Copyright Clearance Center's Beyond the Book program explores issues facing the information content industry and helps creative professionals realize the full potential of their works, while encouraging respect for intellectual property and the principles of copyright.
BTB #165: Rethinking Author Contracts for the Digital World
E-books and other fledgling publishing forms present opportunities and challenges for authors, even while they raise caution flags when it comes to rights negotiations with publishers. In March, at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo, attorney Sara Pearl and literary agent John Silbersack, both of the highly-regarded Trident Media Group, gave Chris Kenneally their candid views on controversial contract clauses for all things digital.
This podcast – an abridged version of the original “live” program – is presented by special arrangement with the producers of Publishing Business Conference & Expo. Details on purchasing complete editions of this and many other programs from the 2010 expo are available here.
BTB #164: Copyright Reform Not a ‘Red’ or ‘Blue’ Dilemma – Wasoff
At a moment in American political life when so much about Washington seems dysfunctional, the prospects for copyright reform of any hue – red, blue, or some shade between – appear far off. Yet according to Lois Wasoff, a leading copyright and publishing attorney, “What’s fascinating about copyright is that it doesn’t break down along those lines. There are Democrats and Republicans who are strong proponents of copyright protection, and there are Democrats and Republicans who see issues about copyright and want to see changes made.”
In an interview with Chris Kenneally during a break at OnCopyright2010, Wasoff predicted, “We could see some legislative activity in the next couple of years [over copyright reform] because it may be possible for people to depart from their political party positions and think about issues in a different context.”
BTB #163: Copyright Law No Day At the Beach in 2010
As an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fred von Lohmann watches new technology and copyright law and move in separate but related waves. This is true today with digital media, as he sees it, but was also true in the past, when broadcast radio and later, VCRs, challenged existing business models for the news and entertainment industries. In 2010, he tells Chris Kenneally during a break at the recent OnCopyright conference, we find ourselves caught by the undertow, though von Lohmann predicts perfect beach days lie ahead.
“After a new technology has been absorbed into an existing business model, it gets to be real boring for the lawyers. And that’s a good thing, right? I’m looking forward to returning to a sleepier copyright bar. It may take five to 10 more years, but I think we’ll get there.
Best of BTB: Will the ‘Real’ Andrew Kent Please Stand Up?
Beyond the Book has cracked the case: Kent Anderson –a senior executive for a world-leading science journal – and Andrew Kent – author of the well-received Johnny DeNovo detective novel series – are one and the same man.
“There is a yin and yang between my creative and professional sides,” Anderson admits. “I’m always dabbling with both areas of pursuit.” The emotional and imaginative act of writing the novels, he says, has reminded the usually-factually-based Anderson of a sometimes overlooked aspect to his day job. “Business is about relationships as much as it’s about products and services, and relationships inevitably have an emotional aspect to them.”
The Green Monster Trailer:
BTB #162: Caught in a ‘Copyright War’?
What does it mean to be caught in a “copyright war”? If such a culture war is what we have, when and how might it end? One man up to the charge of answering these weighty questions is William Patry, considered the most prolific scholar of copyright in U.S. history. In an interview with Chris Kenneally during a break at OnCopyright2010, he revealed his new book’s original title and why “moral panic” describes the current situation.
“What’s happened in debates over copyright is that this concept of moral panics have been employed and coupled with metaphoric language,” Patry explained. “This is a conflict between new technologies and existing business models. In the past, we had the leisure to play these things out.”
William Patry is author of an eight-volume treatise on U.S. copyright law entitled Patry on Copyright and a separate treatise on the fair use doctrine. He is currently Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc.; he previously served as copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary; as a Policy Planning Adviser to the Register of Copyrights; a law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Georgetown University; and in private practice.
Special Edition Podcast: 2010 Research Blogging Awards Announced
Since its launch in 2007, ResearchBlogging.org has elevated science-related blogging by academics to a new level, and brought along an audience that reaches well beyond the lab and the campus.
Today (March 23), site editor Dave Munger and Joy Moore of Seed Media, which underwrites the effort, open the envelopes with Chris Kenneally for the first Research Blogging Awards. “We wanted to give back to the community, but also provide a way to recognize the best of the best,” Munger explains.
BTB #161: For Quotations, Shields Chooses Ecstasy Over Anxiety
As a professor and novelist, David Shields collects quotes and book excerpts that spur him to reflection and even inspiration. This spring, that habit produces the surprisingly controversial new work, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, which Shields discussed with Chris Kenneally during a break at the recent OnCopyright 2010 conference.
Legal concerns aside, Shields claims the collection as his. “The book is a demonstration of open source texting… I didn’t start out with some great political, cultural, social, legal agenda.”
“Basically, art has always been theft… as Picasso said.”
BTB #160: New Media: A Problem for Copyright?
The rise of social media and the consequences for copyright got a close examination earlier this month at the Tools of Change conference presented by O’Reilly Media.
Copyright Clearance Center’s Edward Colleran hosted a panel discussion on the subject and this week’s Beyond The Book podcast presents remarks by Sree Sreenivasan, technology evangelist and Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. For more than eight years, Sreenivasan served as technology reporter for WABC-TV and WNBC-TV in NYC and occasionally on various ABC, NBC and MSNBC news programs. He now appears frequently on other channels, talking about technology. He has also written articles for the New York Times, Business Week, Rolling Stone, National Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes and Popular Science.
BTB #159: It’s 2010, Do You Know Where Your Copyright Is?
At the recent Tools of Change conference, Outsell lead analyst Ned May launched a report on “The State of Copyright in the Digital Age – What Is A Publisher to Do?” The number-crunching yields 370 billion “information sharing events” in a single year across the US, with a projected loss of $2 billion in licensing revenue.
Yet the biggest surprise, as May sees it, is what hasn’t changed since the last survey in 2005, when Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube were non-players. “E-mail is still number one.”
Best of BTB: OnCopyright 2010, Where Ideas Collide (Not People)
When it comes to typical conferences on the topic of copyright, four forces – technology, society, law, and the arts – interact to generate a charged debate. Conference organizer Bill Burger tells Chris Kenneally that OnCopyright 2010 will be different. For this “Collision of Ideas,” there will be a conversation rather than a confrontation.
“Many people get very charged up about copyright issues, and I think that leads to the stalemate that we’ve been witnessing,” says Burger. “It’s a little like what we see in Washington. People are unable to have a real conversation because they get their defenses up.”
Presented by Copyright Clearance Center, the all-day program comes to New York City’s Union League Club Wednesday, March 10, 2010, and features appearances by Google’s Bill Patry; author David Shields; and Australian video artist Pogo, among many others.
“Pogo is going to talk about his ideas around creativity and the art of appropriation,” Burger says, explaining that the artist creates challenging but entertaining videos (such as the one below) from well-known Hollywood films. “His work has the market effect of making people want to see the original work – it certainly has done that for me.”
Registration information for OnCopyright 2010 is here.
For all conference news, and live updates throughout the day’s programs, follow BeyondTheBook on Twitter at #oncopyright2010
