CopyNight Washington DC

DC CopyNight Is Tonight (Tuesday, 9/23) at 6:20 PM at Teaism

Hey everyone,
Just a reminder that we're meeting up at Teaism tonight for some collective navel-gazing: what has the copyfight accomplished over the last five years? Where do we go from here?
CopyNight DC
6:20 PM, Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
Teaism - 400 8th St. NW (Chinatown or Archives Metro)
See you there,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

Next DC CopyNight Is Tuesday, September 23rd at Teaism

Hi CopyNighters,
And we're back. I'd like to devote this month's CopyNight to a question:
Whither the copyfight?
The last year has seen Lawrence Lessig shift his work from copyright policy to Congressional corruption; copyright blogger William Patry ended his work because current copyright law "is too depressing"; the number of active CopyNights groups dwindled from around 15 to fewer than 5.
What has the copyfight accomplished over the last five years? Where do we go from here? Sobering questions, but they should be asked. No worries about CopyNight DC though--we're not closing up shop anytime soon.
CopyNight DC
6:20 PM, Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
Teaism - 400 8th St. NW (Chinatown or Archives Metro)
See you next week,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

No CopyNight Tomorrow

Hi CopyNighters,
We had such a successful CopyNight earlier this month at ALA (thanks again!) that I think can sleep the rest of August.
We'll be back to our regular schedule in September with something politically minded.
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

CopyNight Is Tuesday (8/5) at 6:30 PM at ALA

Hi CopyNighters,
Just a quick reminder that CopyNight meets this Tuesday at the American Library Association's DC office.
CopyNight @ ALA
6:30 PM, Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
American Library Association - 1615 New Hampshire Ave. NW (Dupont Circle Metro)
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/143958584
RSVP'ing for the event is suggested and, you know, good manners. It'll help the ALA know how much food to order.
We're discussing the Georgia State copyright lawsuit and other current copyright news and issues.
http://librarycopyright.net/wordpress/?p=92
Note about the ALA office:
Since, it's after 5, the outer door to the building will be locked. We'll have someone watching the door until 6:45 PM and after that you can call 202.628.8410 to be let inside (this number will also be posted on the door).
See you there,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

No CopyNight Tomorrow, ALA Hosts on Tuesday, August 5th

Hey everyone,
Tomorrow is the 4th Tuesday of the month but there's no CopyNight. Instead, the DC office of the American Library Association has volunteered to host a CopyNight meeting and we'll be there on Tuesday, August 5th.
CopyNight @ ALA
6:30 PM, Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
American Library Association - 1615 New Hampshire Ave. NW (Dupont Circle Metro)
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/143958584
More details coming soon, but if you're going to attend please RSVP on the Eventbrite page so ALA knows how many to expect.
Thanks again to everyone at ALA for this opportunity.
I hope to see you in two weeks!
More soon,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

DC CopyNight Is Tonight (Tuesday, 6/24) at 6:30 PM at Public Knowledge

Hey everyone,
You remembered to RSVP for tonight's CopyNight, right?
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/129941659
Signing up for the event will help Public Knowledge know how much food to order and they'll know to be on the lookout for you downstairs.
CopyNight @ Public Knowledge
6:30 PM, Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Suite 650, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW (Corner of Connecticut and T St., Dupont Circle Metro)
Map: http://tinyurl.com/2rtyct
PK's building will be locked down after 6 PM but there will be a lookout downstairs opening the door from 6:20 PM to 6:40 PM. After that, give the Public Knowledge office (202.518.0020) a call and they'll come let you in.
Again, I won't be there this month and CopyNighter Carey Lening has hosting duties. See you next month, have a good one at this one.
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org
P.S. Adam Marcus, another regular CopyNight member, recently wrote a paper for the Future of Music Coalition discussing how independent musicians will be affected by the FCC's payola settlements with the four major broadcasters. Check it out:
http://futureofmusic.org/research/payolaeducationguide.cfm

