Google’s effort to create a digital library is once again under legal scrutiny. The Open Book Alliance issued a study detailing how the proposed Google Book Settlement violates international laws and treaties. The report, compiled by notable intellectual property attorney Cynthia Arato, notes,

if approved, the settlement would grant Google automatic rights to exploit digitally millions of books found throughout the world without requiring Google to obtain any authorization from any foreign copyright owner. On its face, this eviscerates copyright owners’ exclusive rights under Berne to authorize the reproduction of their works.

In 2005, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and numerous authors and publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google Book Search claiming copyright infringement. Google initially expressed its intent to promote “authors whose backlist, out of print and lightly marketed new titles will be suggested to countless readers who wouldn’t have found them otherwise” and further claimed that digitizing books (or portions thereof) comes within the ambit of fair use:

Google respects copyright. The use we make of all the books we scan through the Library Project is fully consistent with both the fair use doctrine under U.S. copyright law and the principles underlying copyright law itself, which allow everything from parodies to excerpts in book reviews.

As of October 28, 2008, the parties reached an accord, which the Author’s Guild praised, “acknowledges the rights and interests of copyright owners, provides an efficient means for them to control how their intellectual property is accessed online and enables them to receive compensation for online access to their works.”

The settlement has invited criticism from a string of domestic and international groups.

Most recently, various groups representing the interests of visual artists filed a separate class action suit last month claiming the Google Book program fails to adequately compensate artists for the use of their work.  Previously excluded from the Google Book Settlement, representatives include the American Society of Media Photographers, the Graphic Artists Guild, the North American Nature Photography Association, the Professional Photographers of America, as well as individual photographers and illustrators.

Amidst all of the criticism that Google is receiving, it announced last week that its long-awaited digital bookstore is slated to open this summer. Google Editions, a universal eBook format which allows for titles to be read on any browser-enabled device, will tie-in the controversial Book Search.

Read the entire memo here. More on the Visual Artists’ suit from Wired. More on the Google Editions announcement from PC Magazine.

Do you remember the scene in Pollock where he settles his grocery bill with a painting? How about stories of businesses saving Picasso’s personal checks because his signature was often worth more than the tab? It turns out that the Mexican government has had a long standing artwork-as-currency policy, at least for settling tax debts. USA Today recently ran a great piece on the practice.

Established in 1957, Mexico’s Tax Administration Service began accepting artworks and and displaying them in museums, government offices and various international exhibitions. To date, the government has amassed a collection of over 2,400 works from the likes of Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo.

Can any citizen pay their taxes with a piece of refrigerator art? No. The artist must be of recognized stature and the pieces are juried for artistic merit before being accepted. Additionally, the porgram only accepts visual art, not music or literature.

More from USA Today. Search the database of tax paying artists here.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently approved the use of Selectable Output Control (SOC) to prevent viewers from recording newly- and recently-released movies via an analog signal.

Said Wired, “The reason: Analog video signals can easily be recorded, while digital video standards include a copy protection scheme that lets providers set a no-copy flag on the signal.”

The result of Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) bargaining with member studios, the decision has digital rights groups miffed as it appears the FCC is allowing the MPAA (through cable/satellite providers) to control your television set.

More from Wired.

The Congressional Apparel Manufacturing and Fashion Business Caucus was approved by Washington’s Committee on House Administration last week.  The group, co-chaired by Diane E. Watson (D., Calif.), Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) and Carolyn B. Maloney (D., N.Y.), will introduce a bill that affords 3 year copyright protection to apparel designs. While trademark law prohibits counterfeit goods, this bill seeks to curb the knock-off industry whereby a design is copied and enters the market via a competing (and often more affordable) apparel company.

More here from New York Magazine.

The Champaign, Illinois band Elsinore caught some heat from the estate of Roy Lichtenstein for use of a derivative work on the cover of its forthcoming Yes Yes Yes. The piece, made during college by Brittany Pyle, a friend of the band, is based on the same source image Lichtenstein used for Kiss V (1964). The images are below (from left to right: Original, Lichtenstein, Pyle):

The band recently took to Boing Boing to bring attention to the issue and solicit some advice. From Elsinore (via Boing Boing):

One day before our label was set to send away for CD & LP pressing we received an email from Shelley Lee, the Manager of Intellectual Property for the Estate of Roy Lichtenstein saying that the painting was an adapted Roy Lichtenstein image and a violation of copyright.

Additionally, Elsinore posted the entirety of the copyright notice (via email) on its blog:

Dear Elsinore Music,

You have adapted a Roy Lichtenstein image for the cover of your new album.  This is a copyright violation.  Please contact me.

Sincerely,
Shelley Lee
Manager of Intellectual Property
Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

The pieces (the original and Liechtenstein’s) are compared on Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein. More here.

Willem B. pointed me towards a great post by David Bollier from On The Commons. It explores transformative literature via a mashup of Nabokov’s Lolita and Lawrence Lessig’s The Future of Ideas. Otto Lambert’s A Tangle of Thorns Or, the Fair Use of the Commons in a Transformative World “improbably manages to blend the warped, salacious obsessions of Humbert Humbert with Lessig’s earnest polemics about intellectual property.”

I agree with Bollier — Lambert’s juxtaposition of Nabokov’s anxiety-ridden prose with Lessig’s musings works uncannily well.  An excerpt from A Tangle of Thorns:

I am dead against the changes we are seeing, but it is too much to believe I could convince you that the full range is wrong. My aim is much more limited. My hope is to show you the other side of what has become a taken-for-granted idea: the view that control of some sort is always better.

An example: to control my urges, I decided to take a wife, leveraging the money from my inheritance and my somewhat brutal good looks. Let me be honest here, in these temporarily infixed notes: I’m slow-moving and tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but seductive demeanor.

More from OnTheCommons.org (Thanks, Willem!). Read A Tangle of Thorns. Download Lawrence Lessig’s Future of Ideas.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today agreed with the District Court’s ruling that “60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye” is substantially similar to J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.” The Court, however, vacated the District Court’s order to rehear the ‘likelihood of irreparable injury’ prior granting an injunction against publication.

The novel written by Fredrik Colting under the pen name J.D. California was banned from publication by a United States District Court on July 1, 2009.

The complaint, found here, claimed copyright infringement (including unauthorized use of the Holden Caulfield character and violation of exclusive rights to create derivative works) and Common Law Unfair Competition.

According to the 2nd Circuit, Colting and the distributions the book “are not likely to prevail in their fair use defense.”

More here.

The handwritten lyrics to the Beatles ‘A Day In The Life,’ penned by John Lennon in 1967, are to be auctioned June 18 at Sotheby’s. The single sheet of paper, with drafts of the song on both sides, is estimated at upwards of $700,000.00.

More here.