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[Mongrel]

Something I doubt you'll hear either candidate mention this election season: Patent Trolling has officially reached the point where it is literally driving businesses out of the US.

Not technically news, I'm sure, but I think this is the first time I've seen actual releases from companies explicitly stating that they left the US to avoid patent trolls.

[Royal☭]

Makes me think of that Atlas Shrugged trailer, where it ominously intones that the "government is claiming all copyrights and patents"

[Thad]

Ars: Court rules book scanning is fair use, suggesting Google Books victory

Most of the books Google scans for its book program come from libraries. After Google scans each book, it provides a digital image and a text version of the book to the library that owns the original. The libraries then contribute the digital files to a repository called the Hathitrust Digital Library, which uses them for three purposes: preservation, a full-text search engine, and electronic access for disabled patrons who cannot read the print copies of the books.

So this doesn't necessarily indicate fair use in Google's entire book-scanning program, but it's a big step.

I don't think I've articulated my position on this lately but it's probably obvious given what you guys know about me: I am very much in favor of providing increased access to out-of-print books and relaxing copyright on orphaned works, but I'm nervous about Google striking a deal where it's the ONLY organization that's allowed to do that (and, what's more, may retain copyright on the scanned editions).

Keeping libraries in the loop is probably a good way to ensure Google doesn't build its own restrictive monopoly out of this.

[Thad]

EduBlogs, a service that hosts 1.45 million educational blogs, had all 1.45 million of them taken offline for 12 hours because their $70K/year hosting company, ServerBeach, pitched a wobbly after receiving a takedown notice from Pearson Publishing. Pearson was upset over a five-year-old blog post where a teacher had quoted 279 words out of an article written in 1974. They sent the takedown notice to their host. EduBlogs deleted the post, but it was still present in their database, so ServerBeach punished them by removing 1.45 million peoples' sites.

Hey Pearson?  Fuck you.

[Mongrel]

More like, hey ServerBeach, fuck you.

[Brentai]

It costs $120 to take the Beck Hopelessness Scale test on Pearson's website.

Or you can just click the first scholarly link from Google.

It's a good thing I'm not taking this test right now, because my Hopelessness Index just spiked.

[Thad]

More like, hey ServerBeach, fuck you.

It's not really either-or.

[Thad]

Reg: Columbia study finds that people who illegally download music ALSO spend significantly more money on legal music than people who don't, and also almost as many songs are shared directly among friends and family as on filesharing services.

[Royal☭]

Which meshes with every other study on this subject since the dawn of time. Record companies plan to sue grandmas for $25 million each in light of this news.

[Ted Belmont]

Microsoft is being sued over the Windows Live tiles in Windows 8.

Well, that was fast.

[Thad]

Doctorow: House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper; Techdirt: House Republicans: Copyright Law Destroys Markets; It's Time For Real Reform

I've only skimmed the document so far, but WOW.

This document really is a watershed moment. Even if it does not lead to any actual legislation, just the fact that some in Congress are discussing how copyright has gone way too far and even looking at suggestions that focus on what benefits the public the most is a huge step forward from what we've come to expect. In many ways, this is the next logical step after the completion of the SOPA fight. Rather than just fighting bad policy, it's time for Congress to recognize that existing copyright law is bad policy and now is the time to fix it. It comes as a surprise, but kudos to the Republican Study Committee -- and specifically Derek Khanna, the policy staffer who wrote the document -- for stepping up and saying what needed to be said, but which too many in Congress had been afraid to say for fear of how the entertainment industry lobbyists would react.

What we seem to have here is Republicans actually pointing out good conservative reasons to oppose the current copyright regime: it's a big-government handout to Hollywood that grants artificial monopolies, interferes with the free market, stifles innovation, and is clearly not what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.

Now, this could just be another fringe issue that gets swept under the rug -- I certainly don't think the leadership of either party wants to talk about this.

