Recently in Law Category
With the opening of the Olympics less than a week away, there still seems to be a muddle over whether or not tourists rich enough to afford a trip to China can bring expensive digital cameras into game venues. According to rules adopted in April, professional camera equipment will not be allowed into the Olympic Green. While that rule remains posted on the Internet, however, the Olympic Committee is conveniently omitting from signs at the event any mention of the ban. Zach Honig, reporting from Beijing for Popphoto.com, observed in a dispatch today, "While still listed on BOCOG's Website as banned from the Olympic venues, professional photography equipment is not present on the list of prohibited items outside security checkpoints." Nevertheless, uncertainty surrounds the issue. "I don't think we'll be certain whether or not SLR cameras are allowed until spectators try using them at venues," Honig noted.
Monica Hesse in the Washington Post today revisits an issue that cropped up last year when an Australian advertising agency nicked an image from Flickr to use in a campaign for Virgin Mobile Australia. In this latest incident of misappropriated imagery, Fox Sports snagged a snapshot of a festively attired pug named Truman (photo above) from the Sweetney blog of Baltimore mom Tracey Gaughran-Perez and incorporated it into a "Happy Holidays" graphic during the telecast of the Eagles-Saints game on December 23.
"Under the banner of 'intellectual property,' record labels warn you not to bootleg their songs," Hesse writes. "Hollywood studios warn you not to download their movies. Intellectual property has lately seemed the concern of corporations trying to protect the artist from the grabby public."
"But in an increasingly user-generated world where the public is the artist, sometimes it's the big boys who get grabby," she adds.
As for Gaughran-Perez, she's managed to keep her sense of humor about the incident. "Despite appearances, life has continued on pretty much unchanged here in the Sweetney household since Dog Photo Kerfuffle 2007 began its reign of terror," she wrote yesterday. "Well, except that Truman now has an agent, and is working on his memoirs and shopping a couple screenplays around."
New federal rules for traveling with lithium batteries went into effect on New Year's Day, according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. It says that spare lithium batteries--that is, batteries not in a device--may not be packed in checked baggage when boarding a plane, but they can be packed in carry-on luggage. However, there are limits on how much lithium the carry-on batteries may contain, but almost all consumer batteries contain lithium amounts below those limits. "[I]f you are unsure," the agency warns, "contact the manufacturer!"
