Yahoo! News (via The Associated Press). MPAA Admits Mistake on Downloading Study. Jan. 23, 2008; Inside Higher Ed. Downloading by Students Overstated. Jan. 23, 2008; Association for Computing Machinery. MPAA’s Data Oops: How Will Congress React? Jan. 23, 2008; News Blog (News.com). Why Did Colleges Stay Mum on MPAA Stats? Jan. 25, 2008. We don’t think this is a mistake, actually. For several years, we have questioned as biased and invalid many of the “studies” the entertainment industry creates that purport to show a correlation between alleged infringement activity from a specific environment (i.e. file sharing networks) or population (i.e. college students). More investigation should be done into the numbers and methodology of these reports, especially since the entertainment industry parades them before Congress as evidence that it needs more restrictive intellectual property rights. If you think there is no connection between these sorts of studies and legislation like the PRO IP bill (H.R. 4279) or the HEA Reauthorization bill, think again.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 29, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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Alex Woodson. Study Rethinks Online Video Copyright. The Hollywood Reporter. Jan. 3, 2008. American University professors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi release the research report “Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copryighted Material in User-Generated Video” (.pdf) at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The pair also co-authored a 2004 report on documentary film (.pdf). Categories: Film & Video; Web & Online.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 8, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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Last 100. TV Industry Using Piracy as a Measure of Success. Dec. 13, 2007. We’re not sure whether television executives have started doing this recently, or this was just divulged recently. No matter: the industry has been doing this sort of thing for years already.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Dec. 18, 2007, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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Pamela Samuelson. Preliminary Thoughts on Copyright Reform. The UC-Berkeley law professor offers “preliminary thoughts about what a model copyright law might include and how one might go about getting rid of some of the clutter in the existing statute,” using the example provided by the American Law Institute’s model laws.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Dec. 18, 2007, edition of Copycense Clippings, and was an Article of the Week selection.)

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As copyright has become a part of the nation’s mainstream discourse, more publications are devoting time and space to the topic. This has lead to an interesting evolution in publication and viewpoint. Where once copyright was discussed only in expensive, exclusive, and (mostly) print publications and forums, today copyright commentary is readily available in many daily newspapers and for free on several Web sites. Further, where the tone in the exclusive publications discussed copyright mostly in terms of identifying and protecting copyrights held by large corporate institutions, more recent discussions about copyright tend to emphasize either copyright’s potential as a barrier to personal creativity, or the lack of copyright as a potential threat to the national economy.

In reality, copyright really is at neither end of that spectrum. Instead, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. What I’ve decided to do this month is to introduce Online readers to some of the best resources that effectively and accurately represent that middle ground, where copyright is a delicate balance between consumer and creator.

These materials, together and individually, clearly and fairly explain to information professionals what copyright law is, how it works, and what role copyright should play in an environment that is hurtling toward wholesale adoption of content sharing, “clip culture,” and resources that are born digital.

An Online exclusive.

K. Matthew Dames. A Reading Road Trip Around Copyright: An Annotated Tour of Copyright Resources. Online. January/February 2007.

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“As recently as 10 years ago, virtually no one was interested in copyright. Some lawyers (like David Nimmer and William Patry) devoted significant time to it, and media and entertainment companies took comfort in the security copyright provided. But neither the average Joe Citizen nor the average information professional paid much attention to copyright. It was, after all, a backwater part of the law that most folks thought concerned only legal specialists and bookish policy wonks.

“Then, all of a sudden, copyright became ‘hot.’ The Web’s development as a commercial and distribution platform sparked the flame and when entertainment and culture moved from analog to digital in the mid-nineties, copyright became – as they say in Hollywood – a player. Now, nearly a decade after massive technological, societal and commercial shifts in the way content is created, archived, distributed and protected, Big C is its own newsmaker. But despite this, surprisingly few people know anything about the Copyright Act of 1976.

“This article is designed to begin remedying this problem. It is an introduction to America’s federal copyright law, including a comparison of copyright and other forms of intellectual property, an overview of the Copyright Act of 1976, and an organizational methodology that should help the uninitiated become more comfortable with the code.

An Online exclusive.

K. Matthew Dames. “The Copyright Landscape: An Introduction to American Copyright Law.” Online. September 2006. p. 35

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“From history’s vantage point, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s notes, papers and books are priceless. But the King family and the auction house Sotheby’s estimate they’re worth at least $15 million and possibly twice that. And they’re about to go on the block.

“Museums and libraries, groups and individuals are busy raising funds to acquire the collection, while Atlanta natives are concerned that a cornerstone of the city’s culture is about to be chipped away.

“The collection goes on public display at Sotheby’s New York galleries starting June 21. It will be auctioned off on June 30.”

Joshua Levs. Sotheby’s to Auction Martin Luther King’s Papers. National Public Radio. June 21, 2006.

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