But if this group of Republicans manages to keep pushing this issue and getting people to talk about it, I think that's going to be a major step.

This could end up like SOPA/PIPA -- if you get a strong enough grassroots message out, it doesn't matter what Congressional leadership and Big Media say, it becomes self-evident to a vast majority of voters everywhere that this is in their interest.

Good luck to the Republican Study Committee, and anybody else who joins the fight, regardless of party.

[Brentai]

The trouble's going to be that the document outlines a clash between the concept of fiscal conservatism and the actual policy of fiscal conservatism.  The very first line rejects the notion of information "ownership", which is going to go down with the Tea Party about as well as two black men who want to adopt.

[Thad]

The trouble's going to be that the document outlines a clash between the concept of fiscal conservatism and the actual policy of fiscal conservatism.

Well yes, exactly.

That's kinda what the Republican Study Committee does: they're Republicans who actually consistently push for ACTUAL fiscal-conservative policy, like cutting the military budget.

The very first line rejects the notion of information "ownership", which is going to go down with the Tea Party about as well as two black men who want to adopt.

I'd say Paul Teller, who's got his name right at the top of the document, is about as Tea Party as it gets; he's the guy most credited with convincing the party to reject Boehner's budget last year.

The author of the doc, Derek Khanna, sounds more middle-of-the-road; he's from Massachusetts and worked for Romney and Scott Brown.

I wouldn't expect the Tea Party -- or any other cross-section of Congress -- to act as a unified front on this.  The copyright wars have never been a partisan issue, much as both sides love to frame them that way.

[François]

This could end up like SOPA/PIPA -- if you get a strong enough grassroots message out, it doesn't matter what Congressional leadership and Big Media say, it becomes self-evident to a vast majority of voters everywhere that this is in their interest.

Man, that would be awesome. The Republicans have recently learned that when they spout ridiculous bullshit it only appeals to the extremist crazies they've been almost exclusively pandering to for the last couple decades at least, but triggering a groundswell of support on copyright reform might teach them that working in the interest of the majority is a pretty good way to have democracy on your side.

This reminds me of the way I felt when our ex-PM stepped down after the last provincial elections. I don't like his party's ideas, but that's not what made me hate it. What did make me hate it, is that it had become a den of corrupt, bumbling villains. With the upcoming change in leadership I'd like to see them become opponents I can respect, simply because that would be healthy for the engine of government in general. In some regards, it could be the same for the Republicans; the possibility of them breaking down and being replaced by some unknown quantity is not as attractive as the possibility of them becoming sane.

[Büge]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121117/16492521084/hollywood-lobbyists-have-busy-saturday-convince-gop-to-retract-copyright-reform-brief.shtml

welp

[Brentai]

If you're going to win over the youth vote, you have to prove that you can back down on an issue with nearly universal popular support even faster than the Democrats.

[Thad]

Disappointing but not exactly surprising.  Great to see the lobbyists and politicians so terrified, though.

Needless to say, we haven't heard the last of this.

[François]

Back to corrupt bumbling villains it is, then.

Sigh.

[Mongrel]

Disappointing but not exactly surprising.  Great to see the lobbyists and politicians so terrified, though.

Needless to say, we haven't heard the last of this.

The public aren't the only ones who are going to see this as an utterly spineless capitulation. Any Republican who backed this may well call it like it is. Even corrupt bumbling villains have pride. Well, some of them.

If we're really lucky, it'll be a wedge between free-market libertarian GOP dorks and corporate GOP dorks, ensuring a messy argument that'll raise the issue's profile.

[Thad]

Ars has more, including a bit of a profile on the guy who wrote the memo, Derek Khanna.

Khanna has exactly the kind of resume you'd expect for someone with tech-savvy views on copyright law. He lists "C++, Backtrack, Python, Sql, Java, Dreamweaver/Photoshop, statistical modeling," as interests, as well as "building computers and beta testing software." Best of all, Khanna tells us that he's an "avid reader" of Ars Technica.