Scrivener's Error

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Scrivener's Error	Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

27 January 2013

link to: 23:26 [GMT-8]

Unadulterated Sausage Platter

... or perhaps just very unadult and childlike, which is what usually results from misguided litigation tactics.

This has been a busy couple of weeks on copyright issues in the European courts, most recently a formal Advocate General's opinion on fair compensation to creators for enabling digital copying. And although this isn't the law in the US yet, y'all should pay attention... because it's a system that gets raised every couple of years, in both public statements and occasional legislative proposals.

Basically, this is a throwing-up-of-the-hands at piracy. The system basically assumes that anything that can be used for recording digital data will be used, in a certain proportion, for doing so with pirate copies; a source-level "tax" is imposed, which is then supposed to be fairly redistributed to the creators as compensation for their lost income.

Needless to say, the actual redistribution is... less than fair. That's part of what is at issue in this most recent opinion (which is somewhat parallel to the Solicitor General's recommendation to the US Supreme Court in matters in which the United States is not a party). Whether it is fair or not, it is convoluted — and I mean the Advocate General's opinion as much as the system she is discussing.
All of which is, I suppose, better than fully legalized piracy in Antigua and Barbados. This is yet another example of the strange world of the World Trade Organization and its complete inability to distinguish between the actions of governments and the entitlements of private parties.
Professor Goldman believes that false-notification penalties under the DMCA may be dead... except, that is, when some pirates and vultures try to intimidate small copyright holders by threatening to file a § 512(f) claim. <SARCASM> Gee, I've never seen that before, nor any combination of that with spurious claims of interference with commercial advantage. </SARCASM> (You know who you are.)
Not all childlike litigation tactics are in IP law, of course. Consider the "military commissions" at Gitmo, and what happens when the chief military prosecutor refuses to sign on to the political appointees' preferences — again. Much as it pains me to agree with a West Point graduate, he's in the right on this one. And it's not just about protecting US servicepeople from other governments; it's about protecting US servicepeople from ourselves.

Labels: copyright, intellectual property, jurisprudence, military, politics

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Sausages?

Internet link sausages, as frequently appear here, are gathered from uninspected meaty internet products and byproducts via processes you really, really don't want to observe; spiced with my own secret, snarky, sarcastic blend; quite possibly extended with sawdust or other indigestibles; and stuffed into your monitor (instead of either real or artificial casings). They're sort of like "link salad" or "pot pourri" or "miscellaneous musings" (or, for that matter, "making law"), but far more disturbing.

I am not responsible for any changes to your lipid counts or blood pressure from consuming these sausages... nor for your monitor if you insist on covering them with mash or sauce.

Archives

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Links of Interest

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Writer Beware and the Writer Beware Blog provide essential knowledge for writers who don't want to be ripped off
Writing-World.com published by the former managing editor of the now-defunct Inklings
Agent Research & Evaluation provides both free and paid analyses of literary agents
US Copyright Office, including both registration forms and records and quite a bit of other helpful information
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows searches of granted, pending, and some rejected trademark registrations
US Supreme Court Opinions from the current and past couple of terms
Law Library of Congress includes statutes for free
The Public Library of Law can help you find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through Online Books (University of Pennsylvania) and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
- ClassicCat.net (what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
- Music.Download.com (long-awaited successor to MP3.com)
- Janis Ian (artist)
- John McCutcheon (artist)

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog. Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at < ? law blogs # >.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
- Professor Anthony Arend (Georgetown Law)
- Professor Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA Law) (aka "The Perfesser")
- Professor Jack Balkin (Yale Law)
- Professor Dennis Crouch (Missouri Law) (better known as Patently-O)
- Professor Michael Froomkin (University of Miami Law)
- Professor Eric Goldman (Santa Clara University Law)
- Professor Rick Hasen (UC-Irvine)
- Professor Brian Leiter (U of Chicago Law/Philosophy)
- Professor Michael Madison (Pitt Law)
- Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law)
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer (and 'net activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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