Fair Use

Amazon has announced the release of the second version of the Kindle. Not available for sale yet, it promises to have some pretty nifty upgrades. It is thinner, lighter, has longer battery life, holds more types of files, etc. And, for those of us serving people with disabilities, one very promising update has been offered to the Kindle. It now comes with a developing text-to-speech function. This means that you can plug in headphones and listen to the book.

Don’t get any grand illusions that using this function will give you the true experience of an audio book. An audio book is professionally recorded, using a human voice, and plenty of post-production work to make it perfect. Hearing audio produced by text-to-speech software has no pre- or post-production; it reads the words straight off the page, in a monotoned electronic voice. It’s not something most people would choose to listen to. Its true value exists for those in the disabled community who for whatever reason cannot read traditional printed text. For these people, text-to-speech is a God send. Text-to-speech allows them equal access to materials we certainly take for granted, like web pages, books, newspapers, blogs, etc.

But of course, any time something like this is introduced, author groups and publishers, ala the RIAA, have to scream copyright infringement. This time, it’s the Authors Guild, who has informed its member literary agents that the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech is a violation of copyright because using such a thing makes it a derivative work and therefore illegal to use.

“They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”

Mr. Aiken is misguided. The purchase of a book gives me the right to do what I want with it, including reading it aloud, or having someone read it aloud for me. I can use it to prop up the leg of a coffee table if I want, too. That could, on the fringe, be called a “derivative work” as well. But no, the book is mine, I can read it out loud, I can even record it onto tape and play it in my car if I want. I can read it out loud to my kids, or read a passage or two of interest to a friend or colleague. I can even type a paragraph or two of a book right into my own blog, which is considered fair use by all copyright standards. The text-to-audio feature of the Kindle 2 is no different than using the buttons on the Kindle to enlarge the text, in my opinion.

And I’m not alone. Neil Gaiman’s blog entry for yesterday gives his short version of the argument he had with his own literary agent over this issue, along with his assertion that text-to-audio software is no different a use than reading a book out loud with your own voice. Neil Gaiman is one of those artists who “get it,” and has for a long time. Kindle’s new and wonderful feature is not in any way a threat to publishers and artists. Believe me, no person wants to listen to software text-to-speech conversion unless they need to. It’s not something anyone would pay money to buy. And besides that, the person with the Kindle presumable already purchased the book, or it wouldn’t be on the Kindle in the first place.

Have you shot any video of your kids lately and had some music on? Did you know that if you posted that video to YouTube that companies like Universal would often have that video removed for copyright violation.

A Judge ruled today in the nations first such ruling that copyright owners must consider “Fair Use” of their works before sending takedown notices to online video-sharing sites.

This is a huge win everyone. The doctrine of the DMCA already permits limited use of copyright materials without the owners permission especially when it is associated with positive and negative reviews.

This ruling is a big win, and one that we should all applaud because to many times artist and companies are able to invoke so called copyright violation to squelch any type of public discourse. This hopefully will allow more babies to be recorded acting out or dancing to the music. [Wired]

J.K. Rowling, author of the arguably iconic Harry Potter series of books, has recently been in the news for suing Steve Vander Ark, the author of the online Harry Potter Lexicon guidebook, for infringement. The Lexicon was a labor of love for Vander Ark, who is a zealous fan of the Harry Potter books. He produced and maintains the Lexicon as a free resource for Harry Potter readers everywhere. He also made zero, zip, zilch dollars on this labor of love.

Rowling believed his work was infringement, so sued Vander Ark. Who can blame Vander Ark for feeling like he’s been slapped in the face by someone he’d held in high regard.

As the lawsuit progresses (it is still undecided as of this writing), several authors have come forward to add their opposing literary two cents to what is going on. What makes this remarkable is that two of these authors are extremely popular, well-known icons themselves. The first was Neil Gaiman, author of a truckload of graphic novels and the two standout literary works, American Gods and The Anansi Boys. The other is Orson Scott Card, whose work Ender’s Game won Hugo and Nebula awards in 2006.

Both of these authors would know something about infringement. Both take the attitude that to be emulated is flattery; to build on an idea, image, or reference is something to be proud of, not something to be squashed like vermin. In addition, Card makes a point of connecting the dots between some of the action and characters in his most famous work to that of Harry Potter. It is possible, and likely, that Rowling herself “borrowed” ideas, actions, and characters from other work that she’d read.

What both writers are pointing out, however, is that derivative works, websites by fans, and items like the Harry Potter Lexicon, do nothing but increase your visibility and brand. There is no downside to that kind of viral marketing. The fact is, the publication of Vander Ark’s reference guide could only increase Rowling’s popularity and the connected interest in her work. I would do a lot of things for that kind of publicity surrounding a book I’d written. The more the merrier. It all translates into increased book sales and increased interest in the author. How can that be a bad thing?

How do I love irony, let me count the ways.

The MPAA has a stated hard line stance against infringement of copyright. “pirates are thieves, plain and simple” and has vigorously prosecuted both direct infringers and producers of DRM breaking software.

In their website targetted at teaching kids about copyright (understandable by any kid with a law degree) they rigourously define the terms that apply to copyright, including this one about permission granted by a copyright holder.

The GPL gives permission for derivative works to be created as long as the GPL applies to the whole work. To enable the freedom of further derivatives, the GPL specifies that any software covered by that license must have source code available.

Ubuntu Linux is highly committed to open source and in their license explains clearly what is required of anyone creating applications or distributions based on Ubuntu, including the following line

Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. You should be able to have exactly the same rights to the software as we do.

The MPAA released a University Toolkit designed to help univerities detect copyright infringement on their networks, which included Ubuntu and Apache amongst other applications covered under the GPL. This toolkit included custom traffic monitoring software. The source code for this component was not included or otherwise available, no doubt to prevent easy subversion.

Given this violates the permissions for reuse specified in the license for Ubuntu, the technical director asked them to either include the source code or stop distributing the package. The MPAA essentially ignored the request until their ISP was served with a DMCA takedown notice.

Irony is indeed delicious.

Legal notice: My opening line is protected free speech as parody, which is probably irrelevant given that Elizabeth Browning died in 1861.

When Todd offered me the chance to post on the GNC blog my intention was to start without fanfare.  I hope to maintain the feel that we all love about GNC while helping to increase the content on the site.  If you are interested in finding out more about me my personal blog is at http://businessgeek.org.  My posts there generally involve the business and economic facets of technology, but I will occasionally cross link to posts there I think might be of interest to the GNC audience.

I have been reading some commentary on the recent law suit raised by CCIA alleging that some copyright holders are overstating their actual rights in their copyright notices.  While I am undecided on the merits of this case, it reminded me of how much copyright notices on DVDs really annoy me.  I hate getting a lecture for doing the right thing, I wouldn’t see the notice if I didn’t buy the DVD!  In reality these notices make little sense unless pirates actually buy DVDs.  This just reinforces the fact that copyright holders are making a mistake in fighting their own customers.