"Know Your Thanksgiving Etiquette"

Be sure to watch THIS before you eat today.

"21 Animals That Will Teach You How To Win Thanksgiving"

Send this helpful article to your upcoming Thanksgivukkah guests.

Digitizing Books Is Fair Use (Again)

Google Books is a useful research tool.  It permits you to scan the contents of millions of books that Google paid to have digitized.  If the book is in the public domain, you can see the entire text of the book.  If the book is still under copyright, you can still see the entire text (if the copyright owner has authorized it), or you can at least see the book's table of contents and "snippets" of some of the book's text.  Either way, Google directs users to places like Amazon where you can buy an authorized copy.

Google obtained many of its books through a deal with major university libraries, including the University of California and the University of Michigan.  The libraries loaned the books to Google, which scanned the books and returned the books to the libraries with a copy of the digital scan.  Google used the digital scans for its own Google Books tool, and the libraries used the scans as well.  The libraries set up a trust, the HathiTrust, to coordinate their use of the digital scans.

In 2005, The Authors Guild sued Google for copyright infringement.  Google's main defense was fair use: that the copyright laws permitted Google's limited copying, especially given the enormous educational benefit of being able to search millions of digitally scanned books.  In August 2012, EFF and several library associations filed an amicus brief supporting Google's fair use defense, which I helped to write.  In the meantime, The Authors Guild had also sued the HathiTrust for copyright infringement.  

 

 In October 2012, one district judge granted the HathiTrust summary judgment that its acts were fair use.  (For procedural reasons, the HathiTrust case got to summary judgment before the earlier filed Google case.)  Yesterday, the district judge assigned to the Google case agreed, and granted Google summary judgment of fair use.

 

The court's opinion relied on EFF's and the libraries' amicus brief in several places.  Citing our brief, the court said:

Google Books has become an essential research tool, as it helps librarians identify and find research sources, it makes the process of interlibrary lending more efficient, and it facilitates finding and checking citations.
    . . .
Google Books facilitates the identification and access of materials for remote and underfunded libraries that need to make efficient decisions as to which resources to procure for their own collections or through interlibrary loans.
    . . .
"Thanks to . . . [Google Books], librarians can identify and efficiently sift through possible research sources, amateur historians have access to a wealth of previously obscure material, and everyday readers and researchers can find books that were once buried in research library archives."

 The court thus concluded that Google's digital scanning was fair use:

In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits. It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders. It has become an invaluable research tool that permits students, teachers, librarians, and others to more efficiently identify and locate books. It has given scholars the ability, for the first time, to conduct full-text searches of tens of millions of books. It preserves books, in particular out-of-print and old books that have been forgotten in the bowels of libraries, and it gives them new life. It facilitates access to books for print-disabled and remote or underserved populations. It generates new audiences and creates new sources of income for authors and publishers. Indeed, all society benefits.

An excellent opinion by Judge Chin!  The Authors Guild has said they will appeal, and indeed the previous case against the HathiTrust is already on appeal.

Here are blog posts by EFF, Techdirt, Joe Mullin for Arstechnica, and Eric Goldman.

Cat Sushi!

Cat sushi.  That is all.

My Latest Amicus Brief: Viacom v. YouTube (Again)

Yesterday EFF filed the latest amicus brief I helped write.  The brief is in the long-running Viacom v. YouTube copyright litigation in New York, and is in the second appeal in the case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  My most recent previous post describes the case, Viacom's opening brief, and the amicus briefs supporting Viacom.    YouTube's response brief is here.

EFF's blog post about our amicus brief is here.  EFF's case page contains links to the seven other amicus brief filed yesterday that also support YouTube:

• Brief of Ebay, Inc., Facebook, Inc., IAC/Interactivecorp, Tumblr, Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.
• Brief of Computer & Communications Industry Association
• Brief of Anaheim Ballet et al.
• Brief of National Alliance for Media Art and Culture et al.
• Brief of National Consumers League et al.
• Brief of Consumers Electronics Association
• Brief of 31 Law Professors

Washington Post Article on the Copyright Term Extension Act

"For most of history, a great character or story or song has passed from its original creator into the public domain. Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and Beethoven are long dead, but Macbeth and Oliver Twist and the Fifth Symphony are part of our shared cultural heritage, free to be used or re-invented by anyone on the planet who is so inclined. But 15 years ago this Sunday, President Clinton signed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, which retroactively extended copyright protection. As a result, the great creative output of the 20th century, from Superman to "Gone With the Wind" to Gershwin’s "Rhapsody in Blue," were locked down for an extra 20 years."

 An interesting article by Timothy B. Lee in the Washington Post about a terrible law.   Hopefully, the Internet will be better mobilized in 2018.

Quiz: Who Said That?

Interesting quiz on NPR about some famous quotes, and who said them.  

I got most of them wrong.

"Video Stores Explained To Modern Kids"

Remember video rental stores?  If you have kids too young to remember them, watch this.

Truck Meets Bridge That Isn't As Tall As the Truck. Guess Who Wins?

"This Bridge is 11 Feet and 8 Inches Tall. All of These Trucks Are Just a LITTLE Taller."
I could watch this all day.

Two Books You Won't Want to Miss

"These two books contain the sum total of all human knowledge."  Or so they claim.

