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By David Rothman

Edwards' copyright noticeErnie Miller, a fellow for the Information Policy Project at Yale Law School, has joined me in wondering why UNC Prof. John Edwards’ Web site is prohibiting derivative works from the Professor’s podcasts. Ernie plans to follow through with a phone call, and I’ll await his findings with interest. Ideally, while Prof. Edwards or an assistant is talking to Ernie, the world can also learn where the Professor stands on the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA. So far Prof. Edwards has been resolutely mute.

I’m really rooting for Prof. Edwards to do The Right Thing and take a pro-Net, pro-education, pro-library stand on copyright matters in addition to changing the podcast-related copyright notice on his OneAmerica site. None other than the Economist has called for U.S. copyright terms to be scaled back to 14 years–and renewable just once. I’d be happy if Prof. Edwards would at least advocate the repeal or heavy mitigation of Bono. As a poverty-fighter and former member of a copyright-related Senate committee, the Democratic Party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate should care about copyright and speak up.

Meanwhile, in reply to another query from me, Ernie says the Web site of the UNC Law School is “probably” a copyright infringer. The school is using full texts of copyrighted newspaper clips to promote Edwards’ anti-poverty center at UNC–without apparently having obtained the explicitedly required permissions. Look, my idea here isn’t to get UNC sued by the Durham and Raleigh dailies, but rather to show why Edwards and his law school should give a squat about copyright, not just for UNC’s use but also with the interests of the poor in mind.




 
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