Free, promotional email list for Stay Free! print magazine

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

Note to readers: We're no longer using the f-word in the magazine 
title to avoid spam filters.


Hello,

For those of you following the copyright wars, our hero, Lawrence 
Lessig, has a new book out that should be required reading. "Free 
Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down 
Culture and Control Creativity" is available in hardback from Penguin 
Press. But leave it to Larry to go and give the whole damn thing 
away! Yes, Professor Lessig has posted the entire book online, under 
a Creative Commons, so users can download it gratis:
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/

Or if you prefer a short excerpt:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html?tw=wn_tophead_6


In other copyright news, Lessig is involved (albeit indirectly) in 
another challenge to the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). Two 
archives that post public domain books, films, audio, and other works 
on the internet have asked a federal court to declare that copyright 
restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose copyright has not 
expired but which are no longer available -- violate the constitution.

This may sound a lot like the recent Eldred v. Ashcroft case ( 
http://www.eldred.cc ) but it's not.  Essentially, this suit is about 
allowing works whose copyright owners are missing in action to revert 
to the public domain. The plaintiffs in the case are the Internet 
Archive ( http://www.archive.org ) and Prelinger Archives ( 
http://www.prelinger.com ). The Prelinger Archives, for example, 
contains thousands of educational, industrial, and "how to" films, 
from the late 1920s to the present. Many of these films can't be 
digitized and posted online because the copyright owners can't be 
found. Back when you had to renew copyrights, over eighty percent of 
all copyrights were not renewed, which enriched the public domain. 
But with the passage of CTEA, the public domain is withering, and 
these films are likely to deteriorate and be lost.

What's interesting here is that they're using the Eldred Supreme 
Court decision *upholding* CTEA to argue *against* the CTEA and the 
related Berne Convention Implementation Act (BCIA).

Stay F---! interview with Rick Prelinger of Prelinger Archives:
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/prelinger.html

Kahle v. Ashcroft FAQ
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/kahle_v_ashcroft.shtml



JOYWAR!

New York-based artist Joy Garnett has been threatened with a lawsuit 
for creating Molotov, a painting based on a 1978 photograph. Though 
Joy has removed an image of the offending work from her website, 
supporters have rallied around her cause and created art based on HER 
art. You can see the image and read more about it here:
http://rhizome.org/netartnews/story.rhiz?timestamp=20040308
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=12168&text=23419#23419

My personal faves, of the Molotov-inspired artwork:
http://www.sicplacitum.com/arte/molotov.htm
http://sasnak.org/archives/000092.html



RAPE, MURDER, AND FILE SHARING

A bill now circulating in Congress would make it easier to pursue 
criminal prosecutions against file sharers. According to Sen. Orrin 
Hatch ("Sen." stands for Senile), operators of peer-to-peer networks 
are running a conspiracy in which they lure children and young people 
with free music, movies and pornography.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62830,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1



BROOKLYNITES UNITE!

Don't forget the rally this Sunday, March 28, 2 pm, to protest the 
Brooklyn Yards development scheme. Info:
http://www.fairdevelopmentbrooklyn.org/rally_mar28.php


love,
carrie