The Supreme Court yesterday issued a ruling on the Golan copyright case which we’ve discussed here a few times before. The case involved whether works that had previously been within the public domain in the USA could be taken back out of it in order to comply with the Berne Convention international copyright treaty. Disappointingly, the court ruled that Congress could indeed remove the works from the public domain—Congress did have the power to retroactively extend copyright on these works in order to bring the US into treaty compliance. The court rejected the idea that the First Amendment...

Lest we thought that SOPA was dead and buried, a couple of further developments today have shown that hope is premature. Bill sponsor Lamar Smith is moving ahead with plans to continue marking the bill up and bring it back to the House agenda in February. The DNS blocking provision will be removed from the bill (for now—that doesn’t keep them from trying to add it back after the furor has died down), but it still contains a number of other provisions that could prove harmful to the freedom that is the lifeblood of the Internet. Meanwhile, former Senator...

A number of websites are going dark tomorrow to protest the SOPA legislation that could impose harsh restrictions upon the Internet. These sites include Mozilla, reddit for 12 hours, and Wikipedia for a full 24 hours. Google will also place a SOPA-related link on its homepage. Wales explained that the Wikipedia blackout comes as a result of feedback from the Wikipedia community, Not everybody is sanguine about the blackout. On just-launched Silicon Valley news site Pando Daily, Paul Carr writes in agreement with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo’s tweet calling the decision “foolish”. Carr blasts Wales for “[making] a...

Wikipedia isn’t the only site considering a public demonstration of the evils of SOPA. Scribd has gone ahead and done it. Scribd has added a script to its page that blanks out documents word by word before users’ eyes, followed by a pop-up explaining what’s happening and why we should all be concerned about SOPA. This analysis of why SOPA is unconstitutional is cited as an example. (At least, in theory. It didn’t work on my computer, nor on those of some others who posted comments on Scribd’s post.) That puts me in mind of a tool I...

An interesting triad of articles has appeared over the last few days, talking about Congress’s deliberations over SOPA. The article that started it all, by musician and blogger Joshua Kopstein, puts into its title a sentiment with which a lot of people on the Internet can readily agree: “Dear Congress, It’s No Longer OK to Not Know How the Internet Works.” Kopstein calls members of Congress out for not bothering or apparently even desiring to understand the impact that their legislation could have before passing it. A couple of representatives pooh-poohed security concerns that had been brought up about...

In a follow-up to a story I mentioned several days ago, the New York Times has coverage of the new rules propositions for allowing electronic device use on the House floor. It seem these propositions will just formalize the way that people have already been using their devices—rules or not, Representatives and Senators are often seen furtively whipping out their gadgets to check messages. The new rules are not meant to allow let congressmen listen to music or play games, though undoubtedly some will find less serious uses for the devices. The intent, [Brendan...

A few days ago I mentioned the uses that a couple of Supreme Court Justices were making of e-readers or iPads. It turns out that this is not the only place in government where the electronic devices might be used—but some existing rules of conduct might have to be cleared out of the way first. Politico reports on the drive to modernize technological aspects of Congress, whose facilities are still somewhat technologically backward. The iPad has been finding favor with representatives, particularly Republican ones. Indeed, when Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) got one of the first...

Recent days have brought both bad news and good news out of Capitol Hill on the intellectual property front. In the bad news, Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA), chair of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, whom we’ve mentioned many times here on TeleRead for his enlightened stance on consumers’ digital rights, lost his bid for re-election. Hopefully there will be other congressmen who share Boucher’s points of view. But there is also some unexpectedly good news. The FTC has appointed its first ever Chief Technologist, and they could not possibly have chosen a better man...

For all the effort publishers, reviewers and writers put on the latest best-selling novel, the facts remain that many of us read about (and want) lots of other non-fiction topics.  From history to gardening and even science, there’s a whole world to discover and download to our e-reader of choice.  However, today’s fragmented marketplace and multiple methods of searching can leave the average user searching multiple sites and web pages looking for new titles to download. WorldCat can help and there are a few other index sites as well, but today I thought it would be a great time to introduce...

The Apple iPad will not kill the Kindle. In this installment of my Kindle shakedown series, I contend that the ideal ereader should not become a multipurpose device like the forthcoming iPad, or the HP Slate, or whatever comes next. It should instead become a fully dual-purpose device, with two screens dedicated for the two purposes of reading and writing. Some say the multipurpose iPad will kill the single-purpose Kindle. I disagree. This year I have discovered the joy of single-purpose devices. Most computers are multipurpose devices, designed to do everything but not always in the best way. I easily prefer...

Earlier this month, as a guest writer on Charlie Stross’s blog, Elizabeth Bear wrote an essay about “the future of web publishing,” centering around the “hyperfiction environment” called Shadow Unit in which she takes part. I couldn’t help but be amused by the subject of the post. You see, history repeats itself. Bear et al may very well be right about being part of the “future” of Internet publishing—but in the format in which they are writing, they have also stumbled squarely onto its past. To note, I do not mean this in any derogatory sense. Though I have not read...