The Minute Memes project: reframing copyright restrictions one idea at a time, through a series of short, captivating, classroom-ready videos by award-winning artist and animator Nina Paley.
The BookLiberator.
We had great attendance at our vendor table at the HOPE conference this weekend, where the BookLiberator prototypes attracted a tremendous amount of interest (even getting an excellent writeup on Forbes.com).
The BookLiberator is an affordable personal book digitizer. Working with Ian Sullivan and James Vasile, who came up with the design, we've just finalized the hardware setup and are now proceeding to manufacturing. We want to have them for sale at our online store as soon as possible; we're aiming for a price of appx $120 for the kit plus around $200 for the pair of cameras (many customers will already have consumer-grade digital cameras, so we'll offer the BookLiberator with and without).
What does the BookLiberator have to do with reframing copyright?
Electronic Frontier Foundation celebrates 20 years with new animation from Nina Paley.
Happy 20th Birthday, Electronic Frontier Foundation! In celebration of 20 years of the EFF, Nina Paley created this short animation (sound by Greg Sextro):
Share via Youtube
Download at archive.org
Nina Paley is artist-in-residence here at Question Copyright, and we're including this video in the Minute Memes series she's doing. Copyright + Internet = Surveillance. We think your computer should work for you. So does the EFF. But not every government agrees — around the world, the copyright monopoly lobby wants Internet service providers to monitor their customers, filtering content and kicking people who share culture off the Internet. They're pushing for so-called "three strikes" laws that would require ISPs to cut off the Internet connection of anyone who shares illegally three times.
Who do you want your computer to work for? The entertainment industry, or you and your friends?
Happy birthday, EFF, and keep up the good work!
Advertising Revenue Under a Creator Endorsement Model
The "Creator Endorsed" concept is a very robust way of monetizing creative works, and can be adapted to many different strategies. Here, I want to suggest an advertising-based model which resembles syndicated television.
CopySouth Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, coming up!
Third CopySouth Workshop
International Conference on Copyright Issues
The CopySouth Research Group is holding a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the end of June.
The CSRG is the source of the wonderful Copy/South Dossier and the Alternative Primer on National and International Copyright Law, which we've written about here before. Here's their announcement about the conference...
The CopySouth Research Group (CSRG) invites you to attend and join in the debates at its three day international conference on copyright to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil at the end of June.
GAO Report Debunks Claims that Piracy is a Major Threat to U.S. Economy
Our legal intern Victor Cohen noticed a curious juxtaposition recently:
At the same the copyright industry was saying unauthorized copying is more of a threat than ever to economic health, the U.S. government was saying... it's not. Or at least, that there's no convincing evidence it is. Thanks to Victor for writing up this analysis, and, along the way, for calling out the GAO on their confusion of counterfeiting and unauthorized copying — a frequent problem with the U.S. government and one we've noted before.
A couple of months ago, a collection of seven entertainment industry groups including the RIAA, the MPAA, and the Screen Actor's Guild submitted a filing in response to the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator's request for comments on its upcoming "Joint Strategic Plan" to carry out its enforcement duties. Their main concern is that digital piracy "undermines our economy, steals our jobs and threatens our national interest." [1] As a remedy, the industry puts forward a breathtakingly draconian wishlist of enforcement measures, including:
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ISP-level monitoring and filtering of files or traffic, website blocking and redirection, bandwidth throttling, and monitoring software installed on individual users' computers to check for copyright infringement. [2]
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Bypassing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's notice-and-takedown procedure by allowing copyright owners to create databases of works or digital files and force ISPs — in order to qualify for the DMCA § 512 safe harbor — to automatically take down any matching content uploaded to their network and to prevent matching content from being uploaded or linked to at all. [3]
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Making the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security follow the industry's schedule by coordinating piracy interdiction efforts with new releases of blockbuster movies. [4]
In order to argue for such a staggering array of privacy invasions, network neutrality violations, ISP-burdening expansions of the DMCA, and reallocations of federal agents away from preventing more life-threatening crimes, the industry groups that made this filing must have a solid mountain of evidence that piracy poses a major threat to the American economy and the very existence of the entertainment industry, right?
Internet Archive launches new service for the print-disabled: free access to over 1 million books, including current titles.
The Internet Archive launched a new service yesterday, bringing free access to more than 1 million books in the specially designed format to support those who are blind, dyslexic or are otherwise print-impaired.
This is great news just in terms of giving so many people easier access to books, but it's also interesting as an application of a little-known provision of U.S. copyright law — the Chafee Amendment of 1996, which states:
"...it is not an infringement of copyright for an authorized entity to reproduce or to distribute copies or phonorecords of a previously published, nondramatic literary work if such copies or phonorecords are reproduced or distributed in specialized formats exclusively for use by blind or other persons with disabilities."
The new service demonstrates the principle behind the Chafee Amendment: that copyright is a conditional monopoly, not a property right, and that when we decide the monopoly is hampering an important public purpose, we can change it. The Chafee Amendment is an open acknowledgement that monopoly-based distribution was not serving the needs of the blind, the visually impaired, or dyslexic people very well, and that fixing that situation is simply a policy decision. It reminds us that copyright itself is a policy decision, and that if it is not serving the public well, we can change the policy.
The Internet Archive's press release is below:
More than doubling the number of books available to print disabled people of all ages, today the Internet Archive launched a new service that brings free access to more than 1 million books — from classic 19th century fiction and current novels to technical guides and research materials — now available in the specially designed format to support those who are blind, dyslexic or are otherwise visually impaired.
