Photography In Public Is Not A Crime

from the protecting-the-first-amendment dept

Sadly, we talk way too often about police arresting people for doing nothing other than taking a picture or filming them. The police officers being filmed and photographed make these arrests using various excuses, but frequently the charges get dropped for lack of merit. The reason charges rarely stick when an officer is filmed is because filming police, or anyone in a public space, is not illegal. Some people may not like it, but it is a fact.

The New York Times is waking up to this fact that photography is not a crime. In an interview with Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counselor for the National Press Photographers Association, they get down to the nitty gritty of the legalities surrounding this age old tradition. They also talk a bit about just why such arrests are happening more frequently.

Since 9/11, there’s been an incredible number of incidents where photographers are being interfered with and arrested for doing nothing other than taking pictures or recording video in public places.

It’s not just news photographers who should be concerned with this. I think every citizen should be concerned. Tourists taking pictures are being told by police, security guards and sometimes other citizens, “Sorry, you can’t take a picture here.” When asked why, they say, “Well, don’t you remember 9/11?”

I haven't really thought of criminalizing photography as something to do with 9/11 before. I know that a lot of our rights have been eroded since that day, but the photography aspect never really clicked until now. Just as Mickey can't make heads nor tails of this argument, I am struggling to find a connection here. I don't recall cameras being a part of the plots to destroy the Twin Towers, Pentagon or White House.

Of course there could be more reasons for this increase in arresting photographers. Mickey suspects that part of the reason is the proliferation of the camera. Pretty much everyone with a smart phone has a camera capable of taking some very high quality pictures. Prior to this boom, the police had some modicum of control over the press. They knew the press wasn't going to be everywhere and were used to not being under constant recordable surveillance by the public. Now that anyone could be filming them or taking their picture, they are more on edge and more prone to lashing out.

When this happens, it is important for those accused to know their rights. However, it is also important for the police to know the public's rights as well. While you, as a photographer, may know that you have the right to take pictures or film in a public space, some officers may not know or may have forgotten that fact. That is why the Mickey and others have been working with police to keep officers reminded of that right.

Q. After photographers were stopped from photographing the police clearing Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zuccotti Park, you and representatives of a media coalition including The Times, met with the police commissioner Ray Kelly. What happened at that meeting?

A. It was on Nov. 23. I asked the commissioner if he would reissue the “finest message” from 1999 that dealt with the police cooperating with the press. He did that. It was read at 10 consecutive roll calls in every single station house and precinct.

The finest message is a policy statement on police interactions with the press. It states that officers are not to interfere with videotaping and photographing in public places. It also reminds officers that they have an obligation to assist the press whenever possible. This is very similar to the recent news when the DC police chief laid down the law on filming of officers.

Hopefully, continually repeating this message will help slow down this barrage of arrests for photographing the police. As more officers are reminded of the rights of the cameras-wielding public, we will hopefully start to see fewer future incidents. It would be great if other police departments across the nation follow the lead of NY and DC police in proactively spreading the word about the rights of the public to record and photograph the police.

Filed Under: crime, education, photography, police

DailyDirt: How Do You Solve A Problem Like... Academia?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Getting a tenured professorship position has been the dream job of a multitude of highly-educated researchers, but as funding cuts have hit public universities, these careers aren't looking as attractive as they once did. The academic system may soon be looking at some significant changes if the promise of tenure no longer serves to compensate underpaid educators. Here are just a few complaints about the current system, and feel free to suggest some solutions in the comments....

• Associate professors are unhappy (significantly less satisfied than assistant or full professors)... with the monotony of writing research grants, publishing and teaching. Maybe it's a mid-life crisis, or just the realization that there's not much appreciation for teachers in general. #firstworldproblems? [url]
• The problems with academia are nothing new -- graduate education has been called the "Detroit of higher learning" for a while now. Full-time professors probably shouldn't complain too much around grad students and adjunct professors, though. [url]
• Tenured CS prof Terran Lane explains why he resigned from his position to go work at Google. "We're being paid partly in cool. If you take away the cool parts of the job, you might as well go make more money elsewhere." [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: academia, education, professors, teachers, tenure
Companies: google

