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I’ve returned from DC from the ALA copyright scholar program… there will be some big changes at the Library Copyright web site soon, and I think it will be a more useful resource soon. I got to meet a group of great people, all interested in copyright, and the ALA Washington Office staff, who were very cool.

Scrivener’s Error has some very interesting analysis the “plot patent” proposed by a very strange person. There’s some discussion on Groklaw as well, including a reply from the creator of this patent. Ugh.

According to news.com, the US Department of Justice is pushing for stronger copyright laws and really appears to have completely ignored the public interest entirely (perhaps “sold out the public,” but I’d have to learn more than is in the article) in it’s rush to create new types of copyright law and create greater penalties. What is considering “attempting to infringe?” The penalties are already ridiculous, and I view this move with a great deal of suspicion. It’s certainly not a positive development for the public. I doubt it’s a positive development for the industries that are supporting it, either. Many of the artists they represent are already testing the bounds of the existing law, and I suspect there will be more artists who are at cross purposes with their publishers and representative groups as time passes and the law leans more towards a maximalist society. This type of move serves to stifle creativity, and whatever deterrence to piracy (and their definition of piracy and others’ definitions of piracy are certainly different) is certainly not worth the outrageous harm they are proposing to the Constitutional basis for copyright law, promoting the progress of science and useful arts…