Turning Japanese

the story behind the Vapors hit...

The Vapors perform Turning Japanese on Top of the pops in 1980

'Turning Japanese' - story & lyrics

Copyright and Copywrong

Would The US Extradite UK Blogger For Linking To Works In The Public Domain In Other Countries?

James Firth has an interesting post, talking about some of the more ridiculous consequences of current US law enforcement interpretation of copyright law. Looking at the case of Richard O'Dwyer, the computer science student that the US is getting closer to extraditing to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for merely linking to infringing works (something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times), Firth takes it to its logical ends. He points out that George Orwell's works, Animal Farm and 1984 have gone into the public domain in South Africa, Canada or Australia. And thus, there are completely legal free copies of such works online. But they're only legal in those countries. In the US and the UK, both remain under the yoke of copyright thanks to copyright extensions.
This leads to a simple fear. If he merely pointed people to the location of these completely legal versions of the work, he would now be just as "guilty" as Richard O'Dwyer under the interpretation of the US Justice Department. After all, he is using a .com domain (American property, according to the stretched interpretation of the DOJ) to link to works that technically infringe in both the UK -- where he is -- and the US, where the DOJ has suddenly become the US entertainment industry's private police force.
This is creating a truly chilling effect on speech around the globe. The public domain is the public domain for a purpose, and it's somewhat insane to think that US actions are now chilling the mere discussion of where public domain works in other countries can be obtained completely legally in those countries.
Mike Masnik @'techdirt'

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The Bear Facts: Rupert & OZ

Schoolkid's OZ

[...]A central piece of evidence at the trial was a montage/collage of two cartoon strips that appeared in this issue. This montage was put together by Vivian Berger, then a 15 year-old schoolboy. The strips used were parts of a Rupert Bear cartoon which had been superimposed on a strip by the American underground artist Robert Crumb. Rupert Bear had appeared in the pages of the Daily Express for years (he emerged in late November 1920 as a result of circulation battles between the major dailies) and offered an innocent, nostalgic and quintessentially ‘middle-English’ version of childhood. Crumb was one of the most prolific and notoriously ‘explicit’ of the underground artists (incidentally, established cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, often up to no good, had frequently appeared in the work of underground cartoonists) and the Crumb strip that Berger used was part of a long cartoon called ‘Eggs Ackley Among the Vulture Demonesses’, which had appeared in Big Ass Comics, June, 1969. Basically, Berger’s montage presents a sexually excited Rupert Bear violating the virginity of an (unconscious) female. Although the basic drawings and speech-bubbles are Crumb’s, Rupert’s head and scarf had been carefully superimposed on the original character, and the frame titles (there are six frames) and the characteristic narrative in rhyming couplets beneath had been retained from the Rupert strip...
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'The society whose modernisation has reached the stage of integrated spectacle is characterised by the combined effect of 5 principal factors; incessant technological renewal, integration of state and economy, generalised secrecy, unanswerable lies and eternal present - the spectator is simply supposed to know nothing and deserves nothing. Those who are watching to see what happens next will never actand such must be the spectator's condition .'
- Guy Debord
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(Thanx Dave!)

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