Outdated Compulsory Licensing Means Australian Schools Must Pay Millions To Use Free Internet Materials

from the it's-broken,-let's-fix-it dept

Recently we wrote about how copyright rules designed for an analog age were causing problems when transposed without modification to the digital world. Here's another example, this time from Australia, where the Brisbane Times' site reports on an increasingly difficult situation in education as a result of outdated copyright approaches:

Schools spend almost [AU]$56 million [US$59 million] a year under a compulsory licence to copy material such as books and journals without permission from the copyright owner. But an unintended consequence of the licence means schools also pay millions for internet material that the website owners never intended to charge for

The problem is that there are strict rules that schools must follow when teachers duplicate material -- rules that were designed for a world where practically every page copied had to be paid for. However, the inflexibilities of the scheme mean that these are now being applied even when teachers print or save freely-available materials from the Internet, or ask students to do the same for homework.

A "best estimate" for the scale of the problem is around $8 million, and as the Internet becomes an increasingly important resource for schools, things are only going to get worse:

These costs were likely to increase as the national broadband network was rolled out and might ''eventually become prohibitive'', [the National Copyright Unit's director] said.

Fortunately, the Australian Law Reform Commission is holding an inquiry into copyright and the digital economy currently, so there is hope that its recommendations will include a radical overhaul of the compulsory licensing system for schools. Given copyright's three-hundred-year-old machinery, it's unlikely to be the only area that requires such action.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: australia, compulsory licenses, copyright, education

Is This Real? Is This Recall? MPAA Hosts Screening Of Total Recall To 'Educate' Congress On 'Benefits' Of IP Protection

from the is-that-real?-do-you-recall? dept

It's been said that Hollywood is completely out of ideas, and all it does these days is the same thing over and over again. That seems to be the case both on the policy front and with its movies. So how perfect is it that the MPAA's gift-of-the-month to Congress is a showing of the remake of the movie Total Recall? As we noted in our post about the MPAA's special showing of the latest Batman flick, to get around breaking gift giving guidelines, the MPAA includes a special "educational component," before its movies, which somehow makes it okay. We heard from attendees of the Batman showing that (amazingly) no mention of copyright or piracy issues was made in the "educational" component. Rather it was a presentation about the Natural History Museum and how it was doing things with IMAX, as well as a Time Warner presentation about its online offerings like HBO GO, TV Everywhere and Ultra Violet.

However, this month, the MPAA will more directly address the copyright issue, as you can see in the invite below, where they note the "educational" component will be about "the impact of film in the global economy and the benefit of IP protection to global trade." As the tagline of the movie says, "Is it real? Is it recall?" One has to imagine that the "educational" content will be particularly one sided, and I'd question how "real" the lesson will be. The stats that the MPAA is fond of throwing out are rarely anywhere close to reality. The presentation almost certainly won't "recall" the fact that due to the MPAA's own ridiculously extreme position on "IP protection" in "global trade," the ACTA agreement has more or less killed the agreement (at least for the majority of Europe).

If Congress wants an educational lesson on the role of IP and international trade, they might want to "recall" that the MPAA is just about the last place to go to get any sense of "reality."

Filed Under: congress, education, ip, screenings, total recall, trade negotiations
Companies: mpaa

Would US Education Be Better If We Replaced Algebra Requirements With Stats & Logic?

from the reshuffling dept

By now you may have heard about the NY Times article from over the weekend in which political science professor Andrew Hacker makes the somewhat contrarian suggestion that the US education system would function much better if we ditched algebra requirements. The whole article is worth reading, but the basic gist of it is that many people who end up dropping out of school do so in part because of trouble they have in getting past basic algebra. It's a key stumbling block.

California's two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take.

"There are students taking these courses three, four, five times," says Barbara Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, "many drop out."

Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor's degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn't pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: "failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor." A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F's and D's compared as other subjects.

I will admit that my initial reaction to this article was to scoff and think that it's ridiculous. Understanding basic algebra, to me, seems fundamental to understand a variety of other important things -- including some forms of logic and statistics. So, I wondered how dropping algebra as a requirement might make those already lacking fields even worse.

However, Hacker's piece actually suggests something of a solution: potentially replacing algebra with a form of statistics, which is rarely a required course.

Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call "citizen statistics." This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives.

