Sigh.
Sometimes I wonder why I even bother....
Part XIII of the Tyranny of Copyright here.
Forces on both the left and right are slowly awakening to the problems of the modern copyright scheme.
First off, there is a great compilation of some recent intellectual property lunacy by the ultra-left wing rag Mother Jones (and I use the term 'ultra-left wing rag' as a term of endearment in this particular instance). [Hat-tip: Lessig]
Now it seems that the free market libertarians are starting to get the big picture in greater numbers. The libertarian CATO institute has weighed in on the 'perverse' Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [Hat-tip: Instapundit] Hopefully, they will able to convince other conservatives that intellectual property is not property at all. It is a government created monopoly that indeed 'circumvents competition'.
The main opposition to rational intellectual property laws now consists primarily of an alliance between the Hollywood Left and the Corporatist Right (many of whom troll around the blogosphere at both ends of the political spectrum).
Meanwhile, I was pleased to see Patterico joining Volokh and others in the blogosphere in casually encouraging the 'theft' of Viacom's 'property' by allowing people to see the South Park episode that distributors have tried to suppress from the public in order to placate apologists for Scientology.
I have written about this phenomenon before. When Lynn Cheney tried to pull the same stunt, I was criticized by some for not allowing her publisher to exercise the 'rights' to their 'property'. Now that the exact same issue is taken out of the context of a partisan election, its funny how people now seem to agree with my position through their silence.
On with the war!
Part XII of the Tyranny of Copyright here (which contains another instance of South Park/Scientology-style censorship).
The title of this post says it all.
Beyond the "dummy" comment in the title, I'll spare you from what I really think of Ms. Kathleen Robbins and the Wiley company. This is a family oriented blog after all...
Part 4 of the Tyranny of Copyright here.
The corporatist assault on free speech should admittedly take a back seat to the current (and even far more dangerous) Islamist assault on it. In the near future, I hope to eventually post my comprehensive thoughts on that, as well as Bill Handel’s (and my own) side-battle over the same larger issue. But that is a much larger post that is going to take some time for me to write down in a comprehensive fashion.
In the meantime, that doesn’t mean that people should still be complacent about the corporatist theater in the free speech wars now ravaging the world.
Here is the latest example of how special interests are trying to kill free expression through small incremental cuts. [Hat-tip: Instapundit]
Most people aren’t even aware of the unjustified restrictions on their day-to-day liberties until they run up against the crazy intellectual property laws that the legal/business class has created.
"A small New York company called Sew Fast Sew Easy has launched a trademark battle against Stitch 'N Bitch circles across the country. Sew Fast owner Elissa Meyrich, who claims to have started the first such group in New York in 1997, says the others are infringing on her trademark for an online message board that incorporates the name."Here I am minding my own business, and then it becomes obvious to me that I have to be vigilant about what is mine and belongs to me," Meyrich said in a phone interview from New York City. "People, you can copy things all the time, but don't copy my trademarks."
Meyrich's company has told groups in Chicago and Cleveland that they were infringing on her trademark. On Jan. 13, Yahoo, at Meyrich's instigation, sent cease-and-desist letters to knitting circles who list under that name on the Internet portal.
The letters sent some of the groups into a panic, but many vowed they would not submit. The knitters insist that Meyrich neither founded the movement nor owns the name, which some say dates to the 1920s."
I could understand someone legally retaliating when they say “Here I am minding my own business, and then somebody comes up and punches me.”
But instead, what we have is “Here I am minding my own business, and then I suddenly realize that I have to take legal action against a group of people 2,000 miles away because they use the phrase ‘Stitch and Bitch’ for their local club even though I used the phrase before them on an Internet message board.” This last quote was admittedly altered a bit from the original article, but that is the clear implication.
Just who is minding whose business here?
Yet this attitude is not only allowed by the law – it is subtly encouraged by it...
Disgraceful!
Tyranny of Trademark Law – Part 3 here.
Like many, I have found Michael Yon’s reporting from Iraq to be indispensable and the flat-out best journalism currently being published on the war.
Like many, I have told myself that I am going to financially contribute to him in order to help support his continued efforts.
Like many, I haven’t actually contributed yet, and have felt quite guilty about it.
That is still all true – but today I’m feeling slightly less guilty about it.
Those of you familiar with my posts know how I come down on this issue.
I fully support Yon’s efforts – but
Continue reading "THE MICHAEL YON COPYRIGHT CONTROVERSY – A RESPECTFUL DISSENT"
Plenty of sites now referencing the latest Cindy Sheehan ramblings that Clinton's policies "are responsible for killing more Iraqis that George Bush."
But before she spewed that particualr bit of wisdom, her interviewer admitted this interesting little tidbit -
Ronan: 'Cindy, if I may, just of the benefit of some readers who might be reading this, I want to tell you a story which illustrates the power of the American government in this country. Ten years ago, I organized a protest when President Clinton shelled Baghdad and killed an Iraqi painter called Laila Alataar--who was the leading Iraq painter of the Middle East--and all of her children. That evening, I got an invitation to the American Embassy to an exhibition of paintings including one by my son James, who'd won a Texaco art competition. I happen to be a copyright lawyer, so I saw they were in breach of copyright, thus I wrote to the American Embassy saying "Take my son's painting off exhibition" because I didn't want the name "Sheehan" to be associated with murderers. I said the reason I'm doing that is to protest the unlawful killing of Laila Alataar, something that our present Minister for Justice [Michael MacDowell] condemned in the Dáil. So they had to take the painting down because it was in breach of copyright--they hadn't got permission.'
