Tag: copyright

ChiZine Publications to Publish Unauthorized James Bond Anthology

CZP LogoSince this is a press release I’m going to reprint the whole thing here. The original is @ ChiZinePub.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TORONTO, Ontario (January 19, 2015) — Independent Toronto publisher ChiZine Publications announces they will be publishing a new anthology of short stories featuring James Bond now that Ian Fleming’s work has entered the public domain in Canada. The anthology, titled Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond, will be edited by Toronto authors Madeline Ashby (vN, iD; Company Town) and David Nickle (Knife Fight and Other Struggles,The ’Geisters, Eutopia).

“We want to feature original, transformative stories set in the world of Secret Agent 007,” says Nickle. “We’re hoping our contributors will combine the guilty-pleasure excitement of the vintage Fleming experience with a modern critique of it.”

“This is an opportunity to comment on the Bond universe from within it,” adds Ashby. “We’re specifically looking for writers and stories that would make Fleming roll in his grave.”

Since only Fleming’s Bond novels have entered the public domain, the stories won’t reference the films, subsequent novels written by others, or any media tie-ins. However, within Fleming’s works are well-known villains Rosa Klebb, Oddjob, Dr. No, SMERSH, Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE. Familiar allies include Moneypenny, Honey Rider, Pussy Galore, Felix Leiter and Quarrel. The story authors will be able to call on any of these characters and organizations along with the many others that have appeared in Fleming’s stories.

Authors who have confirmed their appearance in Licence Expired include:

  • Tony Burgess
  • Corey Redekop
  • Robert J. Wiersema
  • Laird Barron
  • Nathan Ballingrud
  • Kelly Robson
  • A.M. Dellamonica
  • Ian Rogers

Licence Expired is scheduled to be published in November 2015.

Contact

Sandra Kasturi, Co-Publisher
ChiZine Publications
www.chizinepub.com
sandra@chizinepub.com

About ChiZine Publications

ChiZine Publications (CZP) is British Fantasy Award-winning and three-time World Fantasy Award-nominated independent publisher of surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction hand-picked by co-publishers Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, Bram Stoker Award-winning editors.

About the Editors

David Nickle is a journalist, co-editor of the forthcoming Exile Book of New Canadian Noir (with Claude Lalumière), the author of the cold-war novel of psychic espionageRasputin’s Bastards and the eugenics horror novel, Eutopia. Madeline Ashby is a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, a futurist, and the author of the Machine Dynasty series of science fiction novels, as well as Company Town, forthcoming from Tor Books. They live together in Toronto.

What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?

Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1958

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The films Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Gigi, the books Things Fall Apart, Our Man in Havana, and The Once and Future King, great music, and more. . .

Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1958 would enter the public domain on January 1, 2015, where they would be “free as the air to common use.” Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2054.1 And no published works will enter our public domain until 2019. The laws in other countries are different—thousands of works are entering the public domain in Canada and the EU on January 1.

Get the full list @ Center for the Study of the Public Domain.

Is it Copyrighted? Can I Use it?

Copyright! Complicated, confusing, and not clear-cut. What does a librarian need to know? Michael and Laura will present scenarios to discuss, as we all shine a light on the subject and try to figure out what a librarian needs to do.

Presented by Michael Sauers and Laura Johnson, Nebraska Library Commission
Nebraska Library Association Annual Conference
South Sioux City, NE
10 October 2014

Was CCC formed “at the suggestion of Congress”?

copyright-clearance-center_logo_webI’ve had several problems with the CCC over the years, and this isn’t helping…

As I was reading Roy Kaufmann’s testimony on behalf of the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at the recent Congressional hearing on “Copyright Issues in Education and for the Visually Impaired,” I was struck by CCC’s boilerplate statement that it “was created at the suggestion of Congress in order to help clear photocopy permissions.”  You can find this in other places.  For example, CCC claimed in its response to a 2012 “Notice of Inquiry Concerning Orphan Works and Mass Digitization” that “CCC was created at the suggestion of Congress in the legislative history of the Copyright Act of 1976.”  I haven’t been able to pin down the earliest use of this assertion, but it appears to date from the late 1980s.

It is easy to understand why CCC would want to claim it has a Congressional mandate for its programs.  But is the claim accurate?  Did Congress suggest that CCC be created?

The answer is unequivocally “no.”  A Congressional committee did suggest that it thought a voluntary licensing scheme would be desirable, but it never suggested that CCC was the form that such a scheme should take.

Read the full article @ Library Law Blog.

Anti-Piracy Group Refuses bait, DRM Breaker Goes to Police

DRMHenrik Anderson told TorrentFreak that in order to force his government’s hand on laws which allow him to copy DVDs for his own personal use, but forbid him to remove the DRM in order to do so, he decided to turn himself in.

Henrik informed the Danish anti-piracy outfit Antipiratgruppen that he had broken the DRM on more than one hundred legally-purchased DVD movies and TV shows for use on his home media center, an act forbidden – but seemingly also allowed – underDanish laws, both detailed below;

Read the full post @ Torrent Freak.

“The Letter” Is Still The Best Story To Explain Why Copyright Monopoly Must Be Reduced

Texture: Envelope - OpenThat letter had four important characteristics that each embodied vital civil liberties.

That letter, first of all, was anonymous. Everybody had the right to send an anonymous message to somebody. You could identify yourself on the inside of the message, for only the recipient to know, on the envelope, for the postal services to know, or not at all. Or you could write a totally bogus name, organization, and address as the sender of your message, and that was okay, too. Not just okay, it was even fairly common.

Second, it was secret in transit. When we talk of letters being opened and inspected routinely, the thoughts go to scenes of the East German Stasi – the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the East German National Security Agency (yes, that’s how Stasi’s name translates). Letters being opened and inspected? Seriously? You had to be the primary suspect of an extremely grave crime for that to take place.

Third, the mailman was never ever held responsible for the contents of the letters being carried. The thought was ridiculous. They were not allowed to look at the messages in the first place, so it was unthinkable that they’d be held accountable for what they dutifully delivered.

Fourth, the letter was untracked. Nobody had the means – nor indeed the capability – to map who was communicating with whom.

All of these characteristics, which all embed vital civil liberties, have been lost in the transition to digital at the insistence of the copyright industry – so that they, as a third-party, can prevent people from sending letters with a content they just don’t like to see sent, for business reasons of theirs.

Read the full article @ TorrentFreak.

Harper Collins starts watermarking eBooks

harper_logo with text - high resThis week HarperCollins and anti-piracy company Digimarc announced the debut of a new ebook watermarking system to enable the identification of leak points in the company’s supply chain. TorrentFreak caught up with the publisher to learn about its new anti-piracy solution and its overall anti-piracy strategy…

Called Guardian Watermarking for Publishing, the system embeds all but invisible markers into ebooks. Then, Digimarc trawls the web looking for leaked content containing the watermarks. Once found, the anti-piracy company reports the unique identifiers back to Harpercollins who can match them against their own transaction records. This enables the company to identify the source of that material from wherever it occurred in the company’s supply chain.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, HarperCollins said that tracking these pre-consumer leaks provides intelligence to prevent them happening again.

“We have had leaks in the past in the final stages of our supply chain – via isolated instances of early releases by retailers. We therefore intend to be able to track these potential leaks in the future – especially now that our digital supply chain extends to many partners in many markets,” a spokesperson said.

“[The system] empowers us to go back to the source of the problem (ie identify the source) and find solutions to prevent this from happening in the future.”

Read the full article @ Torrent Freak.