Given my interest in copyright and fair use in fandom, it was probably inevitable that I would write something about the new guidelines for Star Trek fan filmmakers that CBS and Paramount published recently. My post about it is up on
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Browsing Tumblr last night, I came across my first image takedown noticeNow, this might not be a sign of doom. Tumblr has always had a route by which you could report unauthorized use of copyrighted work. But in two years on the site, I have never before seen an image removed icon -- for a second I thought it was a remote host error or something, ( Read more... )

I don't usually pay much attention to E3 or other events like it -- I figure I'll get my information from the write-ups after the fact. But we were promised information about Dragon Age 3, so I've been keeping an eye on the date, and then my Tumblr dashboard exploded in liveblogs and commentary for the various press conferences, so I ended up ( Read more... )

A full day at FogCon! Getting down the notes quickly while it's still in my head...

( This got long. )

Copyright is the place where my interests as a fan and as a librarian are most likely to collide, so it's no surprise that I came out of the two talks on the subject I attended this afternoon energized and excited ( Read more... )

It appears that Gabaldon has, after posting a fauxpology (the classic "I'm sorry if anyone's feelings were hurt" response), deleted all her posts on the subject. Couldn't stand the heat? Some attempt to save face? Since the posts are gone, and she hasn't replaced them with a statement on their removal, we'll probably never know why. But I hope she ( Read more... )

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that GRRM has now gotten involved in this lastest fanfic discussion, since he's voiced loud opposition to fanfiction in the past, and Diana Gabaldon was published in the last collection he edited. (Which, possibly ironically, is the book I'm reading right now. Just for the cherry on the "authors who are connected ( Read more... )

Or any other electronic book reader, as long as the issues of DRM and right of first sale and all the other copyright/ownership issues relating to ebooks are this unsettled:

Amazon deletes bought-and-paid for books from Kindles.

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously ( Read more... )

Some of you may have heard that the Author's Guild sued Amazon over the text-to-speech capability of the new Kindle, claiming that this feature infringes on their right to sell the rights to audio books. I could link you to any number of articles and blog posts explaining why this charge is clearly ridiculous, but Neil Gaiman (as usual) does the ( Read more... )

Let me show you them ( Read more... )