Lupita Nyong’o and Celebrating Unsung Artists — “We celebrate successful artists — artists with the machinery of celebrity behind them — but how do we celebrate all of the other people who are making art each and every day? And, forget celebrating them: How do we support them? How do we make it economically viable for them to make art? We don’t. And, for the sake of our culture, we should.”
Slate’s Anti Copyright rant sounds like a letter from your psycho ex — The article insists that voluntary agreements to reduce the harms of infringement are the new SOPA, because in the two years since the bill was stopped, saying something is the new SOPA is the best strategy some copyright skeptics have been able to come up with.
Victims of IP theft need better protection — Reps. Judy Chu and Tom Marino highlight the challenges facing indie artist Christine Filipak in keeping up against the tide of infringement she faces. Just in time for yesterday’s IP Subcommittee hearing on the DMCA notice and takedown process. Along the same lines, check out Mark Schultz’s article, Time to revise the DMCA: the most antiquated part of the copyright may by one of the newest.
Transformative or just taking? Lawyers struggle to define fair use in wake of Google Books case — Report from a NYC Bar Association panel Monday featuring Judge Chin, who recently held Google Books to be a fair use, and other noted copyright lawyers and scholars.
Oakland emails give another glimpse into the Google-Military-Surveillance Complex — “The evidence was abundant and overwhelming: in email after email, Oakland officials had discussed the DAC usefulness for keeping tabs on activists, monitoring non-violent political protests and minimize port disruption due to union/labor strikes. In particular, officials wanted to use the surveillance center to monitor Occupy Wall Street-style activists, and prevent union organizing and labor strikes that might shut down the Port of Oakland. *** But buried deep in the thousands of pages of planning documents, invoices and correspondence was something that the activists either seemed to have missed or weren’t concerned by. A handful of emails revealing that representatives from Oakland had met with executives from Google to discuss a partnership between the tech giant and the DAC.”