On today's podcast we discuss the (near) end of the AT&T/T-Mobile deal, MegaUpload vs. UMG and YouTube, and SOPA. We also have an extended interview with Robert Levine, author of Free Ride, How Digital Parasites are Destroying The Culture Business, and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back.

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It is likely that even MegaUpload did not anticipate the madness it would unleash when it released a video of major artists (and hangers-on) endorsing the site set to the beat of a wildly catchy song.  Of all of the questions raised in the video’s aftermath, those flowing from Universal Music Group’s (UMG) legal filing take the cake (for now).

On November 1, 2011, Public Knowledge filed reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission explaining that copyright law should not impede the Commission from updating closed captioning rules under the CVAA.

Save the date for the Third Annual World's Fair Use Day! WFUD is an annual, day-long celebration of fair use, creativity and remix culture.

To explore videos, images, and information about speakers from last year's event, visit worldsfairuseday.org.

Copyright is a personal monopoly on an original writing, song, piece of art, or a group of any of those, for 70 years after the death of the creator (or 95 years if the creator was under corporate contract—a Disney cartoonist, for example).

Generally, copyright prevents others from being able to show, copy, perform, modify, or distribute the original work without the owner’s permission. Copyright allows creators to charge more for their work, or determine how they want their works to be used.

But there are limitations on the scope and application of copyright. Without these limitations, it would be nearly impossible to share, resell, lend, or even talk about creative works. Not every unauthorized use of a copyrighted work is an unlawful use: you don’t need an author’s permission, for instance, to resell a book or lend it to a friend.

Public Knowledge’s Position

Today's podcast is full of a month's worth of news including AT&T/T-Mobile, Net Neutrality rules, Authors Guild and orphan works, the Hotfile case and automated copyright takedown notices, and updates from the Open Video Conference, the Open Hardware Summit (including this talk), and Makerfaire.

Oh, and of course this.

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“Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely.” – Rita Dove.  Unfortunately, the Authors Guild, an authors’ advocacy group, does not want library patrons to access books without its permission.  The Authors Guild filed a lawsuit against five universities and the HathiTrust last week.  Although the reasoning in its complaint is flawed, the Authors Guild successfully prevented access to numerous literary works that were set for digital release.