It could, for example, teach students how the Consumer Price Index is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is weighted - and include discussion about which items should be included and what weights they should be given.

I will admit to being unsure how such a class will work without a basic underpinning in algebra. However, conceptually, what Hacker is saying makes sense. Focusing on the formulaic side of algebra isn't particularly practical for many people. I could see how classes that focus on practical mathematical skills around statistics and logic, could actually be a lot more useful. And while he says these don't need to be "backdoor" algebra classes, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Having people understand the basics of algebra by putting them in realistic situations they understand, and showing how to apply such things in a useful manner doesn't seem like such a bad idea...

Filed Under: algebra, drop outs, education, logic, math, statistics

Great Day For Canadian Copyright: Supreme Court Issues Five (Count 'Em) Rulings Supporting Fair Dealing And Fewer Tariffs

from the proud-day dept

Canadian copyright is undergoing huge changes. The copyright reform bill is very close to becoming law, bringing with it some fantastic new fair dealing provisions (though unfortunately along with a significant downside in the form of digital locks rules), and now the Supreme Court has stepped in with a series of major rulings that reinforce users' rights and begin the process of cleaning up the mess that is Canada's copyright tariff system. This morning, the court published five separate judgements in cases related to tariffs and royalties, and each one contains significant victories for smarter copyright law.

There is a lot to dig into in this series of rulings, and some complex legal questions involved in some portions, but each one also makes clear statements. In the first case, between Alberta schools and the copyright collective Access Copyright, the court found that photocopies for classroom use can be covered by the "research" provisions of fair dealing. In the second case, between videogame publishers and a music collection society, the court found that selling videogames does not constitute a new public performance of the music they contain, and thus does not require a public performance royalty (yes—the Copyright Board and Federal Court of Appeals had both previously ruled that transmitting videogames with music in them counts as "communication to the public"). Similarly, in the third case, the court found that films which contain music are also not public performances requiring an additional royalty (on that one, the lower courts had gotten it right and also refused to certify the tariff). In the fourth case, the court affirmed that while streaming music to users is a public performance, offering music for download is not—so services like iTunes also don't have to pay additional performance royalties. Finally, in the ruling that may get the most attention, the court found that 30 second previews of songs provided by online music services qualify as fair dealing for the purposes of research—a battle that has been going on for a long time in Canada and is now, finally, put to rest.

The rulings also contain a lot of very important language that will have a lasting impact beyond these specific scenarios. The Supreme Court reaffirms the fact that fair dealing must have a "large and liberal" interpretation, and set down some clear restrictions on the power of the Copyright Board. Howard Knopf does an excellent job of summing up some of the important points and broader themes of these five landmark rulings:

• Collectives cannot assume that they will be entitled to an additional "layer" of remunerated rights every time there is a new method of delivery. Technological neutrality matters.
• The Court said what it meant and meant what is said in CCH v. LSUC in 2004 and will move forward from there - not be pushed backwards.
• Users have rights that must be given a "large and liberal interpretation". Copyright doesn't exist solely for collectives.
• Educators are in a "symbiotic" relationship with students and the Copyright Act serves the goal of education, which includes access to essential material
• Copyright law is both about "protection" and "access"
• Copyright law is about "dissemination"
• "Research" is not restricted to "creative purposes". Consumer research counts too. Research can even be for "personal interest". There is no absolute requirement for "transformative" use in Canada
• The user's purpose is the one that counts in fair dealing
• Practices that increase the sale of work cannot be said to have a negative impact on the work
• The concept "public" must be considered in light of new technology, technological neutrality and the purpose of the legislation. The fact that communication may be interactive on an individual basis does not mean that it cannot be considered to be to the "public"
• When the statute uses a word such as "excludes", it means it. The word is not superfluous.
• Parliament did not intend to "recognize a superior expertise of the [Copyright] Board relative to the courts with respect to legal questions arising under the Copyright Act". On copyright questions of "first instance", the Board will get no more deference that any court would get. In other words, the Board must be "correct". It will not be sufficient that it merely be "reasonable"

One of the groups that is likely to be hit the hardest by these rulings is Access Copyright. We've covered the fact that Canada's university association struck a terrible deal with Access Copyright for the clearance of educational materials, and several major Canadian unversities are refusing to sign on. This Supreme Court case was not directly dealing with that situation (it covers only primary and secondary schools), but the ruling contains a complete tear-down of Access Copyright's entire business model which applies every bit as much to universities and colleges. Michael Geist walks through the point-by-point dismantling of all Access Copyright's standard arguments against fair dealing, leaving them very few legs to stand on moving forward. For those universities that plan to clear their own copyrights, this is a very big win—for those that didn't have the resources to keep fighting after the AUCC abandoned them, it just highlights how bad of a deal they got.

