Rick Prelinger of the Internet Archive, along with university libaries and other public interest groups, asked the Register of Copyrights to free the copyright cataloging database, which sells for $86,625.

Although the Copyright Office has decided to continue charging for the database, the fine folk at public.resource.org has set the copyright database free!

Archivists and researchers will be happy tonight! Download away!

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Tagged: copyright

From Brewster:

Thanks to the hard work of two great law school students of Peter Jaszi of American University, Jieun Kim and Doug Agopsowicz, the Internet Archive and other libraries may continue to preserve software and video game titles without fear of going to jail. This is a happy moment, but on the other hand this exception is so limited it leaves the overall draconian nature of the DMCA in effect. A total of more than $50,000 of pro-bono lawyer time has been spent to just affect this exemption and its continuation. We hope that Congress, and other governments, will pass more balanced copyright laws to allow at least libraries, archives, research and scholarship to flourish without the current dark clouds of litigation.

Links to announcement, full recommendation (pdf, still reading through it..), mostly useless slashdot discussion, and Diesel Sweeties Play-Old-Videogames tshirt.

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just heard Kahle vs. Gonzales aka the “Orphan Works trial”. Lawrence Lessig did an amazing job arguing on behalf of Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive) and Rick Prelinger (Prelinger Flim Archives). The argument is quite complex, and I’m not a lawyer, so while I think of a way to summerize it, here are some pictures:

Inspiration:

This was my first time at the 9th Circuit:

It was also the first time I tied a tie! I used this video as a guide..

Update: Here is a write up at the Prelinger Library blog.

Update 2: Lawrence Lessig has written about the case here and here.

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Tagged: copyright , lessig , NinthCircuit

Kahle v. Gonzales is going to be argued by Larry Lessig on Nov 13th at, maybe 10 or 11AM.

What is at stake is libraries being able to have out-of-print books on their digital bookshelves as they have out-of-print books on the physical shelves we grew up with.

James R. Browning US Courthouse
United States Court of Appeals - 9th Circuit
95 Seventh Street
San Francisco, California 94103
Courtroom 2, 3rd Floor

This is open to the public. Please come!

Lots more info on the case and a FAQ at CyberLaw. Here’s the forum thread.

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Tagged: copyright