Next DC CopyNight Is Tuesday, June 24th at Public Knowledge

Hi folks,
...and we're back, after some radio silence.
Did you miss CopyNight? How did you cope in its absence? Did you discover eHarmony? Clean up your mp3 tags? Start publishing your childhood diaries under a Creative Commons license? I urge you to abandon your newfound hobbies and come back to CopyNight this Tuesday.
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CopyNight DC at Public Knowledge
Ste. 650, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW (Dupont Circle Metro)
6:30 PM, Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Please RSVP at Eventbrite:
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/129941659
Public Knowledge will provide pizza and beer. Let them know if you're coming so they can order appropriately. If you want to donate a six-pack to the cause, you'll find a liquor store at Florida and T St. NW.
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I'll be out of town for this meeting so longtime CopyNighter Carey Lening will lead off the conversation. The topics on the table include 1) the implications in the findings of a University of Washington investigation into P2P copyright enforcement policies and 2) technological collusion between the MPAA and cable companies that could lead to a backdoor Broadcast Flag.
More information about these topics below.
Thanks again to Alex and Sherwin and everyone else at OK for hosting us.
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org
P.S. PK's building will be locked down after 6 PM but there will be a lookout downstairs opening the door until 6:40 PM. After that, give the Public Knowledge office (202.518.0020) a call and they'll come let you in.
....
1. The University of Washington Study on investigating P2P copyright enforcement policies:
http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/
Practically any Internet user can be framed for copyright infringement today.
By profiling copyright enforcement in the popular BitTorrent file sharing system, we were able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for computers at the University of Washington that never downloaded nor shared any content whatsoever.
Further, we were able to remotely generate complaints for nonsense devices including several printers and a (non-NAT) wireless access point. Our results demonstrate several simple techniques that a malicious user could use to frame arbitrary network endpoints.
Even without being explicitly framed, innocent users may still receive complaints.
Because of the inconclusive techniques used to identify infringing BitTorrent users, users may receive DMCA complaints even if they have not been explicitly framed by a malicious user and even if they have never used P2P software!
Software packages designed to preserve the privacy of P2P users are not completely effective.
To avoid DMCA complaints today, many privacy conscious users employ IP blacklisting software designed to avoid communication with monitoring and enforcement agencies. We find that this software often fails to identify many likely monitoring agents, but we also discover that these agents exhibit characteristics that make distinguishing them straightforward.
2. MPAA proposed to waive FCC's ruling against Selectable Output control devices:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1625
On May 9, the MPAA filed a petition to waive the FCC's ruling against selectable output control (SOC) (PDF). The MPAA and its studio constituents seek to allow multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) � that is, cable companies � the power to turn off the digital and analog outputs on your devices, as they choose. This includes not only cable boxes, but also anything connected to your cable signal, such as your Tivo, your Slingbox, or even a TV using CableCARD.
...
In 2004, the FCC ruled that no one may "embed data � so as to prevent its output through any analog or digital output" (18 FCC Rcd. 20885, codified as 47 CFR � 76.1903). That order agreed with public interest advocates that there were already good ways for MVPDs to protect their copyrights by shutting off "compromised" outputs ... However, it opined that selectable output control went one step too far. MVPDs could not embed any information signaling that a device must wholly shut down an output type. In addition, the FCC also recognized that selectable output control would block certain legal fair use rights, such as time-shifting.

----------------------
a
There's a lot of cross-over in this subject with the Broadcast Flag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag), and its a rather big deal. For example, if legislation were to pass on the SOCs, it would make all the televisions recently purchased to comply with the Feb. 2009 DTV transition obsolete.

No CopyNight Tomorrow

Hi everyone,
Firstly, a special thanks to Adam Marcus for organizing last month's CopyNight. Thanks Adam.
Normally we'd have CopyNight tomorrow as it is the fourth Tuesday of the month. I'm postponing the event until early May. I'm coordinating a speaker coming in from out of town and it just didn't gel for tomorrow.
I'll be in touch soon about the May event when the details are confirmed.
If you would like to discuss copyright policy this week, here are two events of interest:
1) It's short notice, but the folks at the Tech Liberation Front blog (http://techliberation.com/) have a happy hour tonight. The libertarian-minded TLF authors frequently address intellectual property issues and other topics like network neutrality, privacy, and censorship.
I should mention this event is also a fundraiser for the Jefferson 1. http://freethejefferson1.wordpress.com/faq/
Alcohol Liberation Front
5:30 - 7:30 PM, Monday, April 21
Science Club - 1136 19th St. NW (Farragut North Metro)
2) Thursday morning, The Institute for Policy Innovation has its Third Annual World Intellectual Property Day Event.
The panels include representatives from the RIAA, MPAA, and WIPO.
More details here:
http://techliberation.com/2008/04/15/ipis-ip-day/
See you soon,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

