New York Times:
Content Makers Are Accused of Exaggerating Copyright
An association of computer and communication companies, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, on Wednesday accused several professional sports leagues, book publishers and other media companies of misleading and threatening consumers with overstated copyright warnings. In a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, the group, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, said that the National Football League, Major League Baseball, NBC and Universal Studios, DreamWorks, Harcourt and Penguin Group display copyright warnings that are a “systematic misrepresentation of consumers’ rights to use legally acquired content.” The complaint alleges that the warnings may intimidate consumers from making legal use of copyrighted material, like photocopying a page from a book to use in class. […]
At Midas Oracle, we never had any problem with copyright laws…- except when it came to the economists’- petition on prediction markets engineered by AEI-Brookings. We felt that it would have been better if the media and the bloggers were given permission to re-publish the text of the petition on its entirety —-not just the abstract. We felt that it was a case where the goal of the authors was to maximize exposure of their ideas, not to maximize the power of the copyright rights holder.
Another reason to approve Steve Levitt and Koleman Strumpf for not signing the petition.
Previous: Economists’ Petition on Prediction Markets + Squawk on Prediction Markets – by Tom W. Bell + Bob Hahn turns the PETITION into a CONSENSUS. + Steve Levitt of Freakonomics: I WON’T SIGN YOUR PETITION, BOB. + Chris Masse’s comment on the Freakonomics’ blog post about the legality of US prediction markets + Safe Harbor Letter too Timid – by Chris Hibbert + The limitations of logic (and the need for passion) – by Caveat Bettor + Jason Ruspini on the Economists’ Petition