The father of modern chemistry Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was beheaded in 1793 in what is now the Place de la Concorde. A victim of France’s post-revolutionary Reign of Terror, he was specifically marked for execution by one vengeful, lesser scientist named Jean-Paul Marat, whose incorrect theory about combustion had been publicly scorned by Lavoisier at the royal academy. It’s rare when revolutions ...
When most people discuss or debate copyright’s value in the contemporary market, they talk about the utility of the law—typically arguing the efficacy or rationale of specific contours like term length or enforcement—while generally overlooking the philosophical principles that led to the IP clause being written into the U.S. Constitution in the first place. This is of course not uncommon ...
I feel a little bit bad picking on Washington Post tech writer Caitlin Dewey as much as I have already, but it’s probably not as much as I would if I read her column with any purposeful frequency. Unfortunately, given the subjects I write about, people like to send me links to her articles. And I read them. And then ...
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 ...
As the debate will no doubt rage (or stomp its feet) on the subject of copyright review in the coming year, one subject that will assuredly be on the table will be the terms of copyright (i.e. how long ownership can last). There is a persistent assumption that these terms are somehow the exclusive privilege of large corporations. As Robert ...
