Walled Culture – A Journey Behind the Copyright Bricks

How copyright deprived us of a literary and pictorial mash-up of Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss (real name Theodor Geisel) is one of the best-known writers for children. He died in 1991, but his books remain extremely popular. Publishers Weekly has a fascinating story about him, his work and copyright. One part concerns a five-year-long legal dispute between ComicMix, a publisher with a Web site about …
A fan’s unique recordings of the Beatles won’t be available online, because of “copyright issues”
There’s a story in the Mail on Sunday that underlines why it is important for people to make copies. It concerns the re-surfacing of rare recordings of the Beatles: In the summer of 1963, the BBC began a radio series called Pop Go The Beatles which went out at 5pm on Tuesdays …
Why moving to diamond open access will not only save money, but also help to protect privacy
Back in September last year, Walled Culture mentioned the consistently high profit margins of 30-40% enjoyed by the academic publisher Elsevier. That’s problematic because these profits flow from the work of academics largely paid for by the taxpayer, with additional refereeing and editorial work generally carried out for free by other academics. …
How backdated articles abuse the DMCA’s takedown system to remove legitimate news items
Online platforms often give access to digital material that is under copyright. If any of that content is infringing, then potentially the platform would be liable as well as the person who uploaded it. Online companies naturally want to be immune to the consequences of any copyright infringement committed by their users. …
Like news publishers, magazine publishers want money from Google; here’s why it is happy to pay
Last week, Walled Culture noted that newspaper publishers still don’t understand what has happened in their industry. They labour under the misapprehension that the digital giants like Google and Facebook are “stealing” their editorial material. That’s not true: instead, as Cory Doctorow puts it, they are stealing their money, because of the …
Even algospeak won’t save us from upload filter overblocking
Over on the EFF blog, Cory Doctorow points to an interesting article in the Washington Post about “algospeak“: “Algospeak” is becoming increasingly common across the Internet as people seek to bypass content moderation filters on social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Twitch. Algospeak refers to code words or turns …
“Red hot music copyrights market” leaves most creators out in the cold
Last week, Walled Culture wrote about the juicy £230 million pay that the head of Universal Music Group (UMG) took home up last year. That may be exceptional for one individual, but there’s plenty of money sloshing around elsewhere in the ecosystem. A news item in the Financial Times (FT) reports on …
Applying (artificial) intelligence to the Copyright Directive’s stupid idea of upload filters
Last week the European Union’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), handed down its judgment on whether upload filters should be allowed as part of the EU Copyright Directive. The answer turned out to be a rather unclear “yes, but…“. Martin Husovec, an assistant professor of law …
Two reasons the snippet tax won’t wash as a solution, and what to do instead
Walled Culture has written a number of posts about the so-called “snippet tax” – the idea that platforms like Google and Facebook should pay for the privilege of sending traffic to newspaper sites. An essay by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen and Sarah Anne Ganter, based on their book “The Power of Platforms“, articulates …
Universal Music Group boss took home £230 million last year: is that really fair?
Last year, Walled Culture reported on the highly-successful Universal Music Group (UMG) IPO on Amsterdam’s Euronext exchange, which valued the company at €45 billion (over $50 billion). The post noted that the chief executive of the UMG, Sir Lucian Grainge, might pick up a bonus of $170 million as a result. According …
Copyright industry demands Finland’s version of upload filters should be more unbalanced
Like other EU Member States, Finland is grappling with the problem of how to implement the EU Copyright Directive’s Article 17 (upload filters) in national legislation. A fascinating post by Samuli Melart in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice reveals yet another attempt by the copyright industry to make a …
The digital creator economy: how big is it, and who’s making how much?
One of the most dramatic differences between the traditional, analogue world of creation, and the modern, digital one, is the democratisation that has taken place in this sphere. Until recently, writers, musicians, artists and filmmakers collectively formed a relatively select group that was hard to enter as a professional. Today, anyone with …
Top EU court hands down judgment on upload filters that is as clear as mud
Walled Culture has just written about the great difficulty national governments are having in transposing the EU Copyright Directive into local law. That’s largely because of the badly-drafted and contradictory Article 17. It effectively calls for upload filters, which have obvious problems for freedom of expression because of the impossibility of crafting …
The EU Copyright Directive is so bad it’s proving really hard to transpose into decent national laws
Walled Culture has written numerous posts about the EU Copyright Directive, because it contains two extremely harmful ideas. The first is the “snippet tax“, an attempt by some press publishers to make sites like Google pay for the privilege of displaying and linking to newspaper publishers’ material – an assault on the …
Canada is about to repeat New Zealand’s folly by extending copyright term; so bring back registration
Canada looks likely to follow New Zealand’s bad example by extending its copyright term by 20 years, purely for the sake of a trade deal. The New Zealand government’s research showed that extending copyright term in this way makes no sense, and the same is true for Canada. As Michael Geist writes …
Ed Sheeran wins copyright lawsuit, but now films himself as he writes songs to forestall more litigation
Last month Walled Culture wrote about Ed Sheeran being sued for alleged copyright infringement – one of many such lawsuits. Happily, he won, because the judge understood how music works, as his comments show, reported here by Music Business Worldwide: The use of the first four notes of the rising minor pentatonic …

