So, updating the #Copyright YEAR has no legal bearing as Copyright protection is a fixed duration.- Author-owned works is lifetime of author + 50 years (70 or longer in some countries)- Entity-owned & pseudonym (not revealed) is 95 years from FIRST publication
copyright
So, updating the #Copyright YEAR has no legal bearing as Copyright protection is a fixed duration.
- Author-owned works is lifetime of author + 50 years (70 or longer in some countries)
- Entity-owned & pseudonym (not revealed) is 95 years from FIRST publication
- Unpublished is 120 years from first creation
Which means that it is pointless to list multiple years or a range of years. This is according to the International agreements related to Copyright, like the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement.
I am excited to see the publication of advance articles in Samuel Beckett Today from a special edition based on a symposium about Samuel Beckett in Central Europe https://brill.com/view/journals/sbt/aop/issue.xml
I wrote about 'The Legal Dramas of Samuel Beckett: Copyright Law and Human Rights in the European Union'
Alexander Hartley wrote a piece about copyright from a different angle, 'Is Beckett’s Drama ‘Stopped’? Accounting for the Aesthetics of Theatrical Copyright' https://brill.com/view/journals/sbt/aop/article-10.1163-18757405-tat00005/article-10.1163-18757405-tat00005.xml
Anita Rákóczy has written about Károly Kazimir’s Opening Speech before the Hungarian Premiere of Waiting for Godot (1965) https://brill.com/view/journals/sbt/aop/article-10.1163-18757405-tat00007/article-10.1163-18757405-tat00007.xml
I look forward to seeing the final versions of some of the other contributions to the collection.
#copyright #EUlaw #EUpol #theatre #performance #drama #Ireland #SamuelBeckett
Edited 107d ago
I still don't understand how NFT "ownership" works as far as #Copyright laws are concerned. First thing we need to understand is that most countries do not allow relinquishing/transferring an author's Moral Rights.So, if you buy NFT arts, the author still have complete Moral Rights. #IANAL #TINLA
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mf5dzzqkp7fnmby6blfeljwj/post/3m3pepajo622l
Milestones for the Deep Backfile project.
Back in 2020-2021, while the Penn Libraries were largely closed, many of our librarians worked from home on the Deep Backfile project. Faced with more demand than ever for online access to our collections while most users couldn't go into our libraries, we researched the copyrights of some of the many thousands of journals, magazines, newspapers, and other serials in our collections.
https://everybodyslibraries.com/2024/08/13/milestones-for-the-deep-backfile-project/
Edited 1y ago
Denmark seems to be pursuing the idea of protecting people from "AI" deep fakes by addressing people's image as part of copyright law. [1]
I applaud the idea of doing something about this, and this is a better approach than none at all, but it's not quite how I would pursue it.
For one thing, there are a number of places where people are innocently captured in images that this will create complications for. And for another, I don't think it's powerful enough to address the real problem.
The "MOO" community (MOO is MUD, Object-Oriented, and MUD is Multiple-User Dungeon, and Dungeon was one of the first text-based interactive fiction games, also called Zork), this came up a long time ago. Ironically, since MOO is entirely text, images were not involved. But there was still the issue of appropriating people's view of themselves for ill purposes, and this was richly discussed.
MOO, which had its greatest popularity in the 1990's, before Second Life overshadowed it, functioned as a kind of textual sketch of things to come. It was a coarse level of detail because its technical layer doesn't allow for super-elaborate detailing, but that forced the social aspect to be the focus rather than the technology. Modern systems purport to capture reality, but they often get so side-tracked on making things photo-real visceral experiences that they give short shrift to the full complexity of human social interaction. So they're still catching up to some of the social issues MOO explored decades ago.
In Julian Dibbell's fascinating book "My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World", which you can and should buy if you can afford to, but which the author arranged to be freely downloadable as a PDF for those who could not afford it [2], the focus is on "A Rape In Cyberspace", he explores some of these issues. Originally published in The Village Voice and later adapted for a book, this story is, in the author's words, "a True Account of the Case of the Infamous Mr. Bungle, and of the Author's Journey, in Consequence Thereof, to the Heart of a Half-Real World Called LambdaMOO".
This story will not tell you how to understand what Denmark is doing, but I think it informs my way of thinking about this issue.
At its core, both situations--the issue in cyberspace and the modern issues in the real world--are not "infringements" (in the way copyright would talk about them) but "violations" in the way a person's sense of self matters.
Some people will point to rape as a matter of physical violation, but just as others are quick to say it's not a crime of sex, it's a crime of violence, I would similarly say it's a crime of violation, of taking control of a person's sense of self. And that's what's in common with these other matters, like grabbing someone's image.
