Month: January 2006

This is a great encapsulation about the recent decision (Nov 2005) that reverses the damage done by Koons vs. Rogers, aka “String of Puppies” ca. 1988.

http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2006/01/koons_wins_land.html

Technorati Tags: free culture

Museums cannot use preservation as an excuse for banning flash photography (although it could be annoying for bystanders):

To actually double fading would need 100,000 amateurs a day. Most museums would kill for those attendance figures!

http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/01/flash_bulbs_and_artifact_prese.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

DRM erodes consumers’ rights, says NCC:

http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=6546

The broadcast flag is back in the US:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/21/broadcast_flag_is_ba.html

Singer Tom Waits spends much of his time trying to stop other people even sounding like him:

http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2006/01/tom_waits_copyr.html

Technorati Tags: free culture

NERVOUS TV bosses have axed an episode of South Park which OUTS a fictional Tom Cruise character as gay ” because they are scared the real actor will SUE.

[…]

The episode is entirely fictional and there is no suggestion that the events are true.

It was shown in America last year but Cruise, 43, is believed to have threatened legal action if it is shown again.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006020708,00.html

Fred sez, “The UK trade association for independent film and TV producers is proposing that Ofcom [Britain’s telecoms reguloator] levy a tax on digital personal video recorders like TiVo.”

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/18/uk_filmtv_producers_.html

Technorati Tags: free culture

The first draft of the third version of the GNU General Public License is out:

http://gplv3.fsf.org/draft

You can add comments to the draft, so go and take a look.

I think it is very good, particularly the way it handles DRM and internationalisation, but that it is too complex, and the compatibility clauses are too open and will lead to BSD-style clause accumulation.

Here’s some notes from the launch, via Groklaw:

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=gpl_v3_released

Technorati Tags: free software