A couple of news hooks relevant to
Joe Clark’s upcoming book on copyright for creators?
What’s the timing like?
The Cranky Copyright Book is comin’ through at an interesting period in the copyright debate.
An important copyright lawsuit will probably be settled June 16. The case of Robertson v. Thomson, a Canadian class-action lawsuit, is barely on people’s radar in Canada and is almost unknown outside the country. The suit alleged that corporate newspaper and database publishers duplicated freelance writers’ works without permission or compensation.
The case went to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in freelancers’ favour on one topic and essentially ordered a trial on another topic. The settlement, whose terms will almost surely be approved, will dole out $11 million to freelance writers (less lawyers’ fees).
I’m one of those writers. In fact, I believe I was the first person to receive the freelance-writer contract from the Globe and Mail, one of the newspapers published by Thomson at the time, that required writers to sign over all rights. That was one of the signals alerting us to the fact that Thomson and others intended to illegally duplicate and profit from our work. I was a busy freelance writer up to that point (with over 300 published articles), but I refused to sign any such contracts and my business died completely within months.
I’ve suffered for copyright. Have you?
Those contracts are still out there and they’re still unfair, but the Robertson case provides restitution for one manifestation of corporat copyright interests’ steamrollering of individual creators’ rights.
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Rip: A Remix Manifsto, Brett Gaylor’s documentary for the National Film Board, came out in 2008 to generally favourable reviews. You can even download and remix the footage.
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Danger Mouse, a recording artist at the vanguard of mash-up or remix culture, is selling a new album of (presumed) mash-ups and remixes. You pay 50 bucks and you get a blank CD-R and a nonblank book. You’re expected to download the music yourself, since releasing it would ostensibly be illegal for the Mouse.
Oh, and Larry Lessig just wrote an 8,400-word takedown of Mark Helprin’s book Digital Barbarism, including the following bon mot:
The number of Americans who will actually read a book about copyright this year is just rounding error on the population of New York.
Well, this is the book you should buy – when it’s done. In the meantime, you can contribute to its development.