The Electronic Frontier Foundation has awarded its annual Pioneer Awards for leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. This year's winners are Stephen Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and Groklaw, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru, and the awards will be presented in San Francisco at a ceremony at the 111 Minna Gallery on November 8. — Read the rest
Salim sez, "Princeton's UChannel's Podcast amalgamates public lectures from some of the world's best public lectures. They just put out an excellent item which serves as a great primer to anybody who is just becoming interested in issues related to copyright law." — Read the rest
Jamie Boyle, of the Duke Center for the Public Domain, has a new book out, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. Boyle ranks with Lessig, Benkler and Zittrain as one of the most articulate, thoughtful, funny and passionate thinkers in the global fight for free speech, open access, and a humane and sane policy on patents, trademarks and copyrights. — Read the rest
The Duke Law and Technology Review has released a special edition dedicated to examining the legal and philosophical legacy of John Perry Barlow: co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; junior lyricist for the Grateful Dead; biofuel entrepreneur; philosopher; poet; hacker Zelig; and driven, delightful weirdo.
Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: dozens of great ideas for stocking stuffers, brain-hammers, mind-expanders, terrible toys, badass books and more. Where available, we use Amazon Affiliate links to help keep the world's greatest neurozine online.
It's been two years since Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke lost a lawsuit brought by Marvin Gaye's descendants, who argued that their song "Blurred Lines" infringed Gay's 1977 song "Got to Give It To You," not because it copied the music per se, but because it copied its "vibe."
It's been seven years since we previewedTheft: A History of Music, a comic book that explains the complicated history of music, borrowing, control and copyright, created by a dynamic duo of witty copyright law professors from Duke University as a followup to the greatest law-comic ever published: the book was due out years ago, but the untimely and tragic death of illustrator Keith Aoki delayed it -- until today.
James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins, eminent copyright scholars at the Duke Center for the Public Domain, have released their 788-page Open Intellectual Property Casebook as a free, open, CC-licensed download, replacing textbooks that normally sell for $160 (you can get a hardcopy is $24); it's not just a cheaper alternative, either — it's a better one, enlivened with sprightly writing, excellent illustrations (including comics in the vein of Boyle and Jenkins's Bound By Law).
In 1976, the US Congress decided to extend the copyright on works that had been created with the understanding that they would enter the public domain after about 56 years (depending on whether the copyright was renewed after 26 years). This decision set the stage for a series of subsequent copyright extensions, each one coinciding, roughly, with the imminent entry to the public domain of the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons. — Read the rest
The Volokh Conspiracy's David Post shreds the Authors Guild editorial in this week's NYT. In it, Scott Turow and James Shapiro argue that America should introduce COICA, an official censorship law that blocks websites that large companies from the entertainment industry don't like. — Read the rest
I'm coming to San Francisco next month to present the 19th Annual Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Awards (this year's winners are Stephen Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and Groklaw, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru — see here for full announcement). — Read the rest
The San Francisco Chronicle's weekend package on copyright included a feature on law profs James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins' forthcoming music copyright comic, Theft: A History of Music (a followup to their magnificent comic on copyright and documentary films, Bound By Law). — Read the rest
This is your last chance to buy tickets for the first-ever ORGCon in London tomorrow: it's a day-long meeting on the digital rights situation in the UK and what we can all do to improve it. As Britain moves to censor more of the net than ever, to disconnect families on the self-regulated say-so of the entertainment industry, and to spy on more and more of our net-traffic, there has never been a more important time to get involved with digital rights in the UK. — Read the rest
The first-ever ORGCon, a one-day conference on digital rights in the UK, is coming up on July 24 in London. Over 300 people have signed up to attend, and there are only a few spaces left. If you're planning on going, you'd best book now! — Read the rest
James Boyle, Cory Doctorow and Tom Watson are heading up the first ever conference dedicated to digital rights in the UK, to be held July 24 in London. Top of the agenda at ORGCon is tackling the Digital Economy Act and the new Government.
In the wake of Craig Venter's announcement that he and his team had created the world's first synthetic lifeform, Jamie Boyle considers the legal implications of a synthetic biotech world in which the norm is that the fundamental units of creation are exclusively held by a few patent owners:
In an article written for the journal PloS Biology in 2007, my colleague Arti Rai and I explored the likely legal future of synthetic biology.
