RTFA: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mickey22-200…

Brand experts reckon his value to today’s Walt Disney Co. empire at more than $3 billion. Acts of Congress have extended Mickey’s copyright so long that they provoked a Supreme Court challenge, making Mickey the ultimate symbol of intellectual property.

All signs pointed to a Hollywood ending with Disney and Mickey Mouse living happily ever after — at least until a grumpy former employee looked closely at fine print long forgotten in company archives.

Film credits from the 1920s revealed imprecision in copyright claims that some experts say could invalidate Disney’s long-held copyright, though a Disney lawyer dismissed that idea as “frivolous.”

Although studio executives are not yet hurling themselves from the parapets of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, the unexpected discovery raises an intriguing question: Is it possible that Mickey Mouse now belongs to the world — and that his likeness is usable by anybody for anything?

For the record, any knock-offs would have to make clear that they did not come from Disney, or else risk violating the separate laws that protect trademarks. And the potentially free Mickey is not the most current or familiar version of the famous mouse.

Copyright questions apply to an older incarnation, a rendition of Mickey still recognizable but slightly different. Original Mickey, the star of the first synchronized sound cartoon, “Steamboat Willie,” and other early classics, had longer arms, smaller ears and a more pointy nose.

Long story short, the copyright on Steamboat Willy reads:

A Walt Disney Comic
By Ub Iwerks
Recorded by Cinephone Powers System
Copyright MCMXXIX

…when it should read something more like “A Walt Disney Comic Copyright MCMXXIX” for it to be an unambiguous identification of the owner of the copyright. Instead, it is easy to question: does Ub Iwerks own Mickey? Does Cinephone Powers System? …or does that statement somehow imply that Walt Disney owns it?

What is “Walt Disney Comic” anyway? …is that sortof like “Columbia Pictures“? More to the point, what is Walt Disney? …a corporation? Is “Walt Disney Comic” the intended name of the owner of the copyright? What kind of legal entity is Walt Disney Comic? …or is Comic just something that “Walt Disney” does?

I’m obviously no legal scholar, so perhaps someone can answer these questions… or at least explain what the right questions are. Still, this is a really interesting development.

RTFA: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UClIdjK6WB4

Graphic violence: video of David Snyder, attacked by a police officer

It has been confirmed by a representative from WNDU-TV that the above video qualifies as “fair use.” This is really great news. The biggest problem with fair use is that it’s not consistently enforced. Even the copyright office bitches out of accountability.

So, since the United States crawls along at the inexorably slow snail’s pace of precedent, I present for your litigious inspection the opinion of Scott Hums, Web Directory at WDNU:

…I have no problem with people uploading parts of the video. Completely ignoring the legal argument, it’s the best for both parties. The information is spread and the topic is discussed without “giving away” the power of the full version of the video. Using 20 or 30 seconds is perfectly fine and I wished everyone did that.

The problem comes from people thinking they have a right to just show the whole or nearly whole video. That’s what we are fighting. There’s no reason anyone has to upload the whole thing when we are offering it for free to anyone who follows a link. All they are doing is encouraging us to never put this material on the internet in the first place, which is something that is obviously not good for everyone involved.

“Fair use” is about having access to material to make further commentary without damaging the marketability of the copyright holder. That’s a concept that most YouTube users fail to understand from my recent experience with this video.

Does that move things forward at all? A little…

RTFA: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/rational_r…

Creation Science Evangelism has submitted many copyright violations on youtube in the past few days. The owner of the ministries is Kent Hovind who over the last 20 years has been seen as a public liar. He has held many lectures where he spends hours making people more ignorant as to how evolution works. He now sits in a jail cell for having refused to pay $840,000 in taxes. His defense the whole time was that his money belonged to God and nobody else.
He has stated that none of his material is copyrighted, and so far all of the instances of videos that have been pulled would have fallen within the boundaries of fair use.

Short version: Creation Science Evangelism uses false copyright notices to trick YouTube into deleting certain accounts.

RTFA: http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?…

“Much of the unprecedented economic growth of the past 10 years can actually be credited to the doctrine of fair use, as the Internet itself depends on the ability to use content in a limited and nonlicensed manner,” CCIA president and CEO Ed Black said in a statement. “To stay on the edge of innovation and productivity, we must keep fair use as one of the cornerstones for creativity, innovation, and, as today’s study indicates, an engine for growth for our country.”

By one measure — “value added,” which the report defines as “an industry’s gross output minus its purchased intermediate inputs” — the fair use economy is greater than the copyright economy.

Recent studies indicate that the value added to the U.S. economy by copyright industries amounts to $1.3 trillion, said Black. The value added to the U.S. economy by the fair use amounts to $2.2 trillion.

The fair use economy’s “value added” is thus almost 70% larger than that of the copyright industries.

The $4.5 trillion in annual revenue attributable to fair use represents a 31% increase since 2002, according to the report, which claims that fair use industries are responsible for 18% of U.S. economic growth and almost 11 million American jobs.

Kindof like how I just pasted a chunk of this article on RTFA.