copy prerogative

An interesting bit of news: Copyright and blogs.

A Dutch team of lawyers investigated the policies of blog providers regarding copyright claims. They opened an account under a fictitious name with seven different blog providers, and placed a copy of the book 'The Little White Bird', on it. Then, posing as a fictitious lawyer working for another - non-existing - firm, they sent each of the blog providers a letter claiming copyright infringement and demanding the post to be removed.

Five of the seven blog providers, Web-log.nl, Netlog.com, Hyves, WaarBenJij.Nu and MySpace, remove the posting and even the entire account, without checking if there is any legitimacy to the claim. Blogger.com does not comply and refers to the American legislation for taking blog posts offline, which the Dutch investigators do not further look into, because they are primarily interested in the workings of the Dutch legislation. Only Punt.nl squarely protects its blogger by stating they refuse to take any postings offline without a direct court order.

None of the parties discover that because the writer has passed away in 1937, his works have been copyright-free since 2008.

Comments

  1. That's an interesting news. Generally people are confused as which rule to follow butt he best would be to avoid copying... :-)

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  2. That is both disturbing and enlightening.

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  3. @KOA : yes, isn't it?

    @Cuckoo : but then how would all those wonderful artworks get spread and be read by people who can't afford to buy all they want?

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  4. Thyme, thanks for your kind thought. The devastating earthquake has been tonight in Central Italy in the Abruzzo region: Piedmont region, which is in the North of Italy, is luckily safe. It's a terrible tragedy: at least 92 people dead, for the time being. And the situation is extremely serious.

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  5. @Pietro : I read thousands of people are homeless. I am glad you in Torino are safe but yes, it is terrible.

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  6. Thanks for the comment on twitter. Enjoyed your blog. I follow:: http://herby-mysecondtrial.blogspot.com/
    Thought you might enjoy it also.. Let me know

    Joe Todd at MQT

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  7. That's right, Thyme: there are 17.000 homeless people. And now the victims are more than 200. Moreover, there are still earth tremors.

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  8. Copyright is a strongly debated issue. 50 years is too long a period.
    Rabindranath Tagore's works were not available to public for a long time, now since the period is over we are able to access them easily.

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  9. I guess we picked the right blog server. I've been very happy with blogger thus far. Very interesting post, thyme.

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  10. Fear. It works. So now we know who doesn't want any hassle. I guess Blogger takes the view if it's that important to you, go the whole road. I think I prefer that attitude than the more sheepish one.

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