“What would the world be without America? It would be a dull and dinky planet indeed.” – Elizabeth Wurtzel – In honor of the 225th Anniversary of the first copyright act of the United States (May 31, 1790), I’d like to recommend a little book that neatly offers both a primer and a rationale for intellectual property in the United States. Creatocracy: ...
The Digital Citizens Alliance, has released its second annual report on the for-profit, ad-supported media piracy trade. In collaboration with MediaLink, the report titled Good Money Still Going Bad studied 2014 data to reevaluate the central questions posed in the research done with 2013. How profitable are these pirate sites, and where does the money come from? The macro view is much the same ...
Once again, a confederacy of the usual suspects has regrouped, rebranded, and relaunched a campaign on copyright in the digital age. They call themselves the Re-Create Coalition. David Lowery on the Trichordist referred to them as “getting the band back together,” and it is true that this familiar list of mostly Google-funded organizations (with bizarrely similar logos) has been trying ...
Not surprisingly, friends contact me from time to time with copyright-related questions. I’m careful not to give definitive answers to most of these, but I can usually point them in the right direction toward a solution. Very recently, a dear friend (let’s call her Sarah) asked my advice regarding an email she received from a photographer who demanded removal of ...
Last December, a few glasses of Rioja and I wrote a pretty grumpy rebuttal to Washington Post tech writer Caitlin Dewey, accusing her of cheerleading for media piracy. A few respondents, including Dewey herself, said that I was unfair, that her article about The Pirate Bay was merely reporting facts without editorial. Of course, with certain styles of communication, it ...
