On Copyright Reform. (.mp3) The Ottawa Citizen sponsors an hour-long debate on copyright reform in Canada. Lots of shouting and interrupting, but may be worthwhile listening if you want to hear frustrated content industry discuss the state of their nation. Check out, however, Michael Geist’s analysis of this session, in which he contends Canadian Recording Industry Association president Graham Henderson and others give tacit support to ISP filtering, which AT&T reportedly is considering.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in Site Check 2.03.)

Copycense™: Incisive IP.™

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Bill Board (BBC News.) Locking Down Open Computing. Jan. 28, 2008. BBC columnist Bill Thompson discusses copyright restriction technologies and digital rights management, and points to examples where both technologies have been implemented fairly. Most importantly, he positions them as benign technologies that only are as fair or onerous as their implementer intends them to be.

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

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“2008 has to be the year we get real or the business as we know it goes away.” –Fred Goldring, entertainment attorney.

Elizabeth Montalbano. Digital Music Industry Challenged to Follow Fans’ Lead. PCWorld.com. Jan. 9, 2008. You’re kidding us, right?

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 15, 2008, edition of Copycense Clippings, where it was a Quote of the Week selection.)

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Pogue’s Posts (The New York Times). The Generational Divide in Copyright Morality. Dec. 20, 2007. Times technology columnist does a straw poll with college students about the alleged illegality of various copyright scenarios and no one sees anything wrong. Teens’ and college students resistance to any copyright protection or rules is worthy of an extended study. And a real study with real data, not something an entertainment industry lobbying firm cooks up so they can trot the results out to Congress while begging for yet another extension of the already overbroad monopoly.

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

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Jason Victor Serinus. Reference Recordings Aims At Your Hard Drive. Stereophile. Jan. 5, 2008. In the December 2007 issue of Information Today, there is an article that discusses dissatisfaction with the MP3 format for listening to music. This article continues that thread, discussing a music server offering that streams WMV audio files in high resolution 24-bit audio and the possibility that such files may be made available without copy restriction technology.

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

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Catherine Holahan. Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM. BusinessWeek. Jan. 4, 2008. This may have been news four years ago. Now it’s merely a reminder that the executives running the music labels are clueless. Meanwhile, Wired asks whether Sony’s downloads will be with or without watermarks.

(Editor’s Note: Copycense editors originally commented on this article in the Jan. 8, 2007, edition of Copycense Clippings.)

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TorrentFreak. Oscars Veteran Resigns Over DVD Screener Piracy Threat. Jan. 5, 2008. The film award season always is a special time of year for those that think such things have life significance. It also means bucket loads of DVDs will criss-cross the country, as members of the Academy screen the films and are feted “for [their] consideration” of an Oscar nomination.

Until recently, Oscar nominations or wins never factored into any sort of movie marketing. (We first recall a notable push to market a film’s quality based upon the number of Oscar winners when we saw trailers for the 2002 film Insomnia.) Now, every two-bit film that has a single nominee makes sure the audience knows that factoid. It’s as if the producers imply with this sort of marketing that “because we have this Academy Award winner and that Academy Award nominee, this film won’t be an utter and complete waste of $100 million (or more).”

But we digress.

Film distribution season also means that the films will get copied and, as always happens, find their way onto the Web. This is the first year we’ve heard about the Academy taking strong steps to halt the copying, and also the first time we’ve heard that an Academy member resigned in protest. We presume all the brouhaha is about protecting the nominated films’ lucrative downstream DVD market, but we’re sure screeners don’t like being made out to be criminals.

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

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