beSpacific includes this Wall Street Journal article about a ruling in a copyright case against Google last week. A federal judge decided Google’s activities related to Snodgrass Publishing Group do not violate any copyright laws. The article, which is available for free, summarizes a few other recent cases concerning Google and copyright.

It seems a little odd to me to simply file my notes of Cory Doctorow’s talks in the Copyright Law department, but that’s really the best fit for his words, which spanned digital rights management (DRM), new technologies, and the music industry.

One of the reasons I appreciate going to two of his talks is because the Thai food was awesome it helped me realize what I don’t know–that whole "knowing what you don’t know" thing. I learned quite a bit about DRM as it relates to current technologies and the music and video/film industries.

Here are some points:

• DRM is like saying "When you play my record, your record player becomes my property."

• DRM undermines the personal relationship with users because it’s equal to the company saying up front, “We don’t trust you.”
• Interoperability isn’t as important to some designers as control and locking people in.
• Secrecy undermines security.
• An audience member shared with us how he likes to use his local library to borrow materials. “How will DRM effect what libraries can do?” he asked. Cory believes DRM can restrict libraries too much. It’s dangerous because of that.
• Adults only/kid safe search options signal to people they can use a service to find porn.
• Reposting someone’s non-commercial feed on a site with advertisements probably isn’t fair to the content creator. (++)
• Positive user experience can influence people to pay.
• Personal relationships are very important. If people have or perceive that they have a personal relationship with a content creator, they’ll be more invested in the product.
• I think he said his book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom was one of the first ones to be available online. He believes he’s sold more copies by making it available online than it would have if it had just been available in book stores.

I’ll be pondering these thoughts for a while, especially the one about the importance of building personal relationships with content consumers.

I heard MC Lars’ Download This Song on the radio and liked it a lot, so I did. It’s kind of an “in your face” piece about copyright law, music, downloading, and the recording industry. Not to mention that he samples Iggy Pop’s The Passenger, too.

Chances are pretty good MC Lars might have been a musician whose other music I would probably have never heard. Digging through his Myspace and Web site, I found other songs of his for listening and downloading. Maybe I’ll buy one of his CDs because I like his sound and wit. Ten or twenty years ago, would I have been able to “try out” his music before deciding to buy an album? Maybe, maybe not. But I can tell you I don’t often pay full price for a CD if it only has one song on it I really like.

beSpacific mentions a searchable version of the U.S. Copyright Law as an ebook. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other laws are also available.

Whoops! My speech recognition software is posting to my weblog without my permission! And while I’m at work, too! Silly microphone! We’re supposed to be working on that database~

Addendum: So, uh, what I meant to say before my speech recognition software decided to blog without me is:

This weekend is ArtBeat in Somerville, Massachusetts–a festival of artists, musicians, crafts, dancers, etc., etc. As part of that, the Somerville Public Library Central Branch is hosting a talk about copyright law in the arts on Thursday, June 14, from 6-8 pm.

In restrospect, I should have taken advantage of one of Manila’s nifty features and deleted this post to take it off my front page, then restored it later.

This fun site promotes community music sharing. A project of Creative Commons, it gives people a way to share their music.

Another article from The Boston Globe

The American Library Association Washington Office is asking for feedback regarding orphaned works and their status under copyright law.

"The library community will be filing comments with the U.S. Copyright Office in support of a proposal to change copyright law to address issues surrounding orphan works. Orphan works are those copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or even impossible to find. "

Their release includes their draft proposal.

seen on the ResourceShelf

Jenny Levine has information about American Library Association efforts against the Federal Communication Commission’s Broadcast Flag rule. A broadcast flag is a code used in digital television signals intended to prevent the further distribution of the show over the Internet. Librarians are concerned the rule could interfere with protections in the TEACH Act educators and others use when they post materials on the Internet.