Open Directory - Society: Issues: Intellectual Property: Copyrights
See also: - Rebuttal to Mark Helperin's "A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?", explicating deficiencies in his arguments for infinite copyright terms. - How the Internet and free software render copyrights useless, dooming them much as capitalism doomed slavery. - Provides visual artists with support for copyright clearance and monitors the use and potential abuse of artists' rights. - Transcript of a talk by Richard Stallman, on how copyright law no longer protects the public interest, and how it might be curtailed in different ways for different kinds of works. - Provides links and resources on copyright, trademark, Internet and entertainment law. - Book by Jessica Litman about the collision between expectations of freedom of expression and copyright law. - Organization for protecting fair-use rights in the digital world. Advocates a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights including the rights to time-shift and space-shift media and to make backup copies. - Montreal group of writers filing a lawsuit against publishers who used the freelancers' work on electronic databases and the web without compensation. - A very simple but authoritative reference for the history of copyrights back to the 14th Century with references. - Poll to vote on the proposition that everything that can be copied should be free, with no copyright and no intellectual property. Also includes links to articles and opinions. - Academic paper. General introduction to the subject of copyright ethics. - Rabbi Israel Schneider gives his interpretation of Mosaic law and copyright issues. - Thirty daily postings highlights some of the exceptions and limitations that the government should include if a Canadian DMCA is introduced. Includes a wiki for user comments and contributions. - Explains how the perpetual copyright policy manifested in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 has made it impossible to preserve art. - Paper by Damian Yerrick about "under the table" laws such as the Bono Act and the DMCA sponsored by corporate lobbyists that dilute the public's right to publish. - What the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act mean for the library community, by Arnold P. Lutzker. - A weblog questioning the idea that copyright is necessary for the promotion of creative expression. Has a collection of interesting links. - With the advent of new media, e-publishing, self-publishing, and differential patent enforcement and pricing - intellectual property rights may be in trouble. - A lobbying group formed by typeface designers, targeting copyright protection for the design of fonts in the United States, bringing copyright law in line with other western countries. - Dallas Weaver argues that intellectual property's social value may eventually trump copyright law. (February 20, 2008) - Essay on the growing gap between what technology allows us to do and what copyright tells us not to do, and how it turns ordinary people into serial infringers. By John Tehranian. [Utah Law Review] (November 01, 2007) - Opinion article arguing that copyrights, like physical property rights, should last forever. By Mark Helperin. (May 20, 2007) - Speech by Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Electronics Association, to the Optical Storage Symposium. (September 17, 2002) - Recent expansion of copyright law threatens research and education, destroys rights, and impoverishes public discourse. [Chronicle of Higher Education] (August 02, 2002) - Profile of Paula Samuelson, law professor who has spent 15 years fighting what she sees as overzealous and innovation-stifling expansion of copyright laws in the high-tech arena. [Wall Street Journal] (May 13, 2002) - "It is important to rediscover the roots of intellectual property to understand why SSSCA is too much, and the DMCA already went too far." Editorial and reader comments. [kuro5hin] (March 09, 2002) - "Two treaties taking effect this spring would expand the reach of controversial American legislation designed to regulate the Internet." By Brad King. [Wired] (February 26, 2002) - Article on the Canadian government holding public hearings on the Copyright Act reform. (February 19, 2002) - "British consumers will be on the wrong side of the law for the first time if they buy overseas DVDs or computer games 'unauthorised' for the UK and play them on their PCs at home." By Drew Cullen. [Register] (January 24, 2002) - How intellectual property laws stifle popular culture, and violate freedom of speech. About old works being kept in obscurity, and new ones being silenced. Article by Jesse Walker, Reason magazine. (March 01, 2000) - The old copyright rules apply, and figuring out just how is giving heartburn to lawyers the world over. (September 10, 1997) - Open source pioneer Richard Stallman discusses some problems with copyright restrictions. (May 01, 1996)