Copyright law in Canada has its problems—first and foremost the extremely bad digital locks rules that will come into effect with Bill C-11. But, increasingly, and most notably at the Supreme Court level, we've also been making significant strides in the right direction, using legal language that displays a clear understanding of both modern realities and the need for balance in copyright law. There are still important battles to be fought, but today the Supreme Court gave us a huge arsenal of new weapons.

Filed Under: c-11, canada, education, fair dealing, research, scc
Companies: access copyright

Why Do Copyright Maximalists Think That Lame 'Education' Campaigns Will Brainwash Children?

from the doesn't-make-any-sense dept

It happens at least once a year: some major copyright maximalist organization comes out with some sort of "copyright education campaign" targeted at children. These programs are always high on propaganda and short on facts. They rarely include full or clear explanations of things like fair use, or the true intention of copyright (benefiting the public). The latest such attempt is happening in France, where three-strikes agency Hadopi is proposing a propaganda campaign at a big kids' event called "Kidexpo." Numerama, who got its hands on some details of the plan, explained that the goal is to "raise awareness" of issues related to copyright and creativity.

But, here's the thing: all of these programs seem to assume, falsely, that kids are complete idiots who can have basic common sense brainwashed out of them. That's not the case. As we've seen for the better part of a decade, kids who attend these "sessions" know a lot better than the people teaching them just how ridiculous they come off, and don't take them very seriously. No matter how many times this strategy fails, however, some clueless adult decides that kids can be brainwashed if they just try again. It's even better when they include silly mascots.

While it's amusing sometimes to watch the maximalists flail around like this, you have to wonder if they'll ever recognize that kids aren't stupid, and pushing obvious propaganda to them doesn't make them unable to understand how technology works.

Filed Under: awareness, children, copyright maximalists, education, propaganda

A Broken System: Einstein Wouldn't Have Been 'Qualified' To Teach High School Physics

from the time-to-fix-things dept

We've argued for years that many professions that require certain forms of "licensing" are often more about restricting supply. That's not to say those who set up the licensing effort didn't have the best of intentions, but the end effect often doesn't actually do much to benefit the public. I'm reminded of this after reading economist Charles Wheelen explaining why Albert Einstein technically wouldn't have been "qualified" to teach high school physics after retiring from a distinguished career at Princeton. And, for Wheelen, it's not just hypothetical:

When my wife tried to make a mid-career switch to teaching math in the Chicago Public Schools, I no longer needed a hypothetical example. I realized that licensing had the potential to be every bit as harmful in practice as I'd been saying it was in theory.

My wife Leah graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth. She was a computer science major with an emphasis on math. She worked in the software industry, built a company, and then sold it. She seemed, in every respect, perfectly qualified to teach middle-school math.

She found a job at a school adjacent to a public housing project on Chicago's South Side. On about day three of that job—after she had met the students, decorated the classroom, and started teaching—the principal informed Leah that she did not have a "middle-school math endorsement," which the State of Illinois requires.

Amazingly, this happened a second time as well. She did get the "math endorsement," but then lost a job teaching algebra because she didn't have a special "algebra endorsement." And yet, she's clearly qualified to teach those subjects. And, even more importantly, Wheelen points to research showing that students with "certified" teachers don't do any better than those with "uncertified" teachers -- suggesting the whole process has little to do with making sure students get the best education.

Filed Under: chicago, education, einstein, licensing, physics, princeton

Techno-Panic Headlines: 'Enhanced Ebooks Are Bad For Children'

from the sensationalism dept

It's no secret that the media loves techno-panic stories, especially when they can quote some scientist or researcher condemning a new technology. Sometimes the studies they point to are bogus, but more often than not the fault lies with the reporters, who oversimplify or flat-out misrepresent the findings. The Guardian recently published a perfect example of this, where even the story itself seems to admit that the facts are far less sensational than the headline.

