jdm's Copyright Page

This page is be a collection of various copyright-related information, primarily my own writings and observations. As a disclaimer, I do not have a formal background in copyright law. I have followed it intently as a hobby for approximately three or four years now, and as of now (March 2003) am taking a graduate-level class in copyright law at Duke. Thus this page is a mix of my understanding of copyright law from this class, combined with my own take on the issues.

Some useful links.

• An experiment testing what current DRM schemes will and won't let consumers do with media they've purchased.


• A cursory statistical analysis of the RIAA sales figures versus those of the economy at large. Given that the economy has taken a downswing, along with CD sales, are the two related? Or is "digital piracy" to blame?


• Why I think Larry Lessig and Eric Eldred's proposal to reform copyright won't work.


• Two spoofs of Ken Brown's "study" that Linus did not write Linux. There's the press release and the longer article.


• Information about Jack Valenti's visit to the Duke Law School, February 2003.


• A honeypot of empty files with an mp3 extension on them. Do humans ever look at the search results?


• The Idiot's, er, Slashdotter's, Beginner's guide to copyright law.


• Occasional rants of mine about copyright-related events, issues, etc.


• More to come ...