Tag: Public Domain

For the past couple of days, I’ve been in South Korea, attending the OECD’s Ministerial on the Future of the Internet Economy. Rather than try to give a blow-by-blow account, I’ve tried to package some of my thoughts in a series of posts. Here’s one:

The OECD Ministerial has ended with the signing of the Seoul Declaration, a document signed by the member nations of the OECD, as well as the European Community and observer countries Chile, Egypt, Estonia, India, Indonesia, Israel, Latvia, Senegal and Slovenia. The Declaration sets out the international organization’s general policies for ensuring the future of the Internet Economy—including policies they believe will encourage creativity, support convergence, and promote confidence online.

I never like to disagree with my friends in public; particularly friends like Larry Lessig, who I greatly admire and who, through his 24-7 work as the first populist copyright reformer, made the existence of organizations like Public Knowledge possible.

Women’s Wear Daily is reporting that the American Apparel & Footwear Association and the Council of Fashion Designers of America have failed to meet a compromise on legislative language that would amend H.R. 2033, a bill that would prevent designers from making garments and accessories that look the same or substantially similar to protected designs.

Yesterday, The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, held a hearing entitled ”Design Law: Are Special Provisions Needed to Protect Unique Industries?”. Unfortunately, because the Judiciary committee had three hearings, two at the same time, they weren’t able to webcast this one or post audio feeds.

Rashmi and I were there, for the whole thing (started at 2pm, ended at 5:30pm!). Testifying in opposition to the fashion bill was Steve Maiman, co-owner of Stony Apparel who produces young women’s clothing under the Eye Shadow clothing line in stores like Sears, J.C. Penney, Dillard’s, and Belk.

In case you don’t remember the issue, here’s a quick introductory video:

There’s a lot that’s interesting in the recent controversy over Hasbro and Mattel, joint owners of the Scrabble trademark, asking Facebook to remove the third-party application, Scrabulous. On the academic side of things, it’s fascinating to think about to what extent various aspects of board games are protectable by different areas of intellectual property law.

A few weeks ago, NBC Universal filed comments in the FCC’s proceeding on “Broadband Industry Practices.” It asked that the FCC require that Internet Service Providers institute “bandwidth management tools”—its code for network filters—to try to screen the Internet of copyright infringement. Yesterday, we filed our response, joined by Consumer Federation of America, EDUCAUSE, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, FreeCulture.org, Free Press, Knowledge Ecology International, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Last month, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) introduced HR 2033, the “Design Piracy Prohibition Act,” to the House Judiciary Committee to extend copyright protection to the fashion industry. In this episode of the In The Know Podcast, I discuss the implications of fashion copyright with Christopher Sprigman, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Virginia.

Episode 28 mp3

Mark Helprin has published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for a perpetual copyright. This seems more of a philosophical rant than a serious legislative proposal, but it’s an eloquent expression of illogical and incomplete ideas, mixed with a little indirect name-calling.

Helprin begins by comparing intellectual property to real property, saying that, if land shouldn’t be confiscated from people after so many years, neither should copyrights. This is a sloppy comparison of two very different concepts, and a quick rundown of the differences between the two should disabuse people of the notion that ending a copyright terms is like confiscating land.

UPDATE: We now have a bill number: HR 2033.

Although we don’t have a formal House bill number yet, news reports are saying that Reps. Bob Goodlatte and Bill Delahunt have reintroduced last year’s bill, renamed Design Piracy Prohibition Act, which aims to protect fashion designs that are registered. Protection would cover not only clothing but accessories as well, for a three-year duration starting at the date of registry, though the article suggests that some would like to extend the protection from the three years from date of last manufacturer instead. We anticipate the bill will be introduced in otherwise the same form as last year.

Note: This column originally appeared on TomPaine.com

The next time you plunk down your $10 (and rising) for a movie ticket, think for a minute about where the money goes. Millions go to the movie stars, directors and producers. Tens of thousands go to the people who work on the movie. But a lot of that money also helps to pay for lawyers whose job is to limit what consumers can see and do with materials they have the right to use.

The big media companies can get away with it because they played a large role in writing the laws under which they sue innovators and hurt consumers, and they have a knack for finding friendly courts to enforce them. Common sense, nor other laws, need not be applied.