More copyright idiocy

So here’s yet another case of over-the-top copyright restrictions involving something I wrote. In December 2014, the Whitehead Research Project held an excellent conference on Whitehead’s short book Symbolism. I was one of the speakers at the conference; I posted an uncorrected version of my talk, “Whitehead on Causality and Perception,” as a blog entry. … Continue reading “More copyright idiocy”

File sharing (copyright infringement) is not theft

Despite what the music industry likes to say, the Supreme Court ruled in 1985
that “(copyright infringement) does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud… The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use.”
So, even if file sharing is not protected under fair use (which I believe it should be), it cannot be equated with stealing either. (Via Techdirt).

Work for Hire update

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned on this blog a situation I was in: that I was unwilling to sign a contract for an essay I had written in contribution an anthology of critical essays from Oxford University Press (OUP), because the contract stipulated that the essay would be regarded as “work for hire.” … Continue reading “Work for Hire update”

Communism at Birkbeck

I don’t have the presence of mind to summarize all of the presentations at the Birkbeck Communism conference, the way I did with Michael Hardt’s talk in my last post. But I can make some generalizations. Part of the appeal of events such as these is simply to see the academic superstars in action. From … Continue reading “Communism at Birkbeck”

Communism conference — Michael Hardt

Michael Hardt’s talk, “The Production of the Common,” at the London conference On the Idea of Communism, summarized a lot of his ideas over the last several years in a way that I found helpful. He defined “communism” as having to do with the common — as opposed to both private property and state property. … Continue reading “Communism conference — Michael Hardt”

Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation

Paolo Virno’s newly-translated book, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation, is somewhat misleadingly titled, since it has very little to say about the concept of the multitude as featured in Virno’s previously-translated book, as well as in the work of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Rather, it is a text composed of three essays, a longish … Continue reading “Paolo Virno, Multitude: Between Innovation and Negation”