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Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol opens today to a chorus of negative reviews and a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A particularly harsh assessment comes from Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal: To put it bluntly, if Scroogely, Disney’s 3-D animated version of “A Christmas Carol” is a calamity. The pace is predominantly glacial—that alone would be enough to cook the goose of this premature holiday turkey—and the tone is joyless, despite an extended passage of bizarre laughter, several dazzling flights of digital fancy, a succession of striking images and Jim Carrey’s voicing of Scrooge plus half a dozen...

. . Once Again, Entertainment Industry Looks To Force Massive Copyright Changes Via Int'l Treaties from the how-the-game-is-played dept By now you should know that one of the entertainment industry's favorite tools for forcing ever more draconian copyright laws around the world is to use international treaties. Such treaties are not put together by elected officials, but appointed diplomats, often with tremendous input (to the point of allowing them to write the details) from industries that are protected. Then, once those treaties are in place, copyright maximalists just get to sit back and say "but we must make our copyright...

The European Parliament voted on Thursday in favor of extending copyright on music recordings in the European Union to 70 years from 50 at present, diluting a draft law in a bid to reach a final deal. The measure, if it becomes law, will ensure for example that recordings of the early Beatles hit "Love Me Do" do not become copyright-free from 2012. EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy had proposed prolonging performance copyright for singers and musicians to 95 years but many EU states, which have joint say with parliament, felt this was too long. Parliament voted 377 in...

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes"The Obama Administration's Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held...

"Yes we can,'' the Obama campaign proclaimed. "No you can't,'' says the Obama White House of the varied attempts to cash in on the brand Obama built. Or maybe they can, or can't. The lawyers are looking into it, Bloomberg News reports" ### President-elect Barack Obama has created his own brand - represented both by the iconic images of the candidate who campaigned for "change'' and by the "Yes we can'' and "Change We Can Believe in" slogans generated by that campaign. Now the Obama White House, mindful of the "worldwide fascination'' about his election, First Amendment free-speech rights and...

A video message on behalf of 38,000 UK musicians has been sent... many of whom have worked with major artists, say they risk losing their income under current laws. Performers' copyright runs out after 50 years but for composers and authors it extends for 70 years after their death. The European Commission is backing an extension to 95 years from release, but the UK government is not supportive. Under current copyright laws, royalties will soon dry up for session musicians who played on classic tracks released in the 1960s, campaigners say... Phil Pickett, a musician who played with '80s band...

In the aftermath of the $222,000 jury verdict that the Recording Industry Association of America recently won against a Minnesota woman who shared 24 songs on Kazaa, the U.S. Congress is preparing to amend copyright law. Politicians want to increase penalties for copyright infringement. It's no joke. Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced a sweeping 69-page bill that ratchets up civil penalties for copyright infringement, boosts criminal enforcement, and even creates a new federal agency charged with bringing about a national and international copyright crackdown. "By providing additional resources for enforcement of intellectual...

Music copyrights will remain fixed at 50 years after the British government decided against extending their term to as much as 95 years. In May, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Culture, Media, and Sport had recommended that the term be lengthened to bring it more in line with copyright terms in the rest of the world (95 years in the US). Related StoriesBeatles music to start entering UK public domain in 2012? Gowers: I took the "politically prudent" course on copyright in IP report Compulsory music licenses to get Congressional overhaul courtesy of "Mr. Hollywood" Court declines to postpone Internet...

APRIL 30--Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to sue an Ohio company that is selling a bobblehead doll featuring the name and likeness of the California governor. In a blistering letter sent yesterday to the Ohio Discount Merchandise company, lawyer Martin Singer contended that Schwarzenegger was entitled to "substantial damages" for the "unauthorized commercial exploitation" of the Republican pol's image on the $19.99 doll. With the exception of movie promotion, Singer noted that Schwarzenegger does not permit the use of his likeness on commercial products in the United States. Below you'll find a copy of Singer's letter. The Schwarzenegger doll, which went...

