According to a recent article in The Globe and Mail, a pilot project called The Best of B.C. Books Online will endeavour to make about 1000 non-fiction titles, both new and back catalogue, available as electronic books. This will be achieved by purchasing electronic rights to non-fiction books from B.C. publishers, and making them accessible […]
In 2007, Dan Heller, a freelance photographer, filed a proposal with the US Copyright Office. The proposal urged for the creation of a system of privately-run ‘Copyright Registrars’. The proposal describes a universal online system where a large number of private companies would be involved in the processing of copyright registration of original works. The […]
In a recent blog article, Kevin Kelly proposes that ownership is not as important as it once was and discusses the many benefits of renting, leasing, licensing and sharing compared to owning. Kelly discusses this notion both in the context of tangible goods and intangible goods. In the article, Kelly is extremely thorough about listing […]
Chris Castle is Managing Partner of Christian L. Castle Attorneys, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Google has reached a settlement of the “Google Books” case brought by the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers against Google and several of Google’s library business partners in the Google Books enterprise. (The 300-page settlement agreement has […]
The academic scientific community conventionally shares research results, ideas and expertise. Not surprisingly, the commoditization of peer reviewed journal articles seems antiquated with cost and accessibility issues when compared with online posting, web-enabled databases, free online journals and guides as knowledge dissemination tools. In the Aug 25, 2008 edition of The Tech, these practices are […]
Andrew Knight, a US novelist and a patent agent, was the first to apply for a patent on the unique plot of his novel. Although the US patent office rejected Knight’s application, the author intends to appeal to the Federal Circuit. Knight espouses that patent protection is crucial because copyrights are not enough to keep […]
Being an enthusiastic fan of J.K Rowling’s Potter novels I was infuriated to hear the French student arrested for publishing his own translation of the seventh chapter of the Potter tale would not be prosecuted. An agreement was made with J.K Rowling not to seek damages from the student for violation of intellectual property rights. […]
When a French teen becomes the target of police and is subjected to their interrogation while spending a night behind bars, one would imagine that perhaps the teen had committed a serious criminal act. Not so in this case. In July 2007, just a few days after the final Harry Potter novel was released in […]
In August 2007, an unnamed 16 year old from Aix-en-Provence, France, was arrested, detained, and subsequently released for posting his own unauthorised French translation of The Deathly Hallows (the seventh and last chapter in the lucrative Harry Potter series). The book was released at midnight on July 21, and the teen translated the 784 pages […]