In through the outfield

30 September 2009

Copyright contacts for writers and artists

During a business advice session yesterday I was reminded how few entrepreneurs are aware of copyright law. Most do know a bit about patents, trademarks and designs, but when it comes to copyright they flounder.

Fortunately we have produced a very simple PDF guide (What is copyright?) with much more detailed information available from the UK Intellectual Property Office. The key points are that copyright protection is free and automatic (you don’t even need to use a copyright symbol). The point that most surprises people is that copyright for authors now extends to life plus 70 years.

However rather than hope the owners of the intellectual property won’t find out you have taken their property and come after you through the courts, a much better approach is to contact them and see if you can licence their content. Fortunately thanks to the WATCH file, tracking down these copyright holders is relatively straightforward.

For example a search for Roald Dahl author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (amongst many other children’s favourites) gives the following results;

Roald Dahl   1916-1990 – 3 contacts found in the WATCH File
David Higham Associates are the principal representatives. Some copyrights (mostly for poems by Dahl) are administered by Random House Children’s Books; and film and television rights are handled by Casarotto Ramsay.
Copyright Permissions   Casarotto Ramsay Limited VIEW
The Estate of Roald Dahl   David Higham Associates Limited VIEW
Children’s Permissions Department   Random House Children’s Books VIEW

About WATCH
WATCH is a database of copyright contacts for writers, artists, and prominent people in other creative fields. It is a joint project of the Harry Ransom Center and University of Reading Library in England. Founded in 1994 as a resource principally for copyright questions about literary manuscripts held in the U.S. and the U.K., it has now grown into one of the largest databases of copyright holders in the world.

24 June 2009

25,000 inventors a year scammed

One of my colleagues has pointed out an article in today’s edition of the Daily Mirror. In the regular Rogue Traders column, Andrew Penman reviews the sad fate of Terry Ferguson who lost $10,000 to American inventions agency Davison Design.

The online version of this article is followed by several posts from previous employees of Davison Design who testify to their dubious operating procedures.

According to one of the posts over 25,000 inventors are conned each year (just in the United States). The information comes from the Invention Statistics website at Inventor Scam Statistics.

My colleague Steve van Dulken has recently posted a blog story warning of UK Invention Promotion companies, and the UKIPO have produced a pdf Step by step guide to using invention promoters.

Another sensible piece of advice is to use Google to find out a range of views on any potential company you come across. For instance the third item in a search on Davidson Design is titled Ripoff Report Search Results: DAVISON DESIGN.

31 May 2009

Learn the basics of copyright in less than 7 minutes

This is the enticing title of a recent email video campaign aimed at information professionals.

Given the level of confusion around copyright, and the fact that librarians and information specialists are often in the front line, I was pleased to be able to increase my awareness.

In fact even though the legal aspects cover US law and includes the their concept of Fair Dealing, it covers a very complicated topic in surprising detail in a short space of time. I like the way they include sources of content that are not covered by copyright, such as ideas, facts, data, and publications created by the US Government.

Needless to say, given the source of the video (the Copyright Clearance Center) the information tends towards compliance and the reasons why.

Sadly, they don’t make any reference to Creative Commons and the choice of licences available there.

Corporate workers share information every day, but what percentage get copyright permission?

Most people don’t knowingly violate copyright law, they are simply unaware of their copyright responsibilities. To help increase awareness, CCC has created a FREE video that provides the basics of copyright in a fun and informative way.

In less than 7 minutes, Jim T. Librarian explains why copyright is important, what is and isn’t covered
under U.S. copyright law, and why attribution isn’t always enough.
Copyright Basics – The Video
Thank you for your interest in CCC’s
Copyright Basics

This Program is made available for your use by the rights licensing experts at Copyright Clearance Center. We welcome you to view the video here and/or download it for non-commercial use in your organization (terms and conditions apply).

6 April 2009

Will Spotify kill iTunes?

This is the heading for an intriguing article in the latest issue of gadget obsessed Stuff magazine.

I have to admit that I only heard about Spotify for the first time two weeks ago on Leo Laporte’s net@night 91.

However, since then the mainstream press has started to pick up on it as a potential iTunes killer – Spotify declares war on iTunes.

It seems hard to believe that Spotify can already have six million tracks (including the very latest albums in full) and over a million members signed up to either its’ free advert supported service, or the ad-free subscription of £9.99 per month. Although the fact I am listening for free to the brand new album from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as I write, proves the case.

Now it has gone one stage further by linking up with London-based online music store, 7Digital which has four million individual tracks.

This is yet another indication of just how revolutionary the Internet can be when it comes to both established and even novel business models. It took iTunes just six years to become the dominant player in music sales, currently accounting for 70 per cent of all online music sales, and selling six billion songs along the way.

However, Spotify was only launched in the UK in October last year and already has more than a million customers.

The lesson, is that if you are going to operate a web based business you can’t afford to stand still for a moment.

19 March 2009

Professor James Boyle and the fight for Creative Commons

I have already blogged about Professor Boyle’s latest book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. And having heard him interviewed by Laurie Taylor on a recent Thinking Allowed broadcast on Radio 4, I was excited to hear he would be speaking in to staff in the British Library.

He did not disappoint, being erudite, passionate and amusing in his explanation of the rapid (since the 1970’s) and significant (from 28 years to life + 70 years) expansion of copy right restrictions.

One of his most memorable points for me was the deafening silence from the US Copyright Office when asked how he could make his work copyright free. His point being, that the law has been extended to cover all creative works with no regard to the views of the authors who want to allow access.