The $90 billion entertainment industry is teaching middle-school children a course in copyright law that some education specialists say is one-sided and promotes commercialism in the classroom. In the past year, the Motion Picture Association of America has spent approximately $200,000 to launch its program called ''What's The Diff?" to combat digital piracy. Despite the criticism, the trade group plans to continue the program next school year. The 45-minute class is taught by volunteers from the nonprofit business group Junior Achievement, and reaches about 900,000 children in primarily disadvantaged schools from Boston to Los Angeles. The volunteers, some of whom...

A Los Angeles judge on Monday delivered the first good news Walt Disney has had this year when he dismissed a 13-year-old multimillion-dollar lawsuit over its rights to exploit Winnie the Pooh and his 100-Aker Wood associates. "It is all over," said Disney lawyer Daniel Petrocelli. The ruling appeared to end a colourful struggle over a group of Disney's most profitable film, merchandise and theme park characters that had stirred allegations of skullduggery on both sides. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the entertainment group warned that losing the case would have cost it hundreds of millions...

In 1992 the United States government held title to 724 million acres of land within the boundaries of the 50 states. More than half of the land in the eleven westernmost states is federally administered, along with over ten million acres east of the Mississippi River. Of this, only 22 million acres, which are a part of our defense establishment, can be classified as a constitutionally justified withholding from rightful owners: states and individuals. The history of this gigantic fraud is known and understood by few Americans, and it is precisely this lack of knowledge which has permitted radical environmental...

"This translation of the Holy Bible is in the public domain, since its copyright has expired. You are encouraged to download, copy, publish, and use this translation freely." American Standard Version of the Holy Bible (1901) King James Version of the The Holy Bible with Apocrypha A Modern English translation of the Holy Bible that can be legally copied and republished  

After the copyright smackdown: What next?Don't despair at the Supreme Court's gift to Disney, says one expert. The fight has really only just begun. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress was within its constitutional bounds to extend the duration of all copyrights by 20 years -- up to 70 years beyond the life of the author and potentially infinitely -- many saw the ruling as a knockout blow to the movement to reform copyright. Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be called the "Dred Scott case for culture," unjustifiably locking up...

WASHINGTON (Variety) - Handing the entertainment business an enormous win Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) upheld a 1998 law giving Hollywood nearly a century before having to release copyrighted pictures into the public domain and lose exclusive rights to sell coveted classics. In a 7-2 ruling worth billions to showbiz, the justices said Capitol Hill was perfectly within its rights when it extended the life of copyrighted works by two decades, from 75 to 95 years. Industryites say the ruling provides an important investment incentive, both for future projects and for hundreds of existing works. With...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld longstanding copyrights designed to protect the profits of songs, books and cartoon characters, a huge victory for Disney and other companies. The 7-2 ruling, while not unexpected, was a blow to Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use the likenesses of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and other old creations without paying high royalties. Hundreds of thousands of books, movies and songs were close to being released into the public domain when Congress extended the copyright by 20 years in 1998. Justices said the copyright extension,...

European copyright protection is expiring on a collector's trove of 1950's jazz, opera and early rock 'n' roll albums, forcing major American record companies to consider deals with bootleg labels and demand new customs barriers. Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet, the recording companies will now face a perfectly legal influx of European recordings of popular works. Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings...

European copyright protection is expiring on a collector's trove of 1950's jazz, opera and early rock 'n' roll albums, forcing major American record companies to consider deals with bootleg labels and demand new customs barriers. Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet, the recording companies will now face a perfectly legal influx of European recordings of popular works. Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in Europe compared to 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings made in...

Here's a big news flash y'all will probably never hear from the establishment news: The LA Times and Washington Post settled their lawsuit against the Free Republic web site. Now, for readers who do not happen to know about the Free Republic web site(1), all I can say is go look. What you will find there is the modern "Liberty Tree." That is, folks post news articles and commentary on the site and invite others to comment. Well, here's the rub: Most of the many thousands of people visiting Free Republic daily are rather conservative. Much of the published news...