Recent Podcasts/Vlogs

Experience & thoughts from people on the ground

5 May 20225 May 2022

Interview | Marc Rees: À la Française, de l’Hadopi par la copie privée, jusqu’aux algorithmes de l’Article 17

Marc Rees est journaliste et rédacteur en chef de Next INpact, le site français traitant de tout ce qui est numérique, y compris les commentaires sur les questions actuelles de droit d'auteur. Il se spécialise en droit des nouvelles technologies, dont communication, LCEN, surveillance, données personnelles, et droit d’auteur. Marc est connu comme l’un des meilleurs commentateurs du droit d'auteur, dans le monde francophone. Sur notre podcast, il explique la stratégie de la France de mettre les droits d'auteur au premier plan. Il couvre le rôle de la Présidence Français dans les négociations du Digital Service Act (DSA). Marc réfléchit sur la création de l’Hadopi. Il parle passionnément à propos de la redevance copie privée et les aberrations qu'elle crée. Finalement, Marc souligne l'importance des utilisateurs dans les débats numériques et discute la responsabilité des intermédiaires techniques. Vous préférez regarder nos interviewés enthousiastes décrire les murs du XXIe siècle qui bloquent l'accès à la culture ? Alors regardez le vlog ci-des…

31 March 202231 March 2022

Interview | Katharine Trendacosta: The US DMCA, Upload Filters, SOPA-PIPA, Fanfiction, & Platform Competition

17 March 202217 March 2022

Interview | Dr Andres Guadamuz: The EU Copyright Directive, Text & Data Mining, Web3, the Metaverse, & NFTs

3 March 202214 March 2022

Interview | Jennie Rose Halperin: A Tech-Positive Future for Libraries, Controlled Digital Lending & US CASE Act

CHECK OUT ALL PODCASTS/VLOGS

Latest Thoughts

Findings Behind the Bricks

24 May 202223 May 2022

How copyright deprived us of a literary and pictorial mash-up of Dr. Seuss

by Glyn Moody

19 May 202218 May 2022

A fan’s unique recordings of the Beatles won’t be available online, because of “copyright issues”

by Glyn Moody

18 May 202218 May 2022

Why moving to diamond open access will not only save money, but also help to protect privacy

by Glyn Moody

17 May 202218 May 2022

How backdated articles abuse the DMCA’s takedown system to remove legitimate news items

by Glyn Moody

CHECK OUT ALL BLOG POSTS

Thanks to copyright maximalism, video game masterpieces are likely to be lost forever

Video games are undoubtedly an art form, arguably the quintessential art form of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. They combine graphics, video, music and interactive plotlines to produce a uniquely rich and complex creation only possible thanks to…

by Glyn Moody

Interviews/Media

16 December 202114 December 2021

Interview | Brewster Kahle: Libraries’ Role, 3 Internet Battles, Licensing Pains, the National Emergency Library, and the Internet Archive’s Controlled Digital Lending Efforts vs. the Publishers’ Lawsuit

Brewster Kahle is founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive, one of the largest libraries in the world. Next to his mission to provide universal access to all knowledge, he is a passionate advocate for public Internet access, as well as a successful entrepreneur (Thinking Machines, Wide Area Information Server and Alexa Internet) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The Internet Archive, which he founded in 1996, preserves petabytes of data - the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with hundreds of library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all. More than 1 million people use the Internet Archive every day. Most of them seek out the Wayback Machine, making 25+ years of web history accessible. He talks about the role of libraries, the Internet battles we’ve faced and are facing, licensing pains, the National Emergency Library, and how the Internet Archive’s efforts to make culture and knowledge accessible through controlled digital lending are threatened by the publishers’ lawsuit against the Archive. Do you prefer watching our passionate interviewees talking about the 21st-century walls blocking access to culture? Then check out the vlog …

by Karlin Lillington

Beyond the Bricks/Knowledge/Libraries/Thoughts

11 January 202225 January 2022

Remembering Aaron Swartz, who died on this day, a victim of the copyright system

On this day in 2013, Aaron Swartz died by his own hand, at the age of 26. His short but full life as a hacker and activist is summed up well on Wikipedia – one of the many projects he…

by Glyn Moody

Audiovisual/Media/Music

14 December 202110 December 2021

The copyright industry wants everything filtered as it is uploaded; here’s why that will be a disaster

The history of copyright can be seen as one of increasing control by companies over what ordinary people can do with material created by others. For the online world, the endgame is where copyright holders get to check and approve…

by Glyn Moody

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Our Contributors

Gwen Franck

Communications expert specialised in open-access questions. After working for OpenAIRE, EIFL, and Creative Commons, now currently at the EGI Foundation and working as a freelancer