Two Tools to Better Understand Copyright and Using Someone's Material

I heard to a couple of tools from the American Library Association that might prove useful - either in checking whether a use is permitted yourself or sending to those who would use your work without permission. The digital slider lets you choose a time range and other conditions to indicate whether something is in the pubic domain or if you would have to seek permission. The fair use checklist offers no such certain an answer, but it lists many of the considerations in a favoring/opposing fair use structure.

College Students Organize to Oppose Copyright Restrictions

It's always a good idea to see potential business issues before they really hit. Here's one to monitor from a New York Times article called File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints. It seems that there's a national organization spouting up on campuses devoted to letting people freely share copyrighted material: music, software, research, books, and art:

Established at Swarthmore College in 2004, the group has chapters at more than 35 universities across the country. "We will listen to free music, look at free art, watch free film and read free books," reads its manifesto, posted on its Web site, freeculture.org. "We refuse to accept a future of digital feudalism."

The end is so much rhetoric, but it's a growing attitude that there shouldn't be restrictions, with its assumption that people would continue to create material for others to use. Sure, some would - and many would go off to do something else. However, it also suggests that there might be people people who would deliberately push to use things for free to prove a point.