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Parker Higgins | 1 Dec 2011 06:06
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Re: Contract loopholes for record labels and movie studios? Subverting copyright through medium transformation?

Hey Danny,

I like the thinking, but it seems like there are some issues. In case
the following hand-waviness doesn't make it abundantly clear, IANAL
and TINLA.

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Danny Piccirillo
<danny.piccirillo <at> member.fsf.org> wrote:
> Thinking subversively, are there standard contracts that studios and labels
> use? Have they been leaked somewhere?

Fairly standard, but of course every one varies. You can find, say, a
standard studio contract in almost any book written about the music
business for musicians. Moses Avalone's written a few good ones, and
there's a classic by Donald Passman. I imagine the same thing exists
for the movie industry, to a greater or lesser extent, but of course
there are many different contracts for many different roles.

   Are there loopholes that would allow
> creators to, while remaining under contract, exercise their own copyright by
> declaring their works under free licenses FAL, FL, CC-BY-SA, or otherwise?
> Or are are the copyrights generally fully transferred to the
> studio/label/whatever?

Generally the latter, is my understanding. There was a big push by the
record labels to make studio recordings "works for hire", which would
mean that the copyright would never lie with the original artist, but
there was enough pushback that they stuck to a transferral. That's
subject to the termination of transfer clause in the '76 act (see
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/copyright-time-bomb-set-to-disrupt-music-publishing-industries/)
(Continue reading)

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Samuel Klein | 2 Dec 2011 01:00
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Tech journalist DJ showdown... for charity: What What Internet‽

I <3 THE INTERNETS

http://www.horngroup.com/techthehalls


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Thomas Levine | 10 Dec 2011 06:11
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Re: Ideas for solution for chapter database?

?

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Devin Balkind <devin <at> sarapisfoundation.org> wrote:
CiviCRM is a heavy system that can handle these tasks and much more.  It lives in Drupal and can play well with Wordpress.  Check it out and let me know if you'd like info, help, etc.  I'm not a Civi guy but I have friends who are.


On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 2:54 AM, Thomas Levine <thomas.levine <at> gmail.com> wrote:
Shall we finish this?

Tom


On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Parker <gameguy43 <at> gmail.com> wrote:
hey free culturites!

I think we should look at changing our chapter database system. The
features we want are:

* students can register chapters themselves
* room for semantic data (school, current contact name, current
contact email, etc) as well as free-form "notes"
* when a student registers, they get an email, and so does
newchapter <at> freeculture.org (with some info and an invitation to chat)
* export to JSON (or API or something) so that we can tie it in to our
website (can settle on this one and write some python to scrape out
the data)--fine if our live list is a bit out of date, but not fine if
new chapters are failing to make contact, as they are now.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm interested in both software that we would
run on our servers and in web services that we could use.

more info on the current system:
----------------------------------------------

Right now, we use a google spreadsheet, where people join by filling
in a standard google spreadshet form, and we look through our list of
chapters by opening the spreadsheet. Then we have a python script that
runs nightly on our server, looks for new chapters, and if it finds
any, sends an email to the person who registered it and to
newchapter <at> freeculture.org. That python script seems to have broken,
so people are registering chapters and not hearing back from us.
That's majorly lame.

If you're interested in helping fix this python script, drop me a
line! In general, we need a lot more help maintaining our web
services. This involves both technical and non-technical needs.

--
http://www.madebyparker.com
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Parker Higgins | 11 Dec 2011 03:27
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Articles about universities being skittish about fair use with educators?

Hey guys,


I'm writing an article about copyright laws and education (I know), and I would like to make a claim that has been related to me anecdotally by some of the professors I've worked with. Specifically, that university policies prevent educators from relying on fair use, making those educators license excerpts or essays that they include in readers. Anybody else have any documentation of such a thing?

(Also, if you've got other links about copyright or the threat of infringement lawsuits burdening educators, I'd love to see 'em!)

Thanks,
Parker

--
parker higgins
san francisco, ca

http://parkerhiggins.net

gmail / gchat: parkerhiggins <at> gmail.com
twitter / identi.ca: <at> thisisparker
skype: thisisparker

please consider software freedom before reading this e-mail on a proprietary platform

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Wilhelmina Randtke | 11 Dec 2011 05:44
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Re: Articles about universities being skittish about fair use with educators?

Parker,

You probably know this, but the recent Georgia State University lawsuit involved the university copyright policy (which changed during the suit).

Here is some extra info on the suit:  Here is a podcast explaining the suit http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheGeorgiaStateCopyrightCaseIs/234947  and if you prefer to skim something written here is a summary http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2011/08/03/licenses-prices-fair-use-and-gsu/ .  The docket is here http://dockets.justia.com/docket/georgia/gandce/1:2008cv01425/150651/ (but, without Pacer, I can't be sure it's current).

