Interscription

Well, mostly because T-Mobile is claiming rights to the color magneta, and heckling one of our favorite blogs:  EngadgetMobile over the use in its logo.  Boo overzealous trademark attorneys.  Hooray beer. 

(From blogcritics.org)

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), in connection with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and several other groups, today announced the launch of the Digital Freedom Campaign. The stated goal is to kick start a grass roots effort to restore balance to copyright law, which they believe has swung too far in favor of protecting the interests of publishing agencies at the expense of consumers, creators, and manufacturers. The initial funding will come from the CEA, with the hopes of encouraging grass roots support as the advocacy effort gains momentum in its aggressive campaign.

• Read more: CEA, EFF announce the “Digital Freedom Campaign”

I am declaring war on copyright.

The corporate interests, which hold the majority of copyrights in our country, have distorted copyright beyond all constitutional recognition, and replaced it over the years with something that does little to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” 

• Read more: Copyright to public domain: a battlecry

This week, the Blogcritics mailing list was abuzz with the issue of copyright infringement. Not the kind that only happens when kids use their grandparents’ computers to download the latest Black Eyed Peas tune; but the darker kind, namely: taking the work of an author, say, a talented Blogcritics contributor, and reprinting that work, under your own name, without proper attribution. 

This is a topic that is near and dear to the hearts of journalists, and as a result, one that doesn’t often get very balanced coverage. As writers, we believe that our creative work is sacred, and the United States, and International Law assures us that we retain certain rights in that work, including the rights to copy, alter, and distribute the work. In order to get published though, we often have to give up some of those rights, to let the websites, journals, and publications printing our work do their thing. 

• Read more: Copyright and the Blogger Syndicate

(From Blogcritics.org) 

Lime Wire, one of the last commercial P2P holdouts in the RIAA’s ongoing war against file sharing networks, has answered the RIAA’s complaint and counterclaimed against the RIAA on a number of grounds.  The counterclaim itself is interesting for a number of reasons.  For one thing, it clearly describes the reason for the recording industry’s feverish pursuit of applications which enable their users to trade files regardless of their status under copyright law. 

• Read more: RIAA v. Lime Wire, the Counterclaim