From the monthly archives: June 2008

Shaking the money tree

On June 26, 2008 By

In a talk given at Cornell University last week, Steve Worona of EDUCAUSE said about business models for distributing intellectual property that “every few years the entertainment industry has to be dragged kicking and screaming to the money tree and have it shaken for them.” His point that the first reaction of entertainment [...]

Continue Reading →

Bad strategy and poor reporting

On June 21, 2008 By

It is hardly surprising that the recent effort by the Associated Press to stop bloggers from quoting news articles, even when they link to the source on AP’s own web site, has generated lots of comment in the blogging world. AP recently sent takedown notices, using the procedures outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, [...]

Continue Reading →

Everything old is new again?

On June 18, 2008 By

Some intellectual property issues are hardy perennials; they bloom anew with great regularity. One such issue is the doctrine of first sale, which in other countries and other contexts is sometimes called the doctrine of exhaustion. However it is named, it refers to the nearly universal practice of holding that the “first sale” of [...]

Continue Reading →

A”twitter” about contracts

On June 13, 2008 By

Although I had heard of Twitter for a while now, I did not really know what it was until prompted to learn more by two recent articles. One is this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education about potential library uses for the “microblogging” or social messaging service. It recalls the discussions I [...]

Continue Reading →

Use case on NIH Public Access

On June 10, 2008 By

Another question that is becoming common is about how to comply with the National Institute of Health Public Access Policy. The answer presented here was to an inquiry about an article accepted for publication in the journal “Nature,” whose policy about compliance is fairly well-publicized and easy to find. The specific steps that an [...]

Continue Reading →

The timeless folly of DRM

On June 6, 2008 By

There is a good deal of value in reading older works, even in a field that changes as rapidly as copyright. It is a fascinating exercise, for example, to read attempts in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s to influence the direction of the “new” copyright law being considered (which was passed in 1976). L. [...]

Continue Reading →

Imagining Fair Use

On June 3, 2008 By

A recent decision by a federal judge in New York is another example of the heavy preference for “transformative” uses in the fair use analysis. The case involves the use of a short clip from John Lennon’s famous song “Imagine” in the anti-evolution movie by Ben Stein called “Expelled.” The movie purports to be [...]

Continue Reading →