DC CopyNight Is Tonight (Tuesday, 3/25) at 6:20 PM at Teaism

Hi CopyNighters,
Just a reminder that tonight is CopyNight.
CopyNight DC
6:20 PM, Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
Teaism - 400 8th St. NW (Chinatown or Archives Metro)
Adam Marcus will be hosting as I am out of town. He will have signs denoting the table.
Again, tonight's discussion topic, from Adam:
This month's CopyNight will discuss issues raised in the book "The Pirate's Dilemma" by Matt Mason.
Here's the general premise: Pirates sail uncharted waters where traditional rules don't apply. As a result, they offer great ways to service the public's best interests. How people, corporations, and governments react to these changes is one of the most important economic and cultural questions of the 21st century. The Web site for the book is http://thepiratesdilemma.com (includes chapter 1 for free).
Here's a link to a TV interview the author did: http://www.shadowtv.com/redirect/notification.jsp?vid=3f6776131bd3ecc70ee08b17bcf0306d
...
Cheers,
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

Next DC CopyNight Is Tuesday, March 25th at Teaism

Hi everyone,
CopyNight regular Adam Marcus will be heading up this month's meeting. I hope you make it out next Tuesday.
CopyNight DC
6:20 PM, Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
Teaism - 400 8th St. NW (Chinatown or Archives Metro)
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/453562/
From Adam:
This month's CopyNight will discuss issues raised in the book "The Pirate's Dilemma" by Matt Mason. Here's the general premise: Pirates sail uncharted waters where traditional rules don't apply. As a result, they offer great ways to service the public's best interests. How people, corporations, and governments react to these changes is one of the most important economic and cultural questions of the 21st century. The Web site for the book is http://thepiratesdilemma.com (includes chapter 1 for free). Here's a link to a TV interview the author did: http://www.shadowtv.com/redirect/notification.jsp?vid=3f6776131bd3ecc70ee08b17bcf0306d
...
A few notes:
- Teaism is an all ages venue. No worries, it serves beer, if you dig beer.
- Adam will have a CopyNight sign on the table so look out for that if it's your first time coming.
Thanks, see you in April.
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org

A Request and Some Interesting Links

Hi CopyNighters,
Could I ask a favor of someone? I'm out of town the fourth Tuesday of this month. Is there someone on the mailing list who would be willing to pinch hit for me and organize this month's CopyNight?
I would work with that person to pick a place, but I would ask that they pick a topic and at the meeting play greeter, host, and umpire.
...
Secondly, some links of note. At February's CopyNight we discussed Chris Anderson's piece on "Free" though none of us had read it yet.
Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free
Excerpt:
"Once a marketing gimmick, free has emerged as a full-fledged economy. Offering free music proved successful for Radiohead, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and a swarm of other bands on MySpace that grasped the audience-building merits of zero. The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games. Virtually everything Google does is free to consumers, from Gmail to Picasa to GOOG-411.
"The rise of "freeconomics" is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web. Just as Moore's law dictates that a unit of processing power halves in price every 18 months, the price of bandwidth and storage is dropping even faster. Which is to say, the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero."
...
I came across this piece by Kevin Kelly and I'm still processing it. It touches on other subjects we discussed last month, e.g. gift economies and other alternative business models.
1,000 True Fans
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php
Excerpt:
"The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches.
"But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices. Unless artists become a large aggregator of other artist's works, the long tail offers no path out of the quiet doldrums of minuscule sales.
"Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?
"One solution is to find 1,000 True Fans."
...
Let me know if you're willing to host this month's CopyNight.
Joseph Price
dc@copynight.org