3 Count: Algernon’s Flowers

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1: House Subcommittee Hearing on Copyright Goes 3-D

First off today, Amrita Khalid at The Hill reports that representatives of copyright industries, in particular film and photography, gave testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary subcommittee yesterday ahead of subcommittee’s planned review of copyright law in the U.S.

The representatives included William Sherak, whose company specializes in converting films to 3-D and demoed his work before the representatives. It also included Sandra Aistars the Executive Director of the Copyright Alliance, who criticized a recent “best practices” agreement between advertisers and the White House the she felt put too much burden on copyright holders. Also there was John Laphman of Getty Images and Tor Hansenof Yep Roc records, who expressed concern that radio stations do not pay performance royalties.

The hearing did not include any representatives from the tech community, which brought about some criticism, and it comes ahead of a planned evaluation of copyright law in the U.S. and possible rewriting of the laws, as requested by the Register of Copyrights.

2: UK Porn Filter Will Censor Other Content Too, ISPs Reveal

Next up today, Andy at Torrentfreak writes that UK ISPs are warning that the country’s plans to establish new pornography filters, which users will have to request be disabled, may go beyond porn and also filter out other kinds of material.

The ISPs told Open Rights Group that the plan currently includes options to filter sites that deal with violent content, suicide, gambling and, at least in one possible variation, also file sharing-related sites. Though it is unclear what of which of these categories will be filtered or permitted by default.

Also on the list of possible sites to block is Web blocking circumvention tools, such as VPNs, which would theoretically allow users of ISPs to get around any blocks placed on them.

3: Downham Academy Students Have Drama Tour is Axed in Copyright Row

Finally today, Lynn News reports that high school students at Downham Academy, which is located in the south east of the UK, has cancelled a planned staging of “Flowers for Algernon” after a copyright glitch.

The school had received permission to perform the play from the playwright that penned the stage version but when the group’s teacher, Cate Markwell, called to get permission from the original author, objections were raised. However, after the tour was cancelled, Markwell received word that the decision had been reversed but it was too late.

The play was to be performed for free at the academy’s 47-seat theater. The group’s 23 students will now start working on classic texts to avoid future copyright issues.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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