Patry, one of the most respected online commentators on copyright, has shut down his weblog. It so happens that copyright is a major subject covered in a book recently released by O'Reilly, Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source A Practical Guide to Protecting Code. This blog continues with a brief statement by Van about Patry's decision, then a brief statement of my own, and finally an excerpt from Van's book about how copyright got to the state it's in, an excerpt I hope you'll enjoy and learn from.
New Rulings Let Pubs Create Digital Archives With No Additional Royalties
By Mac SlocumJuly 3, 2008
Two recent cases allow publishers to create exact digital archives of back catalogs without freelancer permission or payment of additional royalties.
News Roundup: Dual-Display E-Reader Prototype, Content Tracking Not Just for Takedowns Anymore, Indiana "Explicit" Law Struck Down
By Mac SlocumJuly 2, 2008
Researchers Develop Dual-Display E-Reader Researchers from Berkeley and the University of Maryland have built a dual-display e-reader prototype that uses traditional book-reading navigation (i.e. page turns, flipping the cover...
Mistake Shows Need for Clear Communication in Piracy Discussions
By Mac SlocumJune 27, 2008
The importance of clear communication around the murky topic of piracy is highlighted after my first impression of an executive's comment proves incorrect.
The wiretapping accusation against P2P and copyright filtering: evidence that we need more user/provider discussion
By Andy OramMay 24, 2008
Celebrated law expert Paul Ohm suggests that cable companies and other ISPs might be breaking the federal wiretap law by doing deep packet inspection. But the same kinds of deep inspection that Ohm decries is also used for spam and virus filtering. On the other hand, I wonder whether web mail services such as Hotmail, Yahoo! and Google would be guilty of wiretapping if they check traffic. These dilemma suggest to me that the relationship between ISPs (or mail service providers) and customers has to change, and perhaps that the wiretap statute has to adapt.
Industry Questions Raised by "Potter" Encyclopedia Suit
By Mac SlocumApril 14, 2008
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling testified earlier this week against a publisher that wants to release the unofficial Harry Potter Lexicon, a print adaptation of Steven Vander Ark's popular Potter encyclopedia site. From the New York Times: ... Ms. Rowling...
Goodbye, New York Times
By Jimmy GutermanMarch 25, 2008
I love The New York Times. I've read it almost every day of my life since I was in high school. For all its recent flaws -- the weirdo profiles of the major presidential candidates are the most high-profile --...
Commentary on Penguin's Missed Ebook Opportunity
By Jimmy GutermanMarch 20, 2008
Extra features won't make ebooks mainstream.
Subscription Music: Which Is It?
By Nat TorkingtonMarch 19, 2008
The question is: given Yahoo!'s decision that DRM subscription music doesn't work, why does Apple think they can make it work? The lifetime payment idea sounds a reasonable one: the iPod has a slightly higher cost but it comes with...
State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2: The Technologies
By Mike HendricksonFebruary 22, 2008
Recapping the big picture from the last post, you can see that the moderate-to-high growth of Consumer Operating Systems has not been visibly aided by the addition of 47 new Q1 '07 Vista titles, because there were no Vista titles in '06 -- hence the black box for Vista. However, the whole Category Family (Consumer Operating Systems) benefits from 47 new titles with more than 86,000 Vista units sold in the first three months of this year.
State of the Computer Book Market, Part 1: The Market
By Mike HendricksonFebruary 21, 2008
State of the Computer Book Market, Part 1: The Market focuses on comparing 2006 with 2007.
R.E.M., Open Source, and Staying Alive When an Industry Shifts
By Jimmy GutermanFebruary 19, 2008
Over the weekend, Nat posted "Artistic License 2.0 and ... REM?!" which noted that the veteran rock'n'roll band was releasing its new video under an open license (if not in an open format). It's good to see an old band...
US Judge censors WikiLeaks.org by ordering DNS records removed
By Jesse RobbinsFebruary 19, 2008
The BBC and many others report that the international whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.org has been taken down as of this morning. Judge Jeffery White ordered that the WikiLeaks.org domain be removed at the request of Julius Baer Bank & Trust. Not...
Court Decisions Online
By Tim O'ReillyFebruary 15, 2008
I came back from a ten day trip to see the smiling face of my old pal (and tenant at O'Reilly Media's offices in Sebastopol), Carl Malamud of public.resource.org, on the front page of the business section of our local...
Steve Jobs rules the recording industry. Now what?
By Jimmy GutermanFebruary 11, 2008
Last night's Grammy Awards ceremonies were even less relevant than usual, no small achievement. The TV broadcast began with a "performance" by that cutting-edge new artist Frank Sinatra and fell down from there. The only real emotional charge of an...
Television New Zealand Gives Up on DRM
By Nat TorkingtonFebruary 7, 2008
The New Zealand Herald has an interesting article about state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand's on-demand streaming of media moving away from DRM (TVNZ has the same scope of programming and dominant market position as the BBC in England, though alas...
My favorite iPod accessory is my EFF Membership...
By Jesse RobbinsDecember 26, 2007
If you are searching for accessories for your new iPod or other music player, please consider membership in the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF helps people fight abusive file-sharing lawsuits and is working to provide ways for artists to...
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