Lots of chatter out there about music licensing costs on 80 year old music basically destroying the commercial prospects of the independent film Sita Sings The Blues.  Interesting stuff, it’s always good to have these real-life examples of the deleterious effects of copyright maximalism. This one might be a particularly interesting one to keep an eye on because it looks like film-maker Paley is going to take some interesting approaches to getting her film out there in spite of these problems. Alan Wexelblat’s Copyfight post is a great place to dig in, if you’ve thus far missed this.

I also really enjoyed reading Stallman’s “Misinterpreting Copyright“, which appears in Stallman’s collected essays, Free Software, Free Society. Though i love geeking out on policy, i enjoy stepping back and thinking about the basic philosophical framework for copyright in this country and this essay does a nice job of presenting some of that. I also like that he concludes by mentioning the danger of EULAs replacing copyright as a tool of corporate control of information if we’re not careful. Because, yeah.