Rules For The Revolution: The Podcast

I was invited to join Tom Merritt and Rafe Needelman of the Real Deal podcast at CNET last week, and today I appeared on CNET Live (hosted by Tom Merritt and Brian Cooley).

For Real Deal Episode 106 (), we discussed all sorts of issues relating to copyright and on-line media. In today’s CNET Live appearance (link coming soon here) we focused on the 5 things I wish people understood better about copyright in the U.S. These are:

(1) that copyright protects expression, not ideas (that’s covered by patent law) and not slogans/short words (that’s the province of trademark law).
(2) that you can infringe a copyright even if you make no money !
(3) whether you intend to infringe has no bearing on liability, though it can effect a damages award against you.
(4) fair use has no bright lines (a caller had a question for us about the Harry Potter case being handled by CIS, so that proved a perfect segue to discussing fair use requirements).
(5) copyright is a great thing - it’s an engine of creativity and it’s important to the livelihood of artists and creators.

{UPDATE 5/5/08:} Here’s the CNET Live video:

It was great fun to discuss these issues with Tom, Brian and Rafe, and I hope readers/listeners of Rules for the Revolution check out those episodes too.