As the above example illustrates, the concept of 'copyright' has evolved to the point where you don't even have to make a copy of anything to violate it. It also has nothing to do with "incentives" for making creative works anymore. It is simply a raw political tool to deprive people of certain modes of expression in an increasingly media driven world.
Intellectual property attorneys...the new ambulance chasers of the 21st Century.
Part XI of the Tyranny of Copyright here.
The (mis)use of intellectual property as pure unadulterated censorship continues unabated - this time from the Hershey's chocolate corporation. (Just like the time Bill O'Reilly and Fox News made themselves look like idiots for going after Al Franken because he put out a book with the phrase "fair and balanced" in it.)
Another example comes from Jews for Jesus. Though I have to wonder if Mr. Coleman really gets the problem with overbroad "cybersquatting" laws in general, or if he is just coveniently cherry-picking his arguments because he doesn't like the group in question. You can't selectively use intellectual property concepts to only punish those you disagree with (otherwise I would have cheered on Fox News for in their frivolous claim agianst Al Franken) - this is an either/or proposition I'm afraid.
Tyranny of Trademark Law Part 2 - here.
France has now officially done three good things in its entire history:
1. Gave the U.S. the Statue of Liberty.
2. Gave Israel the nuclear technology to build an A-bomb.
3. Told the crowd of copyright fascists to go stuff themsleves.
This vitory will no doubt be short-lived. The "artist" crowd that France cow-tows to regularly is already screaming bloody murder, as is the unaccountable "international community" which demands an intellectual property regime that is both anti-consumerist and anti-fair use.
But as symbolic gestures go, its pretty sweet at the moment.
A common theme in the 'Tyranny of Copyright' series is the fact that copyright law today is rarely used as a means of creating incentives for fostering new works. Instead, it is used as a means of pure, unadulterated censorship. It is a means to try and "privatize" language, information and discourse under the rubric of equating it with real property. Once this has been accomplished, the "owners" of the information will simply prevent others from accessing it altogether.
This is starkly in evidence here.
Even the scientific community has embraced copyright tyranny. Very frightening indeed. But I this is ultimately no different than the suppression of information through copyrights in the political realm as well.
[I should note that I have some disagreements with the author regarding the underlying Evolution/Intelligent Design debate that is incidental to her column. As a matter of scientific theory, I have some sympathy for the undistorted, purely secular, Intelligent Design position - but that is a topic for another, much lengthier, post. It is enough to note that the author is intellectually honest when it comes to the copyright issue. The scientific community ought to be as well.]
Part X in the Tyranny of Copyright series here.
Fine example of how copyright claims are explicitly used to prevent free market competition and artificially distort market prices.
Glad to see that the Aussies get it and put a stop to such nonsense. If only so-called "conservatives" is the U.S. would learn to get it as well (sigh).
[Tyranny of Copyright Part VIII here.]
A clear cut case of how Western society currently condones the most pernicious forms of censorship under copyright regimes while deluding themselves into thinking that robust free speech is alive and well.
Maybe the artist will have the ability to stand up to the entertainment conglomerates - but why should he have to spend the money and the resources in the first place? Most likely, the speech will be chilled. This is Barbie redux I'm afraid.
This is also a perfect example of how the "parody" exception to copyright schemes are simply unworkable and why courts must adopt Levine's First Rule of Law. Is the Batman work a parody of the characters' sexuality? Or is it supposed to be a "serious" "derivative work" wherein Batman exists in an alternate reality where he just happens to be gay? Or is it more of a comment on homosexuality itself rather than Batman - with our hero only being requisitioned to comment on a larger topic in society?
The answer: Who can possibly know?? But judges certainly should not be able to decide issues of substantive law based on their personal subjective interpretations of artistic works.
And let me once again respond to the unimpressive argument that true censorship must stem from governmental actions rather than private disputes - if the first two branches of government create and enforce laws that enable private citizens to drag others into courts (the third branch of government) to punish them (or drain their resources) for speech that they would otherwise be free to articulate on their own, then it is every bit a case of governmental censorship than if the government were to directly craft a law fining people directly for portraying heterosexual heroes as homosexual. Transferring this function to a private proxy with discretion on when to sue does not change the fundamental character of the censorship via governmental action. The "governmental action" in this case is the passage and enforcement of laws conferring artificial "rights" on one group of people and enabling them to stifle expression of others who wish to comment on the works of the first group.
Outrageous...
[Tyranny of Copyright Part VII here.]
Sad - but an increasingly common story.
Be sure to read the comments on the linked post. I especially like the "know-it-all" law clerk Tshaka, who tries to "educate" all the poor ignorant masses who don't have any law training, only to get bitch-slapped at the end by a practicing attorney from the EFF. Classic!
(Part VI here.)
A few Instapundit posts in the past week that are worth a closer look:
Along with your humble blogger, Glenn too realizes that the current intelectual property scheme serves to supress market forces, rather than advance them.
Glenn also weighs in on the issue of how the modern patent system is actually curtailing technological progress.
However, he is being a bit naive to suggest that any progress on this issue can be advanced through a partisan political process. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will step up to the plate since they both enjoy sucking off of the tit of media conglomerate political donations. Any progress will have to come from a non-partisan grassroot effort (similar to how the fight over illegal immigration is currently shaping up).