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Cartooning From Punk To Public Domain
by Sarah Lai Stirland
Though a seemingly arcane legal subject, the concept of "fair use" to copyrighted content has become a hot subject at some cocktail parties in recent months, as companies like Google build products that rely on the doctrine to work.
One of the latest efforts to shape public opinion on the subject comes from a trio of academics who have published a new comic book called "Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law."
Taking a chapter from other public education campaigns that have relied on cartoons to publicize certain ideas, the authored the book to explain how fair use has fared in recent years.
"We thought about how to present these messages to an audience of artists and filmmakers, how to pass on the information that they need to make the system work for them," Jamie Boyle, a co-author and law professor at Duke University, wrote in the comic book's afterword. "But at the same time, we wanted to reach a wider audience -- an audience of citizens and policymakers who generally hear nothing about copyright except for the drumbeat of 'Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!'
The two other authors are Keith Aoki, a law professor at the University of Oregon, and Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. Aoki vividly illustrated the more than 70-page book himself.
In addition to a law degree from Harvard University, Aoki holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts and has a long history of drawing cartoons. One of his first jobs in the late 1970s was drawing cartoons for the East Village Eye, a publication Aoki characterized in an interview as an "underground newspaper" that catered to punks.
Though Aoki switched professions after attending law school, he did not leave his drawing days behind. He has drawn cartoon strips for a couple of law journals and has at least two other projects planned.
One will be a follow-up book in a series on intellectual property and its impact on arts and culture. The other will be, contingent on grant funding, a book for elementary school children about the late Fred Korematsu, a Japanese American civil rights icon who fought against his internment during World War II.
Intellectual Property Group Taps Leader
IPac, a political action committee focused on intellectual property policy, has hired Jake Fisher in New York City as its executive director.
Fisher is based in Brooklyn Heights and until recently was a deputy field director for Thomas Suozzi, a Long Island Democrat, and Nassau County executive in New York who is running for governor. Before that, Fisher worked for America Coming Together, a Democratic organization funded by labor groups, the Sierra Club and wealthy benefactors such as Progressive Insurance Chairman Peter Lewis and financier George Soros. Fisher also worked for Apple and Accenture.
"IPac is the leader of a growing movement dedicated to restoring individual rights that have been stripped away by politicians in bed with Hollywood cartels," Fisher said in a statement. "IPac will support congressional candidates that believe in reasonable copyright and patent law and oppose those who have imposed a burden on business that amounts to an innovation tax."
IPac has adopted technology industry positions in the key debates over copyright policy.
Fisher said he enjoys working on campaigns because he discussed politics at the dinner table while young. His father, Kenneth Fisher, was a Democratic New York councilman from 1991 to 2001. "I grew up in a political family in New York, and we didn't discuss baseball at the dinner table," the junior Fisher said. "We discussed politics, and that's what I went to school for."
"I love technology, and I love what it has enabled," he added of his decision to join IPac. In addition to being a gadget addict, he has relied on word-processing technology since he was very young. "I had a third-grade teacher who thought my writing was so atrocious that I wasn't allowed to handwrite any essays," he said.
As IPac's leader, Fisher said he plans to speak to and organize grassroots support among programmers in Silicon Valley.
House Aide Moves To Tech Lobbying Firm
The lobbying group Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti has hired Elise Finley to join its team. Finley most recently was the top aide to Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., and executive director to the Republican Policy Committee, which Shadegg chaired for the past year.
Finley also was the congressional liaison to the 2004 campaign of President Bush. She was a senior staffer who coordinated campaign strategy with Republicans in the House and Senate.
"We were drawn by Elise's experience, integrity and reputation," Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti partner Bruce Mehlman said in a statement. "She will be an outstanding contributor to our team, expanding our reach on a host of issues and with policymakers across the ideological spectrum." The firm's clients include eBay, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Sprint and Yahoo.
Finley worked for Shadegg for almost a decade. While she was there, she focused on issues that included telecommunications, health care and immigration.
A New Chief For Information Sharing
CA, the company formerly known as Computer Associates, announced Monday that John Sabo, its federal director of security and privacy initiatives, has been named president of the Information Technology Sharing and Analysis Center. The center is a nonprofit aimed at establishing standard practices so companies can share cyber-security information safely.
"John's work with the IT-ISAC is another example of his proven commitment to critical infrastructure protection through advancing the mission of securing cyber assets and reducing the vulnerability to potential threats and attacks," said Bob Stephan, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Homeland Security Department.
Separately, the Digital Media Association (www.digmedia.org) on Monday unveiled its new Web site. The site shines the spotlight on DiMA members in the news, offers information about research on trends in the online media industry and provides legislative updates. Interested Web surfers can request e-mail updates.
Less Time For Tech Policy?
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., announced recently that he is engaged. The longtime pro-technology policy advocate told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he is marrying Amy Hauslohner, editor of The Gazette in Galax, Va. The two have been dating for a decade.
"We have decided since I will be 60 in August and she just turned 50 last week, we probably are mature enough to handle marriage," he told the paper.
The couple met when Hauslohner covered events that involved Boucher. They met for dinner, and "one thing led to the next, and we've been in a relationship more than a decade," he said.
Quote Of The Week
"Until we (users, industry groups, lawyers and politicians) finally make a clear legal and procedural distinction between copying a work for noncommercial creation of new works (like mash-ups or backups) and wholesale piracy for profit (like duplicating a work for the purpose of resale), we're just going to keep shouting at each other in conference rooms and newspapers, and real innovation will never get made."
-- Web designer Derek Powazek, in a blog entry about tough questions for the Motion Picture Association of America at last week's South by Southwest multimedia conference in Texas.
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