We don't presently have a standard for this, and like many matters of human endeavor, there is extraordinary nuance. Fair use, one might say. Certainly parody is one place where people don't have complete say. The sitting President wants to go after critics for disparaging his good name, for example, and ordinarily the disparaging of someone's good name might be seen as a violation, but in certain realms of public discourse, especially for public figures, we allow and insist on it.
This is partly true, too, because even underlying the issue of violation is the issue of power. The law is really at its core protecting those powerless to protect themselves. So, for example, while it might be a violation to appropriate the good work of an actor who's just struggling to eat, selling their image royalty-free, appropriating the name of a politician who can with the stroke of a pen cut the food supply of millions is not exactly exerting power over them, certainly not unconditionally dominating power.
So we should be careful in our understanding of good law to understand that it seeks not a bright line of pain to itself become a weapon, but rather just an ability to tip power balances back toward the middle, making the world an even battle among people who are born into different levels of power and who cannot therefore fairly be expected to solve their own problems.
I've swept through many issues here, but I have decades of thought underlying my reaction to Denmark's idea, informed by the lucky accident that I was there at the time LambdaMOO sketched the future.
I sometimes note in conversations with people for whom a topic is new and hypothetical that they will say "I wonder what would happen if..." and I reply in the past tense saying "Oh, this is what happened." Because I don't have to speculate. I saw it. It mightn't happen reliably that way again. Many possibilities were in play. But even those were tangibly close to my experience. I have rich, detailed thought because I lived at least one version of it. Just wanted to share that.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/07/deepfake-legislation-denmark-digital-id/
#AI #IP #Law #Crime #Copyright #DeepFake #DeepFakes #violation #rape
Edited 34d ago
#OTD in 1886.
The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works is signed. The treaty provides authors, musicians, poets, painters, and other creators with the means to control how their works are used, by whom, and on what terms.
Stoking creative fires: Counting down to Public Domain Day 2026
Until I saw it performed earlier this month, I had doubts that one could successfully adapt an unthemed magazine issue into a stage play. But that’s what the New Classics Collective did with the first and only issue of Fire!!, a literary magazine “devoted to younger Negro artists” published in Harlem in 1926. The play, which premiered at the Quintessence Theatre in my Philadelphia neighborhood, laid a light dramatic frame over a set of performances of plays, poems, stories, drawings and essays from the magazine’s sole issue, including early work by authors like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston who are still known to many readers today.
As a review in fhe Philadelphia Inquirer notes, the play, like the magazine issue that inspired it, is a bit of a hot mess as a whole, but has a lot of talent going into its various parts, and it impressed a sold-out multiracial audience the night I went. The magazine itself perished after its first issue, after a fire destroyed the publication’s office. But both the then-new magazine and the new play that’s just been created from it are bold creative experiments, and I’m confident that the people who produced and experienced the play will go on to create more and better work, whether it’s new versions of what I saw in the play’s premiere, or other work inspired by it, just as the authors and artists in the magazine did.
Along with the people who produced it, we have the public domain to thank for the experience. All 1926 publications joined the public domain in the United States just a few years ago. That makes it possible for anyone who’s found an unburnt copy of Fire!! to digitize it and put it online without needing permission from anyone, as several online book collections now have done. And it means that the New Classics Collective, or anyone else intrigued by the magazine’s content, can freely adapt and repurpose it as they like, without needing to work out deals with all of the creators whose works were adapted for the play. These new versions will have their own copyrights for a time, just as the original 1926 pieces did. But eventually, when they too join join the public domain, they will be free for all of us to remember, share, preserve, and renew as part of our common cultural heritage.
Fifty days from today, the public domain will grow further for many people around the world. In the United States, the last copyrights for 1920s publications (except for sound recordings) joined the public domain here last year. This coming January 1, a new wave of copyright expiration will reach the start of the 1930s, with all remaining publication copyrights from 1930 expiring (as well as 1925 sound recording copyrights). And starting tomorrow, I’ll be featuring selected works that will be joining the public domain here, in short daily posts that will appear on this blog, and also on some social media networks. On Mastodon and other services on the “fediverse“, you can follow this blog by following the user @everybodyslibraries.com, or the hashtag #PublicDomainDayCountdown. I’ll also boost the posts from my own personal Mastodon account (https://mastodon.social/@JMarkOckerbloom). That account uses the Bridgy Fed service to connect to Blue Sky, where I believe you should be able to follow the user @JMarkOckerbloom.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy. I’m not aware of any way to automatically get my posts on other large commercial social media, but folks relying on sites dependent on the likes of Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg may want to diversify their information sources in any case.
If you follow my posts, I hope you’ll hear about a number of works and creators you know and love, as well as ones you might not be familiar with. You can get an even more diverse and inclusive set of works and perspectives if you also check out other sources that will be promoting the public domain (which I expect to include Wikipedia, the Public Domain Review, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and the Internet Archive as we get closer to the new year). Enjoy the countdown!