He talked about my current favourite ‘book’ on copyright issues, produced by his colleagues at the Center for the Study of the Public Domain. It is actually a comic called Tales from the Public Domain: BOUND BY LAW? and is freely available.

He asked how many in the audience would have predicted that the open and non-hierarchical approach underlying the Wikipedia project would have resulted in a resource as accurate as Encyclopaedia Britannica, but twenty times the size, and updated in real-time.

Finally he explained the role of the Creative Commons movement in making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

8 March 2009

The EasyClean Squeeze Roller Cleaner

roller-sleeve-cleaner

I spent a few hours this weekend painting part of my kitchen. Historically I have had a love hate relationship with decorating using a roller.

The system is an incredibly quick and efficient way of getting paint onto a flat surface, whether it be a wall or ceiling. I certainly don’t recommend using anything else for a ceiling, having had paint dripped in my eye whilst using a brush in the past.

However, the advantages of the roller based approach come crashing down when it comes to cleaning up at the end of the job. In theory you can dismantle the roller and just rinse it under a cold tap. In practice you get paint all over yourself and spend tens of minutes desperately trying to get the roller clean of paint. Eventually you give up and leave it somewhere warm to dry. The next day you discover the roller is rock hard from residual paint and has to be thrown away. Sometimes you can’t even keep the roller usable between coats of paint.

But now thanks to an incredibly simple invention I can clean and re-use my rollers to my hearts content. I need to thank Ed Adamson (the inventor) and the Harris paint brush company for making roller painting an almost completely pain-free experience. Apart of course from those times when one leans against a still wet wall.

First page clipping image

Although I am straying into my colleague Steve Van Dulken’s territory here with his Patent Search Blog, I couldn’t resist looking up the patent application for the invention on esp@cnet (the European Patent Office) and found WO2008077469 (A1) A ROLLER SLEEVE CLEANER.

However I also came across lots of other weird and wonderful variations, some of which I have included below.

First page clipping image

6 March 2009

Improve your IP awareness with the British Library and the IPO

Thanks to the good folks at the Intellectual Property Office and my colleagues at the British Library, you have a choice of routes to improve your IP awareness.

We have two courses covering the Basics of Intellectual Property Protection and Searching IP databases.

The Intellectual Property Office have introduced an IP Healthcheck which consists of four questionnaires covering Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Copyright.

You can choose which of the four questionnaires in the IP Healthcheck you want to complete by clicking ‘Go to the first question’. If you’re not sure whether a questionnaire is relevant to you, click ‘Is this for me’.

Once you have answered all the questions, you will see a summary of our recommended Action Points, based on what you have told us. You can click ‘Why/how’ for an explanation of each Action Point, and how you can put it into practice. Your summary also contains links to further useful information and resources.

You can download the full Confidential Report as a .pdf, or ask us to email it to you.

Every Confidential Report is automatically stored in Your Report Library. You can return and view it as often as you like.

You cannot change your answers once you have completed an IP Healthcheck questionnaire, but you can retake it as many times as you like, to see what the Confidential Report says if you give different answers. We recommend that you keep a note of the answers you gave for each Confidential Report.

If you cannot complete a health check questionnaire, it will still be saved in Your Report Library, marked as ‘Uncompleted’. You can revisit it later, and complete it.

5 March 2009

India moves to patent yoga poses

On first inspection this would be filed under ‘Friday fun’, although it was drawn to my attention by an email from a customer who wanted the official British Library view on the Daily Telegraph story.

Needles to say, we don’t have a view, but I have to say I was amazed to to discover that yoga positions could be protected:

“Copyrights over yoga postures and trademarks on yoga tools have become rampant in the West. Till now, we have traced 130 yoga-related patents in the US. We hope to finish putting on record at least 1500 yoga postures by the end of 2009,” said Dr V.P Gupta, of the CSIR, who created the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.

And even more surprised to hear how the Indian government has reacted:

So far a team of yoga gurus from nine schools have worked with government officials and 200 scientists from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to scan 35 ancient texts including the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Bhagwad Gita, and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to register each native pose.

The topic even has its own Wikipedia page entitled Yoga Piracy.

25 February 2009

Protect your content against online plagiarism and theft

Many of my Business Advice clients are concerned about rivals stealing their on-line content, so I was pleasantly surprised to come across the free Copyscape service whilst researching a replacement mobile phone on the Mobile Phones UK: Reviews & Best Buys website.

All you need to do is post in your website address and see where (and how much of it) is appearing elswhere on the Web. Needless to say Copyscape offer a premium service with no monthly limit and batch searching for a fee.

Copyscape recommend you put a warning notice on your website to help scare off any potential content theives.

Defend your site with a plagiarism warning banner!

19 February 2009

Otto Rohwedder and the greatest thing since sliced bread

Otto Frederick Rohwedder photo courtesy www.chillicothecity.org
The greatest thing since sliced bread

I’m sure you will have heard this phrase before, used all to often to describe the latest gizmo or gadget. But have you come across the name Otto Rohwedder? I’m guessing you haven’t.

Otto, originally a jeweller, was the inventor of the world’s first mechanical sliced bread, which went on sale on July 7 1928, in Chillicothe, Missouri.

After many setbacks, including a fire which destroyed his first factory as well as blueprints and prototype, he managed to develop a successful process for slicing and wrapping the bread. However sales were slow at first as suspicious consumers were slow to accept a pre-sliced bread, but soon everyone wanted sliced bread. By 1933, only five years after its introduction, American bakeries were turning out more sliced than unsliced bread.

Below are a few of his many patent application drawings.