Money is the Dividing Line, pt. II
Just finished reading a great interview over at Dispatches from Blogistan with Cory Doctorow, lead contributor over at webtrend compass Boing Boing, where Cory speaks of intellectual properties and the current state of laws around it. In one part of the interview, he digs into the faux/not-so-faux DMCA takedown vs. Machinima site RPGFilms.net from last year (previous blog postings here, here and here). He reveals some of the particulars in the interchange between himself and RIAA Head of Communications Jenni Engrebretsen (typo'ed in the interview as Jenny Angstrom). When pushed on the question of "Would you bring a suit against a machinima site?" her final reply--after two months--was a "No Comment" statement. Obviously, this is their default answer: giving themselves the option to pursue action if they felt it was justified.
This ropes back into the previous blog in Revver's hesitation to allow for Machinima posted to their site. Just as the RIAA is keeping their options open, Revver is covering their collective asses. This isn't wrong--but it fortifies the need for clarification, as well as CHANGE into our current views & laws of IP rights (cue the looping WAV of the "Creative Commons" theme). My previous presentations at Prof. Beth Noveck's Copyright, Innovation and the Net class, as well at Harvard Law's Signal2Noise event last year, explored the number of areas of Machinima IP that need addressing.
Update: TheDave sends along word that ultimately Revver was open to posting his films on their site--so long as he could provide proof from EA/DICE that the Machinima was his to upload (and ultimately cash-in on). Right.
Update 2: RPGFilms.net has since gone offline and the URL is now a forward to game content site FileFront.
This ropes back into the previous blog in Revver's hesitation to allow for Machinima posted to their site. Just as the RIAA is keeping their options open, Revver is covering their collective asses. This isn't wrong--but it fortifies the need for clarification, as well as CHANGE into our current views & laws of IP rights (cue the looping WAV of the "Creative Commons" theme). My previous presentations at Prof. Beth Noveck's Copyright, Innovation and the Net class, as well at Harvard Law's Signal2Noise event last year, explored the number of areas of Machinima IP that need addressing.
Update: TheDave sends along word that ultimately Revver was open to posting his films on their site--so long as he could provide proof from EA/DICE that the Machinima was his to upload (and ultimately cash-in on). Right.
Update 2: RPGFilms.net has since gone offline and the URL is now a forward to game content site FileFront.
1 Comments:
Thanks for the nice words about the interview with Cory. He's a gem. And, um, I fixed the misspelling of Ms. Engrebretsen's name. Thanks, as well, for that.
I'm planning to write a couple of magazine articles on these topics once I'm finally done with my book and hope to interview Ms. Engrebretsen, but hopefully others will ask her smart questions in the interim. One of Cory's main points is that we need to promote more dialogue on these issues.
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