#Books #copyright #film #publicDomain #PublicDomainDayCountdown #writing
Before the automobile industry invented the catalytic converter, the costs of reducing air pollution seemed astronomical, enough to bankrupt the entire industry. After they invented the catalytical converter, the costs were manageable. And they only invented it because they were faced with the threat of being shut down.
From Is Climate Change An Externality
#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #law #copyright #pollution #climate #innovation
Edited 2d ago
#OTD in 1911.
The U.K. Copyright Act consolidates copyright law in the British Empire and confirms the six libraries to which a copy of every book published in the U.K. must be deposited by the publisher: the British Museum Library (London); the Bodleian Library (Oxford); the Advocates Library (Edinburgh); the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth); Trinity College Dublin; and Cambridge University Library.
This week's net.wars, "Disharmony", finds Meta allegedly engaging in piracy and changing its content moderation policies, and network neutrality dying (for now?) in the US: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/01/10/disharmony/ #copyright #eu #OnlineSafety #NetWars
#OTD in 1914.
In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
It was founded by Victor Herbert, George Botsford, Silvio Hein, Irving Berlin, Louis Hirsch, John Raymond Hubbell, Gustave Kerker, & Jean Schwartz; Glen MacDonough; publishers George Maxwell and Jay Witmark & copyright attorney Nathan Burkan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_of_Composers,_Authors_and_Publishers
ASCAP archives at NYPL:
https://archives.nypl.org/mus/22936
What on earth, SoundCloud??
"In the absence of a separate agreement that states otherwise, You explicitly agree that your Content may be used to inform, train, develop or serve as input to artificial intelligence or machine intelligence technologies or services as part of and for providing the services."
https://soundcloud.com/terms-of-use
via @sarahdal https://crispsandwi.ch/@sarahdal/114477755873097160
This week's net.wars, "Conundrum", goes to a meeting on copyright's "existential threat" to generative AI: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/07/11/conundrum/ #NetWars #Copyright #AI
Last night, @pluralistic was in conversation with @mariafarrell to mark ORG's 20th birthday.
This wide-ranging conversation covers everything from the 'Internet dimension' of policy-making to copyright in the age of AI and how to fight for digital rights.
Plus much more!
Missed it live? No worries, you can watch it in full on Youtube 📺
https://www.youtube.com/live/M9H2An_D6io
#ORG20 #digitalrights #corydoctorow #AI #copyright #dataprotection #bigtech
Edited 139d ago
This week's net.wars, "Big Bang", finds a folk musician fighting to get back the rights over his long-ago recorded music, and chronicles the first week of age verification in the UK: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/08/01/big-bang/ #NetWars #HumanRights #Copyright #FolkMusic #AgeVerification
A best-selling Vancouver author has launched a class-action lawsuit against Nvidia, claiming the multi-trillion dollar tech company illegally used his and other Canadian writers' works to train artificial intelligence large language models (LLM). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-author-leads-class-actions-against-ai-giants-1.7595962
J.B. MacKinnon is named as the representative plaintiff in the claim, which says his books, The 100-Mile Diet and The Once and Future World, were part of a 196,640-book dataset that Nvidia used without paying a licensing fee or securing consent to acquire or use the works. #cdnpoli #copyright #AI
I learned today that because of the strong Moral Rights protection in the #Philippines , it is not possible for Authors/Creators (defined as "natural persons" by law) to dedicate/release their work to the #PublicDomain .
And even if we use 0BSD, MIT-0, CC0, and other similar public-domain-equivalent licenses, we can still sue anyone who:
1. Misused our name
2. Misrepresented us
3. Misused our work (downstream)
All under Moral Rights because we can never waived it under Philippine law. Even with a promise not to sue anyone is not a guarantee.
So, saying, "This work is under 0BSD/MIT-0/CC0 and I will never sue anyone for whatever reason", won't work under Philippine law. The Creator/Author will always have their Moral Rights as the creator/author of the work. It's completely up to you to trust that they will fulfill their promise. 🤪
Edited 119d ago
Perhaps don't launch businesses that rely on breaking the law? Just a thought.
'If the appeals court denies the petition…the emerging company may be doomed. As Anthropic argued, it now "faces hundreds of billions of dollars in potential damages liability at trial in four months"…that involves "up to seven million potential claimants, whose works span a century of publishing history," each possibly triggering a $150,000 fine.'
A class action lawsuit is being prepared against Anthropic over their downloading of copyrighted material from pirate websites.
If you're an author, and your books have been registered with the US Copyright Office, you may be eligible to be included, and thus receive damages.
The plaintiff's lawyers are collecting contact information so that they can ensure eligible authors receive formal notice of the class action.
More information and the form are here: https://www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-author-contact/
#PleaseBoost and pass on to any authors you know not on the fediverse.
#WritersOfMastodon #WritingCommunity #AI #Anthropic #copyright #author
@writingcommunity @bookstodon