Copyright Resources and Current Issues

It seems reasonable to assume that the "three strikes" clause in ACTA is the result of Recording Intustry Association of America [RIAA] discussions with international policy makers.

"As 2008 ended, the RIAA announced it was done suing individuals and instead would focus on getting copyright thieves barred from the internet."
http://securitythreat.info/online-security/copyright-lawsuits-plummet-in-aftermath-of-riaa-campaign/

Posted by Lorre Smith at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the post "RIAA Can Unmask Anonymous File Sharers, U.S. Court Rules" the news is that one cannot maintain one's anonymity if accused of infringement. The defendant attempted a defense based on right to privacy, but it did not hold up.

http://www.switched.com/2010/05/03/riaa-can-unmask-anonymous-file-sharers-u-s-court-rules/

Here is a link to the decision, posted on Legal Eagle

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=infco20100429089

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The American Library Association filed an amicus curiae brief brief regarding the Salinger v. Colting case, in which J.D. Salinger is suing for infringement due to the use of concepts and characters from his Catcher in the Rye novel in the new novel 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye . Details of the case are provided by Anthony Falzone in his August 3, 2009 blog entry, "Confusion Over Copyright Injunctions and other Restraints of Speech". There are also many useful links in the post for further reading.

Seems there are new arguments for derivative works and transformative works that incorporate free speech rights and they are well worth following.

Posted by Lorre Smith at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This article throws some very interesting light on the publicized settlement by Google.

From Open Education News:

"A2K and orphaned work: the rise of the Open Access Trust Inc"
April 14, 2009 ·

"On April, 13 a group of professors lead by Charles Nesson, Lewis Hyde and Harry Lewis requested a pre-motion conference to Judge Denny Chin seeking to file a motion to intervene in the case Authors Guild v. Google."

http://openeducationnews.org/2009/04/14/a2k-and-orphaned-work-the-rise-of-the-open-access-trust-inc/

Posted by Lorre Smith at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Amazon Kindle voice output capabilities raised the hackles of the Author's Guild. Read about it at ZDNet:

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4409

Posted by Lorre Smith at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Association for Research Libraries and the American Library Association have produced a pdf file:
A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED:
LIBRARIES AND THE GOOGLE LIBRARY PROJECT SETTLEMENT
Jonathan Band
policybandwidth
jband@policybandwidth.com

It is located on the web: http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/google-settlement-13nov08.pdf

Dated November 13, 2008:
"This paper does not explore the policy issues raised by the settlement. Rather, it outlines
the settlement’s provisions, with special emphasis on the provisions that apply directly
to libraries."

Posted by Lorre Smith at 03:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may need a subscription to the online Chronicle of Higher Education to listen to this podcast "Colleges Ask the Recording Industry: Why Us?" recorded November 6 or near that date. Warren Arbogast and Scott Carlson talk to President of the RIAA Cary Sherman regarding the pressure that the Association has placed on institutions of higher education about file sharing activities.

http://chronicle.com/techtherapy/

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute site has this nifty search engine, and so it's a great way to churn up all the decisions one might want to study regarding copyright. This Cornell site in general is terrific for copyright law, but I think this particular feature is worth highlighting, since it's neat and quick.

http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/index.html?query=copyright

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SELECTED COPYRIGHT LAW DECISIONS OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT is part of the wonderful site developed by Cornell Law School.

The selected decisions are from 1952 to 1994. This page includes a link to recent decisions on copyright law as well.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/copyrt.htm

Posted by Lorre Smith at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Stanford University Libraries