It was on this day in 1790 that Congress enacted the United States copyright law. The law gave authors exclusive rights to publish and sell maps, charts, and books for a period of 14 years, with a chance to renew the copyright for another 14 years. There have been many changes to the U.S. copyright law since 1790. In the 19th century, copyrights became available for photographs, paintings, drawings, and models. In 1909, musical rolls for player pianos became covered by the law. In the last 30 years, copyright law has expanded to include cable TV, computer software, tapes, CDs, DVDs, and MP3s.

Eric Faden, of the Media Education Foundation, explains Copyright and Fair Use in this bizarre video:

the view gets a little slanted at the end. What do you think of his spin? Are copyright laws out of control?

It’s the birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts (1803). He said, “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books.”

www.RWE.org has free access to the complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as essays, letters, commentary and more.
 

Public Action is a way for you to engage on-line with other listeners to the World. Each day we’ll select a story from that day’s broadcast and open it up as a topic for discussion. You can post your thoughts for all to see, or comment on what someone else has written. We’d especially like to encourage those of you with personal knowledge or experiences related to the discussion topics to contribute your anecdotes or observations. Hopefully Public Action will illuminate experiences and ideas interesting to all of us, and some of them may find their way on to the broadcast.

At this stage Public Action is still at the development stage (the technical folks call it a beta test), so we’re also really interested in hearing from you how you think Public Action works and ways that it could be improved. You’ll see that there’s already a discussion thread for you to comment on that. We’re also not doing this alone. Several public radio stations and Car Talk are all giving Public Action a test drive. You only need to register with one of us to have access to all of the other Public Action sites.

Finally, there are some ground-rules for posting. We call them the five keeps:
Keep it on-topic
Keep it clean
Keep it civil
Keep it brief
Keep to the Terms and Conditions
The rest, as they say, is up to you.

So tell them what you think! Click here.

The Lowertown Arts Festival is celebrating

The webside has an event map (pdf) and a guide to lowertown (pdf) to help you find what you’re looking for.  The music’s free, along with many of the activities. Visit http://www.paducaharts.com/festival.php for more.

Also this weekend…

Edit: Don’t forget to vote in the primaries this Tuesday!!

Murray, KY.   Murray State University’s listener supported public radio service, WKMS, reports its annual spring fundraiser met and exceeded its $100,000 goal in community support.  Conducted in four phases, by mail, by phone, by challenge grants, and on air, the WKMS spring campaign received gifts or pledges from 1133 individual listeners and 19 businesses, professional underwriters, and institutions throughout its coverage area.

Listeners in Murray and Paducah contributed 47 percent of the total given by individuals.  Residents of Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Paris, Tennessee, Cadiz, Benton, Mayfield and Princeton were, in that order, the next largest community groups participating in the fundraiser, together contributing 25 percent of the total gifts.  Listeners in the remaining cities and communities in the WKMS listening area brought together a full 28 percent of the overall total.

WKMS received challenge grants from: Alcan Composites Inc., Benton; API Contractors, Calvert City; Artisan Kitchen, Paducah; Ear, Nose and Throat Group, Paducah, Murray & Princeton  ; Edward Jones, Murray; Fidalgo Bay Coffee, Murray; First United Bank & Trust Company, Hopkins County; Hopkins County-Madisonville Public Library; Jackson Purchase Energy Corporation, Paducah; Mr. Mulch, Hopkinsville;

Murray Woman’s Clinic; Paducah Parenting Magazine; Paducah Power System; Roof Brothers Wine & Spirits, Paducah; St. John’s Episcopal Church, Murray; Tod Megibow, Attorney, Paducah; United Methodist Churches of Downtown Paducah; West Kentucky Community & Technical College, Paducah; and Western Baptist Hospital, Paducah.

WKMS contributors Dr. Fred and Robin White of Metropolis, IL, Sally Ann Westbay of West Paducah, and Martha Crafton of Murray received Boston Acoustic Digital Receivers in drawings.  William Carr of Brookport, IL won the iPod Nano giveaway at wkms.org.  Becky Hedges of Paris, TN won the guitar donated by Murray Main Street.  The station gave away a total of 13 ETON emergency radios during drawings on-air.                                         

WKMS also celebrates 37 years as the Four Rivers Region’s public radio service and the addition of its new HD digital radio signal.  These coinciding milestones were marked by a reception honoring all WKMS contributors, which was held at the station’s studios on Friday, May 11. 

During the event, several awards and recognitions were bestowed. Station Manager Kate Lochte presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Murray State Professor Terry Strieter in recognition of his longtime commitment to the station, including volunteering during fundraisers, contributing financially as a WKMS Member and Underwriter, and advocating for WKMS as MSU Faculty Regent.   Murray State President Dr. Randy Dunn presented WKMS Newsroom’s Jim Michael, Nicole Erwin, and Chad Lampe with awards in recognition of their recent Kentucky Associated Press Awards. In celebration of the new HD digital signal, WKMS conducted a drawing from reception attendees for a new Accurion digital receiver, which was awarded to Murray State Professor, Helen Roulston.

WKMS is Murray State University’s listener supported public radio service at 91.3 FM.  The station also airs on 92.1 FM, Paducah; 99.5 FM, Paris, Tennessee; and 105.1 FM, Madisonville, and online at wkms.org, where the station offers extensive web resources regarding its programming and more.  For further information call 800-599-4737 or

e-mail wkms@murraystate.edu.

“These are the most authentic, most honest voices out there,” says Noah Shachtman, who writes Danger Room, a national-security blog for Wired. “They’re some of the best sources you’ll find on how progress on the ground is really developing.”

Voices like Matt Burgen, a former paratrooper in Chicago who publishes stories of his peers on www.blackfive.net.  He recently stated that:

“It’s awfully hard for me to sit there and say you have to come down on these bloggers, when they themselves, especially the senior staff at the Pentagon, are leaking more information than every other source combined.”

“When I get into a discussion with a public affairs or even an operational security officer about blogging, I will usually point to the D.O.D. [Department of Defense] website or Army.mil and show them pictures that clearly violate operational security, in their definition.”

The letter of the new law says there should be no posting, no emails, no letters, no written communication without checking with the Commanding Officer first.  This is obviously impossible to enforce, but serves as a warning to “watch what you say.”

This is part of what’s being called an information war in Iraq.  Some are scared to death of what a soldier’s voice might reveal about the war. Information leaks to terrorists is a big concern, but no secrets have ever been found on a military blog.  The concern is closer to the thought that Al Qaeda may piece together a big picture of American strategies.
We can trust a soldier with a gun, but not with the digital equivalency of a microphone.

Spc. Jean-Paul Borda, founder of military blog aggregator Milblogging.com, wrote that the latest policy announcement is unlikely to silence troops posting online: “…the fact that I’m blogging right now, pretty much speaks for itself.”

Read the full NPR story here.

 Update (via Wired.com):

The Defense Department isn’t trying to “muzzle” troops by banning YouTube and MySpace on their networks, a top military information technology officer tells DANGER ROOM. Rear Admiral Elizabeth Hight, Deputy Commander of Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, says that the decision to block access to social networking, video-sharing, and other “recreational” sites is purely at attempt to “preserve military bandwidth for operational missions.”Not that the 11 blocked sites are clogging networks all that much today, she adds. But YouTube, MySpace, and the like “could present a potential problem,” at some point in the future. So the military wanted to “get ahead of the problem before it became a problem.”