And another big win today for the Stanford CIS project

As if the decision upholding free licenses wasn’t enough for one day, a New York Supreme Court (the highest trial court in New York) has denied Yoko Ono an injunction to stop the distribution of a film that uses a clip of Lennon’s Imagine. Wonderfully, the Court explicitly refuses to follow the 6th Circuit’s “no de minimis” rule sound recordings, and holds that there is fair use under New York’s common law copyright regime. Read the more good news here.

This entry was posted in free culture. Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to And another big win today for the Stanford CIS project

  1. Seth Schoen says:

    I think I have to insist that that phrase should be spelled “de minimis” (as the CIS blog post spells it), because “de” governs the ablative case and the ablative of “minima” is “minimis”.

    I’ve seen “de minimus” all over the place, but it must have arisen because of a notion that Latin nouns should end in “-us” and maybe also because it’s hard to distinguish non-native Latin speakers’ pronunciations of “-īs” and “-us”. 🙂

    Congratulations to CIS on this victory.

    LESSIG: Corrected as suggested. Thanks.

  2. We think of Supreme Court as our highest trial court.

    LESSIG: thanks. Corrected.

  3. Peter Rock says:

    A just ruling. And, there’s the added bonus in that allowing distribution of the film will help others see the ID movement for what it is. It would be a shame to block material that only accelerates implosion of the ID movement.

    If Christianity is what floats one’s boat, at least listen to Christians that don’t attempt to co-opt science with their unobservable beliefs.

  4. Stephen McKay says:

    Just wondered if you’d seen this small controversy about the UK Govt’s alleged misuse of open source materials …

    http://dizzythinks.net/2008/08/downing-street-claims-crown-copyright.html
    http://www.mikerouse.net/2008/08/15/10-downing-street-wordpress-website-knock-off-and-rip-off/

  5. Mike says:

    *sigh*

    I figure if you’re going to stand up for a principle, you have to go on standing up for it even when it pains you most.

    I know this is a win for freedom of speech, for free culture. I really do, and I really am glad of it.

    But damn I hate that they used that beautiful song in that hateful film.

Leave a Reply