-Wilhelmina


On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 9:27 PM, Parker Higgins <parkerhiggins <at> gmail.com> wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm writing an article about copyright laws and education (I know), and I would like to make a claim that has been related to me anecdotally by some of the professors I've worked with. Specifically, that university policies prevent educators from relying on fair use, making those educators license excerpts or essays that they include in readers. Anybody else have any documentation of such a thing?

(Also, if you've got other links about copyright or the threat of infringement lawsuits burdening educators, I'd love to see 'em!)

Thanks,
Parker

--
parker higgins
san francisco, ca

http://parkerhiggins.net

gmail / gchat: parkerhiggins <at> gmail.com
twitter / identi.ca: <at> thisisparker
skype: thisisparker

please consider software freedom before reading this e-mail on a proprietary platform


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Adi Kamdar | 11 Dec 2011 19:10
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Fwd: [interns-summer2010] Anyone know where to get open source / CC / free basic education materials?

Hey Alan, I'm forwarding this along to the Free Culture discuss list. People here might have some good ideas for you.


Adi



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alan Cheuk <alancheuk <at> gmail.com>\
Subject: [interns-summer2010] Anyone know where to get open source / CC / free basic education materials?


Hey fellow 2010 Berkterns,

   I've been helping out here and there for an NGO in India, and they just started revamping their informal education system for street children.  I'm pretty excited about it because for many street kids, this informal education is the only education they will ever have.

   However, I've been having lots of problems finding quality materials online to use.  We can make the material ourselves, but I figure that there must be open source materials already available somewhere.  I found they would probably be better made and less time consuming than a homemade solution.  I've been struggling with this, so I thought I'd tap into the Berkman intern brain trust :D

   I already found oercommons.org, free.ed.gov, and various other sites, but they don't have the really basic materials we need.  We are looking for things like the letters of the alphabet (english and hindi), animals, fruits, numbers, and addition/subtraction.  The sort of worksheets they would have in preschool to grade 2.

   If anyone has any leads, please let me know!

Thanks,
Alan

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Timothy Vollmer | 11 Dec 2011 19:41
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Re: Fwd: [interns-summer2010] Anyone know where to get open source / CC / free basic education materials?

You might look at 


http://prathambooks.org/

tvol

On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Adi Kamdar <adikamdar <at> gmail.com> wrote:
Hey Alan, I'm forwarding this along to the Free Culture discuss list. People here might have some good ideas for you.

Adi



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alan Cheuk <alancheuk <at> gmail.com>\
Subject: [interns-summer2010] Anyone know where to get open source / CC / free basic education materials?


Hey fellow 2010 Berkterns,

   I've been helping out here and there for an NGO in India, and they just started revamping their informal education system for street children.  I'm pretty excited about it because for many street kids, this informal education is the only education they will ever have.

   However, I've been having lots of problems finding quality materials online to use.  We can make the material ourselves, but I figure that there must be open source materials already available somewhere.  I found they would probably be better made and less time consuming than a homemade solution.  I've been struggling with this, so I thought I'd tap into the Berkman intern brain trust :D

   I already found oercommons.org, free.ed.gov, and various other sites, but they don't have the really basic materials we need.  We are looking for things like the letters of the alphabet (english and hindi), animals, fruits, numbers, and addition/subtraction.  The sort of worksheets they would have in preschool to grade 2.

   If anyone has any leads, please let me know!

Thanks,
Alan


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Ali Sternburg | 12 Dec 2011 04:01
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Fwd: Fw: SOPA meeting summary and action plan for this week



Subject: SOPA meeting summary and action plan for this week

ACTION NEEDED THIS WEEK: JOIN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE STOP ONLINE PIRACY ACT (SEE BELOW) -- PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL, POST TO LISTS, BLOGS, ETC.
*Please email David Segal at David <at> DemandProgress.org if you want to receive direct updates as action pages and tools go live

This Saturday, more than 70 representatives from leading tech companies and advocacy groups from across the political spectrum participated in a meeting to coordinate action against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The meeting, which included leaders from Tumblr, Foursquare, Etsy, Kickstarter and Reddit was remarkable for the array of participating organizations and its focus on how to mobilize to inspire millions of Americans to take action to tell Congress that this bill is deeply flawed.  

Representative Zoe Lofgren opened the meeting with an overview of the current state of the legislation, emphasizing the need for Americans to call their Representatives EARLY THIS WEEK to voice their strong discontent with the bill: It is slated for a vote in the House Judiciary Committee on THURSDAY.

Please read the below to find out how you can get involved. If we're going to beat SOPA -- and future bills like it -- we must expand the network of involvement fast.