Halloween Is Coming Soon

Halloween is coming soon.  And your dog needs this costume.  Or maybe this costume.  If none of those are to your liking, there are lots more choices.

If you're a music fan, there's even a costume for you.

"50 People On The Most Intellectual Joke I Know"

Someone has collected a list of "the most intellectual jokes."  Some of the best ones:

A Photon checks into a hotel and the bellhop asks him if he has any luggage. The Photon replies “No, I’m traveling light.”

A German walks into a bar and asks for a martini. The bartender asks “dry?”, the German replies “nein, just one.”

The barman says, “We don’t serve time travelers in here.”
A time traveler walks into a bar.

Two women walk into a bar, and talk about the Bechdel test.

Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, Monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”

An engineer, an economist, and a philosopher are hiking through the hills of Scotland. On the top of a hill they see a black sheep. “What do you know,” the engineer remarks. “The sheep in Scotland are black.” “No, no”, protests the economist. “At least one of the sheep in Scotland is black.” The philosopher considers this a moment. “That’s not quite right. There’s at least one sheep which is black from one side.”

A Buddhist monk approaches a hotdog stand and says “make me one with everything”.
The vendor makes the hot dog and hands it to the Buddhist monk, who pays with a $20 bill. The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. “Excuse me, but where’s my change?” asks the Buddhist monk. The vendor replied, “Change must come from within.”

My Latest EFF Amicus Brief: Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank

On Friday EFF filed the latest amicus brief I helped write.  This brief supports Alice Corp.'s petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Federal Circuit decision invalidating Alice Corp.'s patents as impermissibly abstract under 35 U.S.C. 101.  The brief is similar to a previous brief we filed twelve days earlier in WildTangent v. Ultramercial -- see that post for an explanation.

The brief supporting Alice Corp. is somewhat unusual.  We agree with the Federal Circuit that it properly invalidated Alice Corp.'s patents.  However, because the state of the law is such a morass, we agree with Alice Corp. that the Supreme Court should hear the case and provide some guidance to the lower courts (although we ask the Court to affirm that the patents are invalid).  With these two related briefs, we ask that the Court review both Alice Corp.'s case and WildTangent's case.

How to Celebrate "Thanksgivukkah"

November 28, 2013 is the American Thanksgiving.  It is also the first night of Hanukkah.  This has never happened before in our lifetime, and will never happen again for 70,000 years.

So how to celebrate this double holiday?  Here's the solution: "How To Celebrate Thanksgivukkah, The Best Holiday Of All Time."  Don't miss the recipe for Pecan Pie Rugelah.

"17 Reasons Why The Kids Don't Like Facebook Anymore"

Usually when I post a list, I say which items on the list are the best ones.  But these are all great.

My Latest EFF Amicus Brief: WildTangent v. Ultramercial

Today EFF filed the latest amicus brief that I helped write.  Our brief supports WildTangent's request that the Supreme Court hear a lawsuit brought by Ultramercial LLC.  Ultramercial owns U.S. Patent No. 7,346,545. The patent claims, in essence, showing a consumer copyrighted video over the Internet, provided that the consumer is shown advertising first.  If that sounds like it shouldn't be patented, EFF agrees:  EFF's blog post about today's amicus brief is here.  That post contains links to many previous posts about the case, which has been going on for some time.

The district court had dismissed the lawsuit on the ground that the patent claims were impermissibly abstract under 35 U.S.C. §101.  That statute prohibits patents on abstract ideas.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court, but WildTangent asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.  The Supreme Court ordered the Federal Circuit to reconsider in view of a Supreme Court case interpreting §101, Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories.  The Federal Circuit issued a new opinion again reversing the district court.

In plain English:  The patent takes an abstract idea -- showing people copyrighted content if they watch an advertisement first -- and adds limitations such as "the Internet." The Federal Circuit's view is that adding "the Internet" to an abstract idea somehow makes it patentable.  Along with many other people, EFF disagrees.  We hope the Supreme Court will hear this case and invalidate this patent.

UPDATE:  Techdirt has this story on Public Knowledge's fine amicus brief also supporting the cert. petition.

Do You Enjoy TED Talks?

Do You Enjoy TED Talks?  Here is how they are made.

The 2013 Ig Nobel Prizes

The 2013 Ig Nobel Prizes are out. Best ones:

• The Medicine Prize, for "assessing the effect of listening to opera, on heart transplant patients who are mice"
• The Psychology Prize, for "confirming, by experiment, that people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive"
• The Physics Prize, for "for discovering that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond — if those people and that pond were on the moon." 
• Finally, the Peace Price, to the "president of Belarus, for making it illegal to applaud in public, AND to the Belarus State Police, for arresting a one-armed man for applauding."

Monty Python and The Holy Grail Trailers: Then and Now

Monty Python and The Holy Grail is a 1975 comedy classic.  Typical of that oddball comedy troupe, the 1975 trailer for the movie was, shall we say, a bit strange.

Someone has now created a 2013 "modern" trailer for the movie.  As Monty Python's Eric Idle tweeted, "it's really good."

How Do You Know When You're Middle-Aged?

"How Do You Know When You're Middle-Aged?"
Sample answer: "You struggle with new technology such as the heavy plough and the longbow."