they could/should have!

It's very complex for people to know what they could take from a work like Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan, at best the publishers over broad claim has a chilling effect at worst it might indeed be copyfraud.

It would be good for the public if the copyright notices called out exactly what they were claiming, a footer on every page would be fine and do-able. In the commonly claimed case of adding prefaces etc if would be very easy.

It's better for publishers to make broad vague claims. The exclusionary effect of the claims are supported by the huge penalties for infringement. Conversely the cost of over claiming seems small/unlikely to be called out - publishers can always 'clarify away' their over-claim if it comes to the crunch.

Great idea! a public DD of copyfraud instances would be very useful.

It would give everyone something to point to to show the difference between infringement and theft. If people could add themselves to the affected list for a particular instance we'd know which instances might be vulnerable to action. If it was wikified so discussion of theft/legitimate claims was public it would be a great educational tool. It might provide a chilling effect on the fraudsters.

Most cell phones make decent ebook readers.

A couple of clicks at http://www.booksinmyphone.com/ or it's mobile site and you can get some book apps running in just about any phone.

The main stumbling blocks are that it's only really 'click to install' if you have internet access and the carriers have not crippled your phone to try to extract more $ from you. Those aside I had a fine reading experience on my four year old phone.

For a lot of MMOs time IS money and so the game designers use XP to ration the content (areas, capabilities, classes, etc) and extend playing time to reap more $$$. The game design is all all about placing barriers to content access - this is an incentive for users to generate content that avoids the barriers.

It seems like you cannot avoid a red-queen race (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen) unless you change the underlying incentives. I've no idea how or what you would be left with after...

Good points all; but...

YouTube has deep pockets and scribd may not.

I agree that anything large enough to be a 'real' worry will be obvious and DMCA taken down in short order - but that argument also holds for music and video and so far I'm not aware of anyone who has stepped up to try to take a direct cut from a transaction like that. Actually I guess there are some analogous music selling sites, they could be predictors for what will happen in this case.

I also agree that anything small 'the publishers' 'should not worry about' - but *IAA will sue you for 9 songs ...

All in all it should be interesting.

I assume they qualify for the DMCA safe harbor provisions - but so did YouTube and they were sued by Viacom and settled out of court.

Can one read the constitution as saying:

1. copyright is designed to grow the public domain ('...promote the progress of science and useful arts...')
2. by providing incentives for the creation of new works ('...by securing the creators monopoly on copying...')
3. that will then pass to the public domain ('...for a limited time...').

i.e. it's purpose is to grow the public domain, the rest is just mechanism and a choice about how to trade off public good against private good.

The copyrighteous act like a kid who is happy to take the pocket money but not happy to do the chores. They employ Orwellian newspeak by referring to the whole balanced copyright trade-off as 'their property'. They focus only on the protected monopoly and do everything in their power to extend their monopoly duration (even for already created works, no incentive is big enough to change the past) and stop works falling into the public domain.

.

"(no fees for each app or update uploaded)" - not so as far as I know.

Ovi is requiring each app be "Java Verified" ( http://www.javaverified.com/ ), which requires third party testing on each 'class' of phone at a cost to the developer of around $150. So if you wanted to cover all Nokia's models it will cost you more than $1000 per app to get it certified as 'uploadable' (I cannot figure out exactly how many 'classes' / 'lead devices' there are). Any change or update to the app requires re certification.

You can check out how happy everyone is here: http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=161596

firstly it's likely to be abused - as demonstrated by the failure of the copyrighteous to use the existing laws correctly. Secondly it reverses the onus of proof and removes even due process - which makes the abuse much more potent and the chilling effect on legitimate activity that much more powerful.

The people pushing these laws want to be sure they are the only conduit by which any (even perfectly legal) content can be distributed. We all know how well monopolies work out - why make it easier for the incumbents to maintain and extend theirs?

"that affects audio playback in any way"

hmm - but might affect you ability to sell an interoperable device?