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Creative Commons is facilitating the use and reuse of educational materials. According to this post written by a policy coordinator at the nonprofit organization, it can potentially allow students to save money they would be spending on textbooks. A professor at the University of MIchigan published a $10 book in 11 days because he adapted a book "offered under an open content license"

The use of Creative Commons licenses to broaden access to educational materials represents a general shift in academia. Although universities have often controlled this access to knowledge, these open source resources allow most people to educate themselves without the high barriers to entry, such as tuition. Like the MIT Open CourseWare, "iTunes U" compiles lectures from various universities. NYU actually just sent out its IT newsletter e-mail today, which contained a notice about its Open Education Pilot program. http://www.nyu.edu/its/connect/w11/openedpilot.html Even though it seems like universities are open to sharing lecture materials and other educational resources under the Creative Commons license, how lenient do you think these schools will be? Would they truly offer alternative textbooks in which the college has to forfeit their profit from their bookstore, for example?

A search engineer at Google claims that Microsoft's Bing is copying their search results. She reached this conclusion after having toyed with the Google search algorithm and seeing that Bing was still displaying identical results. If interested, also see articles on engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/google-responds-bing-recycles-search-results-and-wed-like-it/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/google-accuses-bing-of-cheating-piggybacking-off-its-search-r/

Interesting, but I think Google realizes there's nothing it can really do to protect itself; sort of like Feist vs. Rural in that Google just provides an organized directory, the way Rural provides an uncreative list of organized information.

Althou this isn't about copyrit, I think this is an interesting article to look at as we begin our own Wikipedia project.

Sahi, a commuter science major at Princeton, Class of 2010, was able to collect more concrete data regarding shared torrents or large files across the sharing site. Looking at the identification numbers of anonymous users, this February, Sahi found that perhaps only ten out of a 1000 files were actually legal. Although it is a known fact that BitTorrent contains pirated material, this project will help identify which files are being accessed most frequently, which may ultimately aid in efforts to prevent piracy.

"The internet titan was found guilty of infringing a patent related to the Linux kernel and fined " "The software is used by Google for its server platforms and could also extend to its Android mobile platform.The kernel is at the core of the open-source operating system meaning this verdict could be far-reaching" "The implication here is really that there is a huge number of Linux users who will be required to pay royalties if this patent holder knocks on their doors in the US. This is definitely a major impediment to the growth of Linux and makes companies, including Google, that rely on open source code particularly vulnerable to patent threats.

Though this video is interesting, the comment thread gives a great look at people's thoughts on current copyright laws.

It's really interesting to see how Google adapts to being an international corporation. The company clearly needs to comply with each country's laws. This is where people need to ask themselves the following question: do we WANT Google to be the same in every country? What are we saying about globalization/transnationalism at this point? People show concern towards homogenization (at least in a cultural sense), but putting ourselves in the shows of Belgian Google users who may find the links and excerpts useful or integral their research, where do we draw the line? Something to think about, I suppose. Here's another article on the matter, from PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/article/227379/google_busted_for_copyright_violation_in_belgium.html

"One reason these ads continue to draw the eye is the art of their artlessness" could a value-based copyright system handle this kind of "so bad it's good" appraisal well?

Does Guetta have the right to artistic expression, even if it means distorting an iconic image he does not have rights over?

"Guetta used the photo specifically for this reason, it was already iconic, very well known and he used it in his artwork because of that. He wasn't just referencing Run DMC, he was referencing the most famous photo of them." This is really interesting. Does this rationale mean that he isn't committing copyright infringement? A friend of mine at RISD is toying with using frames from the (iconic) opening scenes of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" for a school printmaking project, does she need to pay Woody or the city of New York royalties even if she credits her (famous) original source? Does a deal need to be struck when such a famous work is reproduced or reinterpreted. Can't anyone parody or pay homage without asking for permission first?

I think this plan to pass the Digital Economy Act is completely unfair. It is certainly important to protect copyrighted works, but it is necessary to do so at the risk of eliminating equal access to information?

This case study looks at "jailbreakers," who are hacking their iPhones so that they may use unauthorized software and applications from other cell phone carriers. Apple has warned that such hacking will not only damage their iPhone, but is indeed copyright infringement. However, the Copyright Office has actually proposed that "jailbreaking" is actually considered "fair use." In the past, other laws, like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998), have been used to protect creative property for much longer than actually necessary, thus diminishing valuable work available in the public domain.

The Internet Commerce Security Lab at Australia's Ballarat University has developed a new program that can track illegal downloads on torrent websites. The program monitors copyright infringement online, targeting 100 individuals who upload the most content, including television shows and music. With the aid of the program, Australian Federal Police may prevent the sharing of illegal content.

The Country music duo the "Bellamy Brothers" are upset over Britney song title's resemblance to their 1979 hit but it seem they will not be suing the popstar.

I know that the Bellamy Brothers specifically mention the title, but I think they would have a much stronger case on the basis of "fixing" the double entendre within the song: the BB's lyrics are "If I said you had a beautiful body / would you hold it against me" vs. Britney's "If I said I want your body now / would you hold it against me." That's pretty startlingly similar, and even if you can't copyright ideas, you can copyright the expression of those ideas... and there's enough overlap between the two to be persuasive.

Now that I know copying a song title doesn't count as copyright infringement, I wonder what percentage of a songs lyrics must be exactly the same as another song in order for that to count as copyright infringement. And even if the lyrics happen to be the same, can an artist still avoid a lawsuit if his or her melodic line/ chordal progression/ instrumentation is different enough to make the song "original"? I'm guessing that its a case-by-case thing...

Personality rights, a subset of intellectual property/copyright, is a major issue among players in the NCAA.  

I think Mr. Gordon may have a good chance of winning the lawsuit. If you look at the original picture he drew, you can see that it was more than just an idea that was taken and used to make Kung Fu Panda. He even titled his own drawings "Kung Fu Panda Power." When comparing this to Rihanna's infringement for her S&M music video, I feel that Rihanna has a better chance of escaping charges for infringement than does Dreamworks, because Rihanna was able to take photos and recreate them originally into a different form of media. Kung Fu Panda, on the other hand, is an animated film, which means that these photos weigh more heavily because they were not really originally transformed, they are the same pictures, just moving. This will be an interesting case to follow.

In the bottom corner of the page, there is an ad that keeps running to the tune of "Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins.  The chances that it's legally licensed?  Super sweet-n-low.