gluejar 's Techdirt Comments

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  • Copyright Question: Does David Bowie Get The Copyright On Computer Generated Lyrics?

    gluejar ( profile ), 15 Jan, 2016 @ 09:37am

    Grimmelmann has an articla about this.

    (he's a real law professor.) Abstract:

    Treating computers as authors for copyright purposes is a non-solution to a non-problem. It is a non-solution because unless and until computer programs can qualify as persons in life and law, it does no practical good to call them "authors" when someone else will end up owning the copyright anyway. And it responds to a non-problem because there is nothing actually distinctive about computer-generated works.

    There are five plausible ways in which computer-generated works might be considered meaningfully different from human-generated works: (1) they are embedded in digital copies, (2) people create them using computers rather than by hand, (3) programs can generate them algorithmically, (4) programmers as well as users contribute to them, and (5) programs can generate them randomly. But all of these distinctions are spurious. Old-fashioned pen-and-paper works raise all of the same issues. A close look at the creative process shows how little really changes when authors use digital tools. The problems posed for copyright by computer-generated works are not easy, but they are also not new.


    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2699862

  • Adobe's Half-Assed Response To Spying On All Your eBooks

    gluejar ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2014 @ 11:49am

    NJ Privacy laws

    The NJ "Reader Privacy Act" is not law yet, as far as I can tell. I think it's badly drafted.

    http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2014/09/online-bookstores-to-face-stringent.html
    http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2014/09/emergency-governor-christie-could-turn.html

    Nonetheless, there are library records privacy laws in place in NJ that should apply.

    EFF is misleading; I don't think the California Reader Privacy Act applies to this case, though the CA library records privacy law Cal Gov Code § 6267 should make this illegal.

  • Disappointing: DMCA Being Used To Make Feynman Lectures On Physics Less Accessible

    gluejar ( profile ), 07 Mar, 2014 @ 06:47am

    flp.mobi is coming down

    I posted an update on my piece, linked in the story- The developer of flp.mobi is voluntarily taking the repo down, out of fear that Caltech/Perseus will take down the free website.

  • Edwin Mellen Press Demonstrates How Not To Respond To Criticism: With Lawsuits & Bogus Threats

    gluejar ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 06:46pm

    More on EMP domain registration

    More on EMP domain registration http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/03/roy-tennant-digital-libraries/the-strange-case-of-edwin-mellen-press/

  • Edwin Mellen Press Demonstrates How Not To Respond To Criticism: With Lawsuits & Bogus Threats

    gluejar ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 06:41pm

    EMP registering domain names

    University of Huddersfield librarian Dave Pattern has noticed that Edward Mellen Press appears to have registered domains based on the name of the librarian they're suing. (daleaskey.com etc.) Very spooky. The fear is that they might send emails purporting to be from Dale Askey. https://docs.google.com/a/gluejar.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao1CPRvGcG91dEdXQnpqOHo3dmZMUnZDd1hMM080NGc#gid=0

  • Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same

    gluejar ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2012 @ 12:25pm

    Re: Thanks for the Mention

    Aaron, have you seen the recently launched Unglue.it? It aims to crowd-fund creative commons licensed ebooks.

    Why do you make it hard to get the CC0 books and ask people to buy them on Amazon? Or maybe the better question is why should readers patronize an author AND buy their books?