Month: November 2013

Creative Commons just released the new version of their copyright license suite, and they look pretty good.

Choose a Creative Commons Version 4.0 License..

Of course, that makes sense. They reached the final version through a transparent process of public discussions, blog posts, mailing lists and open meetings, over a period of two years, and were able to reach a broad public consensus.

All that makes the secretive discussions, closed negotiations, and back room sessions about copyright policy by the Trans-Pacific Partnership all the more despicable.

Here’s a great article by Antonio Machado arguing for the introduction of a renewal system in copyright. He also argues that the “investment horizon” for composers, artists and authors is more like 10 years, not 50 or 100, or lifetime + 70.

Is Not the Price, Is the Value: Revisiting Copyright Economics.

So maybe Mordy Tikotzky’s Apple-Tracker widget, that steered customers to Apple Stores near them that were most likely to have the newest iPhones or iPads in stock, was in violation of Apple’s Terms of Use, but Apple used the Digital Millennium Copyright to issue a takedown notice.

Apple invokes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

This article by Alex Wild discusses the reasons for the huge copyright lawsuits and the recent proposal by the Copyright office for a “small claims” copyright court.

Why are copyright lawsuits ridiculously big?.