Posts tagged as:

copyright

Soon I might not be a criminal when I use my iPod

by Miraz on April 9, 2008

Here in New Zealand our crazy law has made millions of Kiwis into criminals: we’re breaking the law if we buy a CD and copy the music to our iPods or AppleTV.

Fortunately that’s soon to change — Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill passes third reading:

Legislation that updates New Zealand’s copyright law to ensure that we keep up to speed with recent advances in digital technology passed its third and final reading in the House today by a vote of 111 to 10, announced the Associate Commerce Minister Judith Tizard.

Apparently though we still won’t be able to put videos we’ve paid for onto our iPods. Nor will we be able to parallel import the movies everyone’s talking about and that we want to watch on a DVD. Key provisions of the Copyright (New Technologies) Bill include:

  • It provides a format shifting exception for copying sound recordings for personal use or the personal use of their household provided certain conditions are met. …
  • It continues the 9 month parallel importation ban on films from their international release date …
  • The purpose of the ban is to encourage investment in and the promotion of film production, distribution and exhibition industries and to protect cinema ticket sales by ensuring a film’s cinematic exhibition does not coincide with its availability on video tape or in DVD format.

I find that last item annoying. I’m all for supporting artists and actors and film production and distribution. But cinema sales? Why should we protect cinemas, when increasingly people are wanting and willing to watch this material on their own screens?

I haven’t looked, but I’d be shocked if all the current movies are not available on illegal sharing and download sites. Plenty of people will turn to those sources that give no revenue back to the creators if they’re blocked from legally obtaining the movies.

Non-Kiwis may not realise that the NZ iTunes Store does not offer movies or TV shows for sale. Perhaps this is one reason why. It definitely annoys me.

Last year, when Saving Grace disappeared from our screens after only 2 episodes I turned to the torrents. I’m normally a pretty law-abiding type and would have happily watched it on TV, or bought a DVD set. Neither was available. I would cheerfully have paid the iTunes Store and downloaded the episodes. That was not an option. With all legal avenues blocked I turned to the only remaining source.

So, once this Bill becomes law, things will be a bit better, but there’s still a long way to go.

Update: the moment I’d posted I saw Colin Jackson’s post on the matter — A dog’s breakfast:

Our elected politicians have voted for a complete dog’s breakfast in the form of the Copyright Amendment (New Technology) Bill. It’s been passed and it’s now an Act.

You should go read what he has to say on the matter. Even a law allowing us to put music we’ve bought onto our iPods may still prevent us from actually doing so. Sigh

Popularity: 31% [?]

{ 0 comments }

When copyright runs amok

by Miraz on March 24, 2008

I’m preparing a talk I’ll be giving next month, and found a small image I think will be appropriate as part of my presentation to community groups. I copied the image and its URL to my collections folder and then checked copyright on the site. Here’s part of what it says — The Ulster Museum - Copyright: [oh, ooops, that link shouldn't be there. I'm in trouble now]

… No part of these websites may be permanently copied or reproduced in any form or reproduced on any other website or stored in or transmitted to or from any other electronic or digital form in whole or in part …

Oh, darn, there I go again, using part of their website without permission! Here’s the really crazy part though:

… nor may links to our website be included in any other website without our written prior permission.

But wait, it gets better! I’m not allowed to link to them, but they, on the other hand …

Disclaimer for Links

Links within the The National Museums Northern Ireland websites may lead to other websites. …

Copyright I can understand. Heck, I create stuff all the time: tutorials, articles, blog posts and whatnot, and occasionally someone even pays me for some of it. I don’t really want others profiting from my labour, if I don’t.

But the attitude of this museum is just nuts. For starters, why on earth should people not link to them? Don’t they want anyone to know about them?

I’m not allowed to quote them? Again, don’t they want anyone to spread the word, to tell others about them? If they’re so secret, why do they have a web site? But they reserve the right to link to other sites themselves. Ridiculous.

On the other hand, it seems they do want to spread awareness:

By donating to the Ulster Museum, you will be helping to promote the awareness, appreciation and understanding of the history and heritage of the north of Ireland.

So, here’s what they should do: put as much of their web content as possible under a Creative Commons licence. Make it possible, and even encourage people to use parts of their content for non-commercial purposes, with attribution and a link back to them.

If they have products for sale, then make low resolution smallish sized images (suitable for the web and email) readily available and sell the higher quality, larger images suitable for print.

And links are a good thing, unless you’re trying to hide.

Popularity: 17% [?]

{ 3 comments }

Creative Commons Licences

by Miraz on February 4, 2008

Share your work, but still get credit. [First published July 2006, and updated for this post.]

When businesses create publications and other works they usually copyright it all and charge lots of money to those who wish to use it. On the other hand, many community groups and individuals are motivated more by the desire to share information and resources, but would still like their expenditure of time and energy to be recognised. Such people can use a Creative Commons licence.

That’s how this blog works, for example. I’m happy for people to use my work in other places, as long as I get credit. I’m also happy for others to build on and extend my work — that increases its usefulness and allows others to add more value — but again, I should receive credit for my part of the work. While I’m giving my work away free, I’m not happy for others to charge for it though — I’m far from being a millionaire and need to pay for my groceries like anyone else.

Creative Commons licences allow you to attach conditions to work you produce — for example, you may specify that others can build on your work, but they must acknowledge you as the original author, and may not charge for the new publication. Creative Commons licences are free, easy to obtain, and increasingly popular.

Four key principles.

There are four key principles, summarised here:

  1. Attribution: others must give you credit in the way you request.
  2. Noncommercial: others may or may not profit from your work.
  3. Derivative works: others may or may not build upon your original work.
  4. Share alike: if others build on your work you may require them to share it rather than selling it.

Learn more.

Two excellent, clear and straightforward online comics explain the principles and how to choose the licence that works for you:

  1. creativecommons.org/about/licenses/comics1
  2. creativecommons.org/about/licenses/how1

Exhibit the licence.

To obtain a Creative Commons licence make a couple of choices in an online form. Click the Select a Licence button. A new web page appears, giving you text and HTML code you can add to your work.

Here’s a text example:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/nz/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

While this is the same thing for a web page:

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Creative Commons is International

There are licenses available for many jurisdictions:

Creative Commons International (CCi) works to “port” the core Creative Commons Licenses to different copyright legislations around the world. The porting process involves both linguistically translating the licenses and legally adapting them to particular jurisdictions.

And also generic licenses:

Our generic licenses are jurisdiction-agnostic: they do not mention any particular jurisdiction’s laws or statutes or contain any sort of choice-of-law provision. The licenses are, however, based on the U.S. Copyright Act in many respects.

Something to think about.

If you own the rights to work you have created, then a Creative Commons licence may be appropriate for it. There are useful guidelines and thinking points at the Creative Commons website. It’s worth having a look, and thinking about how to release the resources you’ve created. And it’s not just for print or websites; there are licences for music, video and photos too.

Written for and reproduced from CommunityNet Aotearoa Panui, July 2006. This article has been updated and modified from the original.

Popularity: 12% [?]

{ 0 comments }

← Older Entries