Copynight Tonight @ Cafe Press

Please join us tonight (Tuesday) at 8:30 PM at Cafe Press in Capitol Hill at 1117 12th Ave. This is a new location with WIFI. The location is also all ages with a good reasonably priced menu and drinks.

Topics will include:

Harry Potter and Pirate Bay

RIAA at UW

Free Culture in Seattle

See you there,



-Brian Rowe
Freedom for Intellectual Prosperity

ATJWeb.org is now using a CC license

This is a great example of how a Creative Commons License can work to enable the mission and goals of an organization.

If you are not familiar with ATJWeb you should check it out. It is based on the Washington State Supreme Court's order designed to increase access to the justice system by applying principles that focus technology implementors and the justice system in general on values including privacy and accessibility.

www.ATJWeb.org

Access to Justice (ATJ) Web seeks to help guide the development of technology to help those in need. Through the ATJ Technology Principles we can use technology to give everyone fair access to the justice system a reality in Washington State and beyond.

Harry Potter,, Pirate Bay and Free Speach

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book in the Harry Potter Series, has been downloadable on The Pirate Bay since at least Monday. Today, Scholastic the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books, is sendng takedown notices to sites that have reported this news requesting that they take down the stories for infringement on IP rights of the author.

There is little to no legal foundation for Scholastics take down requests. The release of the Potter book on a file sharing site is very large news that should be protected speech.

Not only is this a bad legal tactic it is also an example of how out of date publishers are with the modern technology literate generation. Authors and Publishers need to start watching and listing to the current generation and stop threating them with baseless legal claims.

The book is on Pirate bay, SO WHAT:
Does this mean no one will buy the book... NO, in fact the publicity around the leek may create more interest in the book. I predict that it will have record sales that are not touched by the release on Pirate bay.

Does this mean that people who were going to buy the book will choose not to buy it? NO many people will download it and still buy the book. Fans want to support authors! Having the book online for free does not stop people from buying official copies of good books.

In fact putting a version of ones work up online for free is probably the best thing you can do to help spread publicity about your work. It opens up your work to people who might not have given it a try if they had to buy it originally. This allows for amazing viral marketing of authors.

Link to an example of the take down letter at Tech Crunch

Fair Use Day, Use your rights!

Take a moment to use your fair use rights. Create a parody, critic a work, use a small potion of a work for educational purposes. Take time to learn about your rights.

“It is important the people are aware of what they can legally do with regards to copyrighted material,” said Pirate Party US spokesman Andrew Norton. “Very often people believe that a use of copyrighted material that would normally fall into fair use is an infringement of copyright. It is a belief that copyright holders seek to enforce, either through frivolous litigation, intimidation or legal and political maneuvering to legally restrict what can be considered fair use. This is especially true when it comes to critical reviews, or parodies.”

Full press release at the pirate party website.

Pirate Party US meeting 6pm pst today

The pirate party has been around a year in the US, I am curous to see wht they are doing and where they are headed. With the RIAA's litigation attacks on student and the MPAA's propaganda campaign in full swing I think we are left with few alternatives to aggressive political and social action to protect our rights and add balnce to a broken system.

Pirate Party meeting tonight on IRC 6pm West Coast:

IRC server: irc.pirate-party.us
Channel: #USPirateParty