Comments on: The Copyright ‘Bots are Coming for Us

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:09:35 +0000

Well, as shown in _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_, there are two safe choices: we can have no robots, or we can have smart robots. Stupid, ill-informed robots are an accident waiting to happen.

Continuing legal education could help more, too. I’ve seen any number of licenses which must have been drafted by someone who had no idea that the material was to be *given away to all comers*. I would have laughed myself silly, if those licenses hadn’t made the products totally unusable in the setting we wanted to use them.

*Evil* robots, on the other hand, generate self-limiting behavior. If it’s too hard to reuse certain cultural artifacts in long-accepted ways, people will lose interest in them and express their thoughts in terms of other, more useful artifacts, *provided they know that more liberal terms are available*. If we’re not allowed to talk about Mickey Mouse without paying a fee, Mickey will fade from public consciousness and be replaced by a character that’s not taboo. His owners will fade too.

By: David L Hood

David L Hood — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:44:17 +0000

The ‘bots’ are not the problem, they are just a symptom of a larger one: copyright is broken. Existing laws have been far outpaced by the world moving on, and the ones that have actually been updated are heavily tilted in favor of the corporations making more money, rather than fairness to everyone.

By: Michelle S.

Michelle S. — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 16:32:11 +0000

For those worried about using Pinterest, here’s an interesting blog post about fair use, why you probably won’t be sued, and how you can protect yourself against being sued: http://www.lextechnologiae.com/2012/03/03/why-deleting-your-pinterest-boards-over-copyright-concerns-is-an-overreaction/

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:24:54 +0000

OMG I’m so glad I found you!

I received a letter today from a photographer demanding $35,000 in damages for posting several of his wedding gown fashion photos on Pinterest!

MY HUSBAND IS GOING TO KILL ME WHEN HE FINDS OUT

He warned me. not. to. pin.

It’s really 35 THOUSAND dollars.

By: joey

joey — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:56:20 +0000

I’m struck with two thoughts about these situations. The first is that in addition to the problems you listed, it’s dangerous to make enforcement of a supposedly changeable law so entrenched into the fabric of our digital experience. That will just be one more drastic upheaval required if we ever intend to change or fix the current copyright mess. Secondly, I hate that so many forms of “copyright enforcement” depend on cripply the manner or technology through which the law is broken rather than actually addressing the law-breaking. For example, BitTorrent as a protocol does not inherently break any copyright laws, though it does potentially make it way easier. But most IP enforcement makes using BitTorrent in general a crime via ISP tracking.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:32:28 +0000

Downton Abbey 3 is on next Sunday in the UK, not in the US until January…

By: Librarian

Librarian — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:53:22 +0000

I hope that doesn’t happen to Pinterest. I love that site! If what you predict actually happens, the internet would become so lame… unless you pay to play everything.