when copying is outlawed, only outlaws will have culture
In the next few weeks, we’ll be shutting down the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization associated with this web site. The site and all its posts will stay online; time permitting, we may make new posts or even run some projects. However, it’s been a long time since I personally have been able to devote serious attention…
As we’ve pointed out before, copyright began as a compromise censorship law, and is still frequently used as a means of censorship today. The U.S. Senate is not being overly subtle about it lately, either. The so-called “SMART Copyright Act of 2022” would effectively force online platforms to use content-monitoring software designated by the U.S.…
Famed animator (and QCO Artist-in-Residence) Nina Paley has finished a project that she’s been working on for nearly half a year: Apocalypse Animated, animations to accompany the complete Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. Enjoy the 3-minute trailer, then jump straight in starting at Chapter 1. The animations, in combination with…
The Internet Archive has been taking some heat for their National Emergency Library initiative. I think the NEL is a very, very good thing, and I’d like to explain why. First, you need to know what the National Emergency Library is. It’s just a change in access policy: For the duration of the COVID-19 crisis…
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QuestionCopyright.org had a very quiet 2019, while we took care of some internal infrastructure work. Happily, most of that work is done now. In 2020, our main project is the BookLiberator, but this time without special hardware. It will be a purely software application for smartphones, which are now capable of capturing the requisite high-resolution…
This is just a sad update to our earlier story, but now it’s official: CloudFlare has ceased serving Sci-Hub, in accordance with the court-ordered Internet damage we wrote about earlier. Take a moment to consider: This is the same CloudFlare that previously agonized publicly about their decision to terminate service to The Daily Stormer, a…
It was just a matter of time before some large-scale holder of copyright monopolies tried this in the U.S… The American Chemical Society has asked a U.S. court to require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access — that is, refuse to carry network traffic to and from — a site that the ACS claims…
Happy New Year, copyright questioners! As some of you may have noticed, we spent a good deal of 2016 in hibernation. QCO is a volunteer-run organization, and sometimes those volunteers get busy with other stuff in their lives. Hard as it may be to believe, advocating against information monopoly does not pay the bills —…
Thursday, April 21st, 7:30pm at IFC Center in New York City (323 6th Ave) Work-in-Progress screening of “Seder-Masochism”, the upcoming new film by Question Copyright Artist-in-Residence Nina Paley. Q&A to follow. Advance ticket purchase required. This is not the finished film. This is about 40 minutes of in-progress work — the core musical scenes, featuring,…