copy protection

An episode of Coding Secrets by Jon Burton on retro copy protection, in particular physically damaging a disk with a laser so copies fail. It explains how this defeated hackers and pirates.

Nina Paley's one-minute animated free culture anthem with vocals by Connie Champagne, arguing that copying is not theft.

Tom Scott's long explainer on YouTube's copyright system, Content ID and the DMCA. He argues the platform's system is a workaround for a broader copyright system that does not fit the modern world.

CGP Grey's five-minute animated explainer on how copyright terms grew from 14 years to life plus decades. It uses Disney and Star Wars examples to argue the system has gone wrong.

Karl Fogel's 2006 Google Tech Talk traces copyright from a 16th-century English censorship law to a distribution monopoly. It then surveys alternative economic bases for creation and distribution.

Adam Neely interviews Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin about their project to generate and copyright every possible melody as MIDI. The video explains their reasoning and how it bears on music copyright lawsuits.

Nina Paley's TEDxMaastricht talk arguing against copyright and for copyleft and free culture. She argues that restricting ideas harms creativity and that culture belongs to everyone.

Adam Neely explains that Warner Music claimed his video, which defended their copyright in a lawsuit, over a work whose copyright they had lost. He calls it an ironic and absurd claim, and the claim was later released.

A 2012 lecture by Richard Stallman at Reykjavik University arguing that copyright, built for the printing press, fits poorly with computer networks. He criticizes draconian enforcement and corporate lobbying.

Lawyer and musician Damien Riehl argues that music is math with a finite number of melodies, and describes how he and programmer Noah Rubin generated every possible melody and released them under CC0 to avoid accidental infringement claims.

The Original Ace shows how creators can use a third-party music distributor to file Content ID claims on their own videos, turning false-claim abuse into a share of ad revenue. It also names distribution companies and their revenue splits.

Neil Gaiman tells the Open Rights Group how the internet and piracy affect books and publishing. He describes how free web copies of his books boosted sales.

A two-minute animated minute meme by Nina Paley, photographed at the Metropolitan Museum, showing how all creative work builds on what came before. It is set to music from the Sita Sings the Blues soundtrack.

The author of copyparty introduces the FOSS file server he has built over five years, demoing its features such as resumable uploads, WebDAV and deduplication. The video itself is shown running on a demo server.

A Soho Forum debate in which patent lawyer Stephan Kinsella argues for abolishing copyright and patents against law professor Richard Epstein. Both come from libertarian perspectives.

Larry Lessig's TED talk argues that copyright law chokes creativity, drawing on John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights and the ASCAP cartel to make the case for reviving remix culture.

Part 3 of Kirby Ferguson's Everything is a Remix series, using Apple and the iPhone to show how invention builds on copying and combining prior ideas. It argues that creativity and innovation are inseparable from copying.

A five-minute TED talk by Rob Reid, who introduces Copyright Math, applying entertainment-industry piracy loss claims to produce absurd totals such as an $8 billion iPod.

A Jimquisition episode by Jim Sterling demonstrating the Copyright Deadlock, where a video includes footage owned by several companies so that competing YouTube Content ID claims cancel each other out. It highlights how absurd the system is.

A speculative-fiction video by Tom Scott, framed as coming from a future, about an AI called Earworm that enforces copyright so aggressively that humanity ends up forgetting a century of pop culture. It is animated and narrated as part of his series of videos from a future.

Half as Interesting explains why the Eiffel Tower's night-time lighting is under copyright, which makes publishing photos of it at night legally problematic.

Music YouTuber Rick Beato describes confronting the people behind copyright blocks on one of his videos. The video is a rant about how takedowns and demonetization hit music education channels.

A guide to using YouTube's Content ID by claiming your own videos through a distributor, so the claims share revenue with the creator and monetize re-uploads. It credits another creator who pioneered the method.

Musician TheFatRat describes how his video with 47 million views was claimed by another party through YouTube's copyright system and how he got it back.

A look inside Dr Abrasive's lab as he engineers a flash-card replacement for the Sega Saturn optical drive after cracking its CD protection 20 years on.

Kirby Ferguson's video essay series arguing that creativity is built on copying, transforming and combining existing work. It covers music, film and technology, then turns to copyright and patents.

Kirby Ferguson's updated four-part video essay arguing that creativity is built on copying, transforming and combining existing work. It covers examples from film, music and technology and touches on generative AI.

Kirby Ferguson's film argues that creativity is built from copying, transforming and combining existing works, examining music, film and technology. It makes the case that everything is a remix.

President Reagan's 1987 radio address on free and fair trade, in which he argues for free trade over protectionism.

Tom Scott's three-minute satirical short about a corporate-run, DRM-and-ads-laden afterlife after mind uploading. It imagines copyright law and lawyers applied to human memory and consciousness.

Kees Cook of Google gives a Linux Foundation talk on the Kernel Self Protection Project, which aims to harden Linux against attackers. He surveys threats, the state of available defensive technologies and a year of community progress.

The 1992 SIIA anti-piracy rap video Don't Copy That Floppy, warning kids against copying software, remastered and uploaded.

NFPA video in which wildfire researcher Jack Cohen explains that embers (firebrands), not the flame front, are the main cause of homes igniting in wildfires. He shows how landscaping and removing debris around the home reduce risk.

Nate Harrison's 2004 video history of the Amen Break, a six-second drum sample from a 1969 b-side that became the basis of hip-hop sampling, jungle and drum and bass. It is also a meditation on cultural ownership and creativity.

Cory Doctorow's 28c3 keynote argues that the copyright wars were just a skirmish and that the real fight will be a war on the general-purpose computer. He explains why locked-down devices, DRM and surveillance tools all depend on removing general computation.

Jeff Bonwick and Bill Moore, the creators of ZFS, present 'ZFS: The Last Word in File Systems' at the 2008 SNIA Software Developers' Conference. They explain the design, including copy-on-write, checksumming and avoiding the write hole.

A clip from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe in which a forensic psychiatrist argues that intense news coverage of school shooters encourages copycat attacks, alongside Brooker's satire of formulaic news reporting.

Australian comedy group Axis of Awesome perform a sketch showing that dozens of pop hits share the same four chords. It was recorded at the 2009 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Brandt Bucher presents his prototype JIT compiler for CPython at the 2023 Core Developer Sprint. He explains the copy-and-patch approach, the implementation and its performance.

A 2006 promotional video for sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!, a music software project that analyzes and reassembles sampled audio and video in real time, tied to themes of sampling and copyright.