For more information on the bill, please read this piece by Rebecca MacKinnon which recently ran in the New York Times.

Action Plan: 11/15 House Judiciary SOPA Markup

The most important thing to know: 
We have the best chance of making a difference on this bill if we can push hundreds of thousands of calls into the House of Representatives Monday through Thursday.  This is because it's crucial our voices are heard BEFORE the bill enters the mark-up (voting) stage in the House Judiciary committee.

Here's what you can do: 
  1. Use whatever means necessary to drive users to our central portal -- FightForTheFuture.org -- where people will be prompted to call their House Representative and given the tools to know what to say and how to say it
  2. Spread our censorship tools -- please visit AmericanCensorship.org to find a tool that lets anyone redact portions of a tweet, Facebook post, blog post, etc.  The redaction will be a link back to the AmericanCensorship.org page to drive calls.
  3. Drive people to IWorkforTheInternet.org to post pictures of themselves to tell the world that the Internet is an engine of jobs growth in this country
  4. Develop your own tools to drive calls to the U.S. House of Representatives (calls to the Senate are not a priority this week) -- please let us know if you need any assistance with scripts or other materials to support these tools.
  5. Forward this email to anybody and everybody who is in a position to help (sites that might participate, activist orgs, reporters and bloggers, etc)

FACT SHEET ABOUT THE LEGISLATION (SOPA)

SOPA's provisions would directly:

1) Undermine the DMCA safe harbor by forcing sites to start policing user-generated content BEFORE it gets uploaded, or risk being shut down for facilitating infringement.

2) Give the government new powers to block Americans' access to domains that are accused of facilitating copyright infringement.

3) Ban others from linking back to said sites, and ban search engines from listing them in the indexes. 

4) Make it a felony for people to upload unlicensed content, punishable by 5 years in prison.  (Think background music, cover bands, karaoke vids, etc.)


The consequences we predict are that SOPA will:

1) Kill existing and prospective jobs;
2) Stifle innovation; 
3) Undermine web security -- more on that in this letter from Sandia National Lab;
4) Allow our government to engage in new forms of censorship;
5) Give comfort (and know-how) to regimes abroad that are seeking to use censorship to stymie democracy and political unrest.

I'm going to be serving as a press contact and can be reached at David <at> DemandProgress.org and (401) 499-5991.  Also feel free to get in touch with general questions about the week ahead.

Thanks so much for taking on this fight -- we can absolutely still win if we keep working together and mobilize our membership and user bases like never before.  It'll go down in history, and leave a lasting infrastructure that we can use to fight back against future attacks on the web.  If you want some quick inspiration and a sense of how far we've come, check out this great Slate piece on the rise of the "Geek Lobby".

David Segal
Demand Progress

--
Ali Sternburg
alisternburg <at> gmail.com
Harvard College, Class of 2009
American University Washington College of Law, J.D. Candidate Class of 2012 
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Richard Kaufman | 12 Dec 2011 20:23
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Re: Massive list of all free culture related Reddits!

This list is awesome! Great job! :D


Thanks. :)

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 15:04, Danny Piccirillo <danny.piccirillo <at> member.fsf.org> wrote:
I decided just having one isolated Reddit for Free Culture (http://www.reddit.com/r/FreeCulture) was not enough, so I compiled a big list. 


Let me know if I missed anything. 

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Kevin Driscoll | 12 Dec 2011 23:13
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Louis CK releases DRM-free standup vid for 5$

Louis CK released a DRM-free standup vid for 5$. On the site, he left
a short message for torrenters: https://buy.louisck.net/

"To those who might wish to "torrent" this video: look, I don't really
get the whole "torrent" thing. I don't know enough about it to judge
either way. But I'd just like you to consider this: I made this video
extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it
would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it
this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and
enjoy this video in any way they want without "corporate"
restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I'm just
some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my
own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans
in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant
for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can't stop
you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five
little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the
same way.

Sincerely,
Louis C.K."

Something I appreciate about this note is that he admits to being
unfamiliar with torrenting and reserves judgement. Instead, he
explains his motivations for this method of self-publishing.

A Pirate Bay uploader refers to this note in his upload description
and an argument breaks out in the comments:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6878474/Louis_ck_-_Louis_C.K___Live_At_The_Beacon_Theater_%282011%29_

Louis CK then engages further with the topic on a Reddit thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/n9tef/hi_im_louis_ck_and_this_is_a_thing/

I look at this and think-yes, it's not Ogg/Theora or whatever and,
yes, Paypal sucks-but here's a guy who is trying to find an alternate
path in which fans can get the video in a friendly format for a low
price and do whatever they want with it.

Is anyone else following this story? What do you think?

What advice would you give Louis CK?

Yours in finals procrastination:
Kevin
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Gmane