Free Expression Policy Project
Feb. 9th, 2005 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
malsperanzaFor some time I've been meaning to pimp the Free Expression Policy Project, which collaborates with another of my favorite organizations, the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Those of you who write fanfic or host fics on websites will be especially interested in the FEPP's project to collect and analyze cease & desist letters. The Project's aim is to argue that overuse of C&D letters has a chilling effect that erodes fair use. Here is one recent report:
http://www.fepproject.org/commentaries/ceaseanddesist2.html
* * *
Elsewhere in the Free Expression v. Copyright Wars, some of you may be interested in a recent position paper by the influential federal appeals judge (7th circuit) Richard Posner. Posner is not exactly my idea of an expansive liberal... he's a right-wing law-and-economics creep. But he has some interesting thoughts about fair use. He thinks that copyright gets asserted too much, resulting in what he calls "copyright misuse." He refers to
"a systematic overclaiming of copyright, resulting in a misunderstanding of copyright's breadth. Look at the copyright page in virtually any book, or the copyright notice at the beginning of a DVD or VHS film recording. The notice will almost always state that no part of the work can be reproduced without the publisher's (or movie studio's) permission. This is a flat denial of fair use. The reader or viewer who thumbs his nose at the copyright notice risks receiving a threatening letter from the copyright owner. He doesn't know whether he will be sued, and because the fair use doctrine is vague, he may not be altogether confident about the outcome of the suit."
The whole thing here: http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=ev or here:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002119.shtml .
Mind you, his article is also full of utterly repellent opinions, some of them bizarre. E.g.: "forgetting to renew or botching" the copyright renewal application--a process that is no longer required, but which he advocates restoring--"is pretty good evidence that the copyright had little remaining value. Failure to renew copyright, even if the failure is inadvertent, is pretty good evidence of lack of value."
God, I hate capitalists. They are vile. Statements like this make me want to bring Posner and his good buddy Milton Friedman up on charges of terrorism and treason. They are ruining America with their passion for letting the free market fix the value of everything we do. They have turned citizens into consumers, communities into marketplaces, the agora into a mall.
What would Posner say to the generation of blues musicians who didn't know they were supposed to register their copyrights, back in the day, and died poor and hungry, while their art remains one of the crowning glories of American culture? Or the Motown musicians who lost their copyrights thanks to the machinations of snakeoil record producers? Faugh.
(cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fandom_lawyers with apologies for the duplication)
Those of you who write fanfic or host fics on websites will be especially interested in the FEPP's project to collect and analyze cease & desist letters. The Project's aim is to argue that overuse of C&D letters has a chilling effect that erodes fair use. Here is one recent report:
http://www.fepproject.org/commentaries/ceaseanddesist2.html
* * *
Elsewhere in the Free Expression v. Copyright Wars, some of you may be interested in a recent position paper by the influential federal appeals judge (7th circuit) Richard Posner. Posner is not exactly my idea of an expansive liberal... he's a right-wing law-and-economics creep. But he has some interesting thoughts about fair use. He thinks that copyright gets asserted too much, resulting in what he calls "copyright misuse." He refers to
"a systematic overclaiming of copyright, resulting in a misunderstanding of copyright's breadth. Look at the copyright page in virtually any book, or the copyright notice at the beginning of a DVD or VHS film recording. The notice will almost always state that no part of the work can be reproduced without the publisher's (or movie studio's) permission. This is a flat denial of fair use. The reader or viewer who thumbs his nose at the copyright notice risks receiving a threatening letter from the copyright owner. He doesn't know whether he will be sued, and because the fair use doctrine is vague, he may not be altogether confident about the outcome of the suit."
The whole thing here: http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=ev or here:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002119.shtml .
Mind you, his article is also full of utterly repellent opinions, some of them bizarre. E.g.: "forgetting to renew or botching" the copyright renewal application--a process that is no longer required, but which he advocates restoring--"is pretty good evidence that the copyright had little remaining value. Failure to renew copyright, even if the failure is inadvertent, is pretty good evidence of lack of value."
God, I hate capitalists. They are vile. Statements like this make me want to bring Posner and his good buddy Milton Friedman up on charges of terrorism and treason. They are ruining America with their passion for letting the free market fix the value of everything we do. They have turned citizens into consumers, communities into marketplaces, the agora into a mall.
What would Posner say to the generation of blues musicians who didn't know they were supposed to register their copyrights, back in the day, and died poor and hungry, while their art remains one of the crowning glories of American culture? Or the Motown musicians who lost their copyrights thanks to the machinations of snakeoil record producers? Faugh.
(cross-posted to
fandom_lawyers with apologies for the duplication)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 03:59 pm (UTC)Ahhh, Posner. Hearing his name takes me back to my first year of law school, where we used a textbook authored by him for Torts class. It was *full* of that kind of hideous reasoning.
He's interesting, however, in that he openly takes his philosophy to its logical conclusions instead of trying to hide behind more palatable rhetoric.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 04:43 pm (UTC)I used to babysit for his kids when they were little--IIRC, 4 boys, all complete monsters. Parents used to have to pay extra. This used to give me a certain satisfaction, but I fear it is insufficient recompense for having my civil rights curtailed.
For an amusing Posnerism, try googling "Posner slinky dress." You'll get his opinion in the Aimster P2P copyright case, but the particular examples he chooses to offer are ... er, well, let's just say the federal bench is still a man's world.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-09 06:36 pm (UTC)So there is karma after all. ;-)
I found the Aimster decision. *Sigh* Alas, he's not exactly alone within the federal judiciary when it comes to those attitudes. I was once treated to a long, rambling monologue by a district court judge (who shall remain unnamed) about how the concept of "justice" in "deepest, darkest Africa" might involve cannibalism -- and this during a case management conference, of all things.
I don't follow Posner's decisions outside of my own area of practice (employee benefits litigation), but his ERISA decisions have been a very interesting mixed bag. If I had a case in the Seventh Circuit I wouldn't necessarily mind having him on the panel, depending on the nature of the issues involved.