And that headline is pretty blunt: Enhanced ebooks are bad for children finds American study. Bad for children, huh? That must mean there were some pretty clear negative results in whatever this study looked at, right? Not so much. When you read the details, you discover that the study was looking specifically at a book's ability to promote literacy and reading comprehension, where it found that ebooks with interactive graphical bells and whistles distract focus from the text and are inferior in that regard. But the study's authors also note, quite firmly, that this is simply something for parents and educators to keep in mind when deciding on activities for their kids, and that enhanced ebooks are still fantastic for helping to engage kids who are otherwise uninterested in books. Basically, they say a lot of enhanced ebooks fall more on the play side of things than the study side—but kids play, and it's actually great if some of that play involves storytelling and reading, even if it's done in a lighter fashion. In short, they absolutely do not say that enhanced ebooks are "bad for children".

Children reading enhanced ebooks also "recalled significantly fewer narrative details than children who read the print version of the same story", said the researchers, speculating that the extra features may be distracting. But while "print books were more advantageous for literacy building co-reading", ebooks, and particularly enhanced ebooks, were better "for engaging children and prompting physical interaction".

...

Chiong told the Guardian that enhanced ebooks "absolutely still have a place. Kids seem to love them. If enhanced books can engage kids who might not be as interested in reading, we will achieve an important goal. In our study, we were specifically looking at book-reading with a focus on learning and comprehension. That is only one of many purposes for reading. If the purpose is to just have fun or explore a classic tale in a new way, enhanced books are great."

What's not mentioned, but seems obvious, is the fact that this same argument could be applied to books with sound effects, pop-up books, and for that matter just books with illustrations—all things that potentially detract from "pure" literacy but serve to make kids more interested in reading. The researchers also note that enhanced ebooks can be done well and done poorly: the right kinds of interactivity, actually relating to the narrative, can be far less distracting and maybe even beneficial—it's the unnecessary ornamentation that is the core problem. That's not unlike any form of entertainment, even for adults: just see debates about the use of 3D in movies for an example.

So what we actually have here is a pretty interesting study that sheds some light on the way kids interact with enhanced reading material while refraining from taking any extreme positions on the technology. Every newspaper headline writer just fell asleep while reading that sentence.

Filed Under: ebooks, education, learning, techno-panic

What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?

from the insanity dept

Torrentfreak has the story of an economics professor (of all things) who has apparently received a patent on a way to try to force students to buy expensive textbooks. The professor, Joseph Henry Vogel, is positioning this patent (8,195,571) as an "anti-piracy" technique, though it appears that it works equally well in preventing students from sharing a single textbook or merely checking the textbook out of the library. The details of the patent are hardly new or innovative either. The basics are that the class has both a textbook and an online discussion board -- and buying the textbook provides you a code that allows you to enter the discussion board. In theory, you could also just buy the code.

There'a all sorts of idiocy involved in this situation. Let's just separate out a few examples:

1. How the hell does something like this get patented in the first place? There is a tremendous amount of prior art in the form of things like "one-time" use codes for video games and other digital offerings to limit the used sales market. And yet this still gets approved? USPTO examiner James D. Nigh should be ashamed for letting this piece of garbage get approved.
2. The claims here (the patent only has four) are so broad and so general, I don't see how it passes the non-obvious test, nor how it is anything more than mashing together a few different things that are widely available already and have been for years. After the KSR ruling the USPTO was supposed to reject broad patents that just combined basic concepts already found in the market.
3. How could a professor of economics actually think that locking up access to information is a good idea? That alone would make me avoid any class that he taught, as his understanding of information economics is way, way off.
4. It's sad that anyone in academia would think that this is a good idea. In an age where Harvard and MIT are investing a ton into opening up access, this guy is focused on locking it down.

The whole thing is extraordinary for how bad of an idea it is -- and the fact that a patent was actually issued on this only compounds the ridiculousness.

Filed Under: economics, education, harvard, james d. nigh, mit, textbooks, uspto