Rob Pegoraro writes, "Over the past two days, two different commercial DVD-copying programs have gotten shot down by court rulings link here. " The judge found that copying DVDs for backup was perfectly legal, but Congress in its wisdom and under the spell of Hollywood, forbade making machines to do so.

After explaining the ins-and-outs, Pegararo notes that this is a pyrrhic vistory since anyone wishing to copy DVDs can use two free downloadable programs, Hand Brake (http://handbrake.fr/) and DVD43 (http://dvd43.com/) for a Mac and 32-bit Windows. He offers another free way for 64-bit Windows.

A victory for freedom.

Via my colleague Michael Trick, Groklaw has an interesting post pointing out that the recently unveiled Wolfram|Alpha computation service makes some pretty strong claims if not to copyright, then to the right for attribution, for results the service returns.

For example, if you plug x^2*sin(x) into the search window, you will get back a graph of this function, as well as a number different series representations for the function. Wolfram|Alpha claims that these materials are protected. Individual use of them must be attributed, and any commercial use requires a specific commercial license. The problem with this, though, is that any table of mathematical formulas will provide both the graphs and series representations for this and many other functions. Furthermore, it could be reasonably argued that these are facts, which generally can't be copyrighted.

The Groklaw post contrasts this with Google's terms of service, which basically says you can't use the service to break the law.

I would also contrast Wolfram|Alpha's service with that of Economagic, which provides publicly available economic data, and, for subscribers, the ability to generate graphs, run regressions, download data to spreadsheets, and do other kinds of data analysis. None of these results are held to be protected, and Economagic requires no specific attribution. There are also no limitations or additional requirements for any commercial use of the service. The subscription fee is also easily within reach of any economics graduate student (which is the site's target audience).

So, I would have to agree with the Groklaw post that Wolfram|Alpha seems to be overreaching.

Via Robert Levine an an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times explaining that newspapers need to be able to copyright facts in order to survive!! (You didn't think they would publish an opinion piece explaining that newspapers need to go the way of the buggy whip did you?)

If ever there was an article at war with itself, this is it.

Today, newspaper websites attract millions of readers, so why can't newspapers successfully compete online? After all, they still originate most of the nation's news. Part of the reason is that online ad rates don't begin to match print ad rates.

Why? A big reason is what economists call free-riding. Practically anyone can start a website and get software that snags fresh online news from those who originate it. Website owners pluck the freshest, most interesting reports and quickly post condensed rewrites. That costs them little, and they then surround the rewrites with cut-rate ads.

Children...children - if you are attracting millions of online readers then apparently free-riding isn't costing you your readership. If you cut off the blogs do you think your readership will go up? Or down? Links to articles on blogs (this one for example) drive traffic.

Technological change obsoletes business models. Most likely it means the end of the daily newspaper as we know it. Does it mean the we will spend less money and effort gathering news? Unlikely...as reporting from newspapers disappears the demand for news won't go down. So demand for substitutes with different business models - weekly newsmagazines, television news, blogs, will go up. Many reporters and a few newspapers executives will make the transition to new business models. The rest will join automobile workers on the unemployment line.

The Korea Herald writes that Korea is now imposing its own version of the "three strikes and you are out of the internet." link here It will become effective this week, having been approved by the National Assembly in April. It requires web sites to ban for six months providers of copyrighted work. Sites that fail to enforce the law can be fined up to $8000 and also face possible civil suits. Current president Lee Myung-bak supported tougher enforcement after years of "loose enforcement of anti-piracy laws".

No trial? No facing your accuser? The copyright police win again.

A few years ago, I had the chance to go back to Viet Nam to teach. I was struck by the vibrant market in pirated material--books, software, art, and movies. Much of the stuff was in English and the market was mainly the young students, the largest group that knows English. The copyright police are striking back now, afraid that the materials will leak out into the world market and as reported here the growing domestic market will be lost link here.

The article suggests that the copyright police have learned from their experience elsewhere. Then local authorities were not sympathetic to arguments that they were depriving rich foreign copyright owners of their rights. In Vietnam the copyright owners have set up a local firm to print and distribute books, the HCM City Books Distribution Corp (FAHASA) and are seeking cooperation from the universities. They can now argue that piracy is hurting a local boy.

It's still a tough sale.

David Pogue of the New York Times reports:

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid -- for thought they owned.

But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is "rare," but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we've been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we've learned that they're not really like books, in that once we're finished reading them, we can't resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

As one of my readers noted, it's like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we've been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were "1984" and "Animal Farm."

Scary.

Eric Pfanner writes that European newspaper publishers are petitioning the European media and telecommunications commission for "stricter enforcement of existing legislation," link here that is, to further limit "fair use." The target of this is online news aggregators and other Web sites... [like Google Search which are] ...undermining their efforts to develop ... online business models at a time when readers and advertisers are defecting from newspapers and magazines."

The proposed change comes wrapped in a cocoon of syrupy assurance that it wants a "a simple, consumer-friendly legal framework for accessing digital content in Europe's single market, while ensuring at the same time fair remuneration of creators." Since when are the publishers the creators--but I nitpick.

It always seems easier to get intellectual property rights expanded than to find a viable new business model in the face of technological change. It has worked for movies, books, music, and recordings, so why not for the newspaper publishers?

As mentioned by Jeff Tucker, in the Pope's new encyclical, Caritas in veritate, he writes:

On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.

As Jeff writes, "I wish it had gone further to reject the whole idea of a IP but this is an excellent statement as far as it goes."

Google is in the news again. The government has now informed the court reviewing the settlement with publishers and other copyright owners that it is formally investigating whether the terms violate the antitrust act. A court hearing on the settlement is set for Oct. 7, at which the Justice Department can present "its views orally at that time."

The New York Times says, "The settlement would give Google the right to display the books online, and to profit from them by selling access to individual titles and by selling subscriptions to its entire collection to libraries and other institutions. Revenue would be shared among Google, authors and publishers."

The agreement is a good bit more complex than that. Google has established a website for the first time reader link here and another with all the questions you would ever want to ask and explaining what it is doing and how that will change in the future here. Separately, just the portion of interest to copyright holders, 40 pages long but now one page, entitled "If You Are A Book Author, Book Publisher Or Other Person Who Owns A Copyright In Books Or Other Writings," is link here. Finally, the whole agreement and the 16 PDF's attached, is here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation gives a good short analysis of the issues as it sees them link here. Google Search itself lists more than 12 million websites. Anybody expect a quick outcome?

When you read this story, it is hard not to throw up your hands in total disgust at the court and copyright law link here. J D Salinger of Holden Caulfield fame has sued for infringement because a Swedish author's book writes about a thinly-disguised 76 year-old Holden character. The court agreed.

Here we are threading needles and splitting hairs as the judge doesn't seem to have thought about whether there is a real problem, trying instead to decide if the parody is successful or adds anything to the character portrayal. Sure, the new book deliberately treads on the fame of the Salinger character. Since most fiction is derivative in some sense--plot, characters, setting, you name it--drawing a line between what is or is not permissible seems a waste of the court's time. If the book appeals, it will sell. Here is a case where letting the market decide the book's fate would have been a great idea. Instead, the suit will be appealed.