“Every person deserves the opportunity to enhance their lives through access to the books that teach, entertain and inspire,” said Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. “Bringing access to huge libraries of books to the blind and print disabled is truly one of benefits of the digital revolution.”
Kahle also announced that the Internet Archive will be investing in the growth of its virtual bookshelf by funding the digitization of the first 10,000 books donated. Individuals and organizations are welcome to donate their favorite book or a collection of books. Books in all languages welcome. To donate books visit: http://openlibrary.org/bookdrive
Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Blind people must have access to repositories of digital information if we are to reach our goal of becoming full and equal participants in society. Access to the books that have been scanned by the Internet Archive in a format accessible to the blind will be another step toward that goal. We are excited about continuing to work with Internet Archive to make access to more books a reality.”
The 1 million+ books in the Internet Archive’s library for print disabled, are scanned from hard copy books then digitized into DAISY — a specialized format used by blind or other persons with disabilities, for easy navigation. Files are downloaded to devices that translate the text and read the books aloud for the user to enjoy. To access books visit: http://openlibrary.org/subjects/accessible_book
How an Audience-Distributed Film Won Big: talk at WordCamp SF
Update — slides available: ODP PDF
I gave a talk at WordCamp San Francisco this Saturday, May 1st: Bodysurfing the Blogosphere: How an Audience-Distributed Film Won Big. It's an in-depth look at how audience distribution worked for Nina Paley's freely-licensed film "Sita Sings the Blues". The talk was live-streamed, and we expect to have the downloadable video in a few days; we'll post it when it's available.
Think of this talk as the story behind the numbers, with a big nod to the disintermediation technologies (including WordPress, which I've had running my personal blog for years) that made it possible for a filmmaker's audience to become both her primary distributor and her primary source of income; the film also has commercial distributors, and I talked about that too.
Speaking of the blogosphere:
Our Artist-in-Residence, Nina Paley, has written a terrific post on her blog about why she stuck to her guns (er, or her USB sticks) and told Netflix no on DRM. She explained that they were welcome to offer her film Sita Sings the Blues on their streaming service only if they could offer it without Digital Restrictions Management that would interfere with viewers' ability to see, save, and share the film. Netflix wouldn't take off the DRM, and although Nina, as the licenseholder, could have granted them an exception, she chose not to, despite the considerable potential loss to her in viewers and in money.
She's gotten a lot of comments on her decision, with some people saying they didn't understand her objection to DRM on a streaming service. So she wrote a followup post What's wrong with "streaming" DRM? that explains the issue so clearly that we'll probably be appropriating it for this site at some point :-).
Enjoy both posts, and remember: one way to support her decision is to donate to the Sita Distribution Project. We've seen a spike in donations since she made her decision public, and that's a great feeling.
The Cobbler: A New Career Model for Artists and Entertainers
A media professional with several years of experience in distribution and production, Laure Parsons is a consultant and filmmaker specializing in new approaches and technologies. Most recently Director of Home Media Sale and Marketing at Zeitgeist Films, she has worked for National Film Board of Canada, New Yorker Films and Tribeca Film Festival. She can be found at xplusxfilms.com and infinicine.com.
In the past, high production and distribution costs have forced artists into a kind of gambling mentality. In order to reach audiences, artists had to rely on production companies and distributors, who in turn had to take a large percentage of revenues to cover the high costs associated with producing a film, making a run of books, or releasing an album.
Because distributors spread their risk across many different works, betting that a few will "make it big", artists too were led to a lottery attitude: your work either won big or not at all. If a work had the fortune to make it big, it could sometimes make money for the artist despite many middlemen taking their pieces — but if it did not, the artist was unlikely to make much money at all.
Final Version of "Copying Is Not Theft" Released!
The first official release of Copying Is Not Theft is now ready, with a new sound track arranged by Nik Phelps and sung by Connie Champagne:
Download the high-res version at archive.org.
Question Copyright's first Minute Meme is a response to messages that have tried to convince people that copying information is the same as stealing property, when it's an entirely different (and generally positive) thing. Until the air is cleared on that point, it's hard to have any kind of useful conversation about copying, sharing, copyright, or licensing.
The purpose of these Minute Memes is to give educators and commentators more tools to help clear the air. Copying is not Theft conveys its simple idea with a catchy tune, clever lyrics, and delightful animation by Nina Paley. Many thanks to Nik Phelps and Connie Champagne for a terrific sound track. We also thank the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts for supporting this meme and others with a generous grant. Copying Is Not Theft is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
See the Minute Memes home page for more about the project. See the Copying Is Not Theft home page for more about this meme and for other arrangements, remixes, and mashups, based on the draft Nina released last December.
Brian Lehrer Live television interview with Nina Paley and Karl Fogel
New York City public radio host Brian Lehrer interviewed Nina Paley and Karl Fogel on his CUNY TV show Brian Lehrer Live on February 17th. The conversation ranged from Nina's distribution model for her film Sita Sings the Blues to the broader copyright reform movement, and they showed two of the Minute Memes as well. The video is now available:
It's the middle segment of a three-segment show. The entire show is worth watching, too. The first segment is a debate about the ACTA ("Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement") treaty and how it tightens international copyright restrictions. If you follow copyright reform at all, you'll be frustrated at how resolutely the participants neglect to question the assumptions (for one thing, copying is not counterfeiting). We tried to come back to some of those points during the middle segment. The third segment is a fascinating interview with Jen Bekman and Jonathan Melber of 20x200, with artist Clare Grill joining by video chat. In all segments, the host, Brian Lehrer, asks good questions; he's obviously been thinking about the issues.
