World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD) is a free, all-day celebration of fair use: the legal right that allows innovators and creators to make particular uses of copyrighted materials. The day will highlight new and innovative uses of existing content; provide the perspectives of artists, policymakers, academics and business innovators; and teach how fair use can enrich your creative work. Also via facebook.

Tentative Schedule of Events

* Fair Use Film Screenings

* Morning Keynote: The Honorable Mike Doyle

* Panel 1: Artistic Innovations and Participatory Culture

* Panel 2: Emerging Media: Commentary, Criticism and the New Publishing Paradigm

* Panel 3: Tech Unbound: Fair Use for Innovation

* Panel 4: Speed Fair(Us)e

Copyright Office Notice of Inquiry and Request for Comments on
the Topic of Facilitating Access to Copyrighted Works for the Blind or
Other Persons With Disabilities

The proposal would permit the cross-border import,
export and qualified distribution of copyrighted works in accessible
formats without the permission of the rights holders, including to
countries that presently lack, in their national laws, a specific
copyright exception or other legal framework for serving the visually
impaired. The proposal would also permit the circumvention of
technological protection measures for the purpose of making works
accessible.

In particular, the Copyright Office and USPTO are interested in learning
about 1) how the treaty proposal would interact with existing U.S. law;
2) how the treaty proposal would interact with existing international
obligations of the U.S.; 3) the possible benefits of or concerns about
the treaty proposal, including with regard to the objectives of the
treaty proposal, how those objectives could lead to improved access for
the blind and visually impaired, and any concerns about the
implementation of the proposed treaty provisions in the U.S. or abroad;
and 4) other possible courses of action that would facilitate access by
“blind, visually impaired, and other reading disabled persons.”

http://regulations.justia.com/view/156017/

Our advisory board members have been blogging away on their own blogs about copyright – specifically whether or not Nuremberg trial transcripts are in the public domain. Rich Stim started it and concludes YES, public domain. Peter Hirtle concurs but with slightly different analysis.
 

http://bit.ly/SWCiz  When the author signs rights away to publishers, some contracts allow authors to reclaim rights in the future. Given the two year window to opt out or remove one’s book, a publisher may assent to the google books agreement and the author is out of luck when the rights revert to him or her.   Copyright law, moreover, safeguards authors’ rights after about 35 years, allowing a chance to reclaim copyright.  Again, if the publisher already assents, the author’s power to remove the book has lapsed, despite the right to share in revenue.

A new Firefox extension helps you share PACER court docs. It’s called RECAP: Turning PACER Around — http://recapthelaw.org  Incredibly innovative way to share public domain docs that courts prefer to charge you for.

Minow:  Tell us about the new Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices by the Society of American Archivists.

Briston:  Our goal was to empower archivists and give them a framework and described a reasonable effort for investigating the ownership of items under copyright. We also set it within the larger context of other legal rationales, such as fair use and public domain. Also, as archivists we view ourselves as advocates for use and access to unpublished materials, and thus the statement focuses there. However, we do feel that many of our techniques could also be used for published materials.

The statement was a collaboration of the members of the Society of American Archivists’ Council’s Working Group on Intellectual Property, archivists with expertise in literary manuscript collections, and the valuable assistance of Peter Jaszi, director of the Glushko-Samuleson Intellectual Property Law Clinic and Professor of Law at American University. Financial and administrative support was provided by RLG Programs, OCLC Research and the RLG Partnership. The idea for the statement came out of SAA’s earlier participation in the Orphaned Works Roundtables held by the Copyright Office, and the subsequent report and proposed legislation coming out of those Roundtables.

Minow:  What were some of the toughest issues your group faced in coming to consensus?

Briston:  Our biggest challenge was to create a statement on a complex issue, with multiple facets and shades of grey, when we know that our audience wants as much certainty as possible. The diversity of an archival collection complicates the already complicated issue of determining copyright status. To address these challenges we strove for clarity, although we could not simplify, using examples, diagrams, and providing a framework.

Minow:  How do you hope it will be used?

Briston:  We hope archivists and others with unpublished materials will use it as a framework to think about an orphaned works analysis, and make their own informed judgments about reasonableness and risk relating to various types of use of materials in collections. Archival materials are collected and preserved so that they can ultimately be used, often that includes publication, possibly this will encourage review of some materials in collections for potential use and wider access.

——

Heather Briston is the Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist at University of Oregon. She chairs the Society of American Archivists’ Council’s Working Group on Intellectual Property which was part of the committee that drafted the Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices

Mary Minow is the Content Editor for the Stanford Copyright & Fair Use site, which links to the Best Practices in its Charts and Tools page.

The Copyright Office has posted the 19 comments it received (Due Dec. 2) this round concerning the Exemptions to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. Mailed submissions will be added to the site later.

The Library Copyright Alliance and Music Library Association recommended a proposed class of audiovisual works included in a library of a college or university, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by professors.

They note that in the last round, a narrow exemption was granted for audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of making compilations of portions of those works for educational use in the classroom by media studies or film professors.

This argue that the exemption should be broadened to apply to audiovisual works included in any college or university library, not just the library of the media studies department. Second, it should apply to classroom uses by instructors in all subjects, not just media studies or film professors.  For example, an English professor teaching MacBeth should be able to put together clips of a scene from various productions.

The comments respond to a Notice of Inquiry to identify proposed classes of works by the Copyright Office published in the Federal Register Oct. 6, 2008.  Comments on those proposed classes are due February 2, 2009.

-again, thanks Cicely Wilson for the pointer.

Larry Lessig points out that the Obama team is now using a the freest creative commons license on its change.gov site.  This meshes well with the principles of open government, though it doesn’t go so far as to dedicate the content to the public domain.

Hat tip to Cicely Wilson.

You can watch Larry Lessig’s interview on Charlie Rose 11/21/08 in full or in clips Larry Lessig (full segment), Larry Lessig (clips). Matt Rutherford summarizes the show at TechCrunch.

RDR Books, represented by Anthony Falzone of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, has appealed their case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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