{"id":174,"date":"2005-06-22T00:10:15","date_gmt":"2005-06-22T00:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/legal_lessons_l\/"},"modified":"2005-06-22T00:10:15","modified_gmt":"2005-06-22T00:10:15","slug":"legal_lessons_l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/business\/legal_lessons_l\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Lessons Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photocopy\"<\/a>So I’m reading a National Geographic<\/em> booklet aimed at elementary school students, called Looking at Cells<\/em><\/a> by Rebecca L Johnson. In a spread called "Thinking Like a Scientist" that explains how to measure small things in micrographs, I see a picture of a paramecium, labeled "Paramecium x110<\/em>". Next to it there’s the following chunk of text:<\/p>\n

\n

Check It Out<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Suppose you have permission to photocopy the picture of theParamecium,<\/em> and you enlarge it to twice its size. Would the magnification of x110<\/em> still be correct? Explain.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Note how it says, "suppose you have permission to photocopy the picture," instead of, "suppose you photocopy the picture," or even, "photocopy the picture."<\/p>\n

Derrrrrr. Somehow the issue of copyright infringement has made its way explicitly and incongruously into a children’s science booklet.<\/p>\n

(The inside cover lists the picture credit as "page 27 (middle) \u00ae M. Abbey\/Visuals Unlimited".)<\/p>\n

I imagine the writer put it more simply before a lawyer or editor touched it up. Because we wouldn’t want 4th graders running around with enlarged b&w photocopies of a paramecium taken from Visuals Unlimited. Knowing kids, they might digitize the photocopies and post them on the internets<\/a>, or store them on their iPods. How would VU make money THEN?<\/p>\n

I also imagine copyright-conscious kiddies, attentive to the wording’s specific subtext, enchanted by the possibilities of a Creative Commons<\/a> future. "Suppose you have permission…" Wow! Suppose I have permission! It’s telling me to imagine a wondrous world where I’m legally allowed to photocopy this image I hold in my hands! What a spectacular sight that would be! Then I could perform ALL KINDS of measurements on it! But, aw shucks, for now I’m just stuck with my dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I’m reading a National Geographic booklet aimed at elementary school students, called Looking at Cells by Rebecca L Johnson. In a spread called "Thinking Like a Scientist" that explains how to measure small things in micrographs, I see a picture of a paramecium, labeled "Paramecium x110". Next to it there’s the following chunk of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,32,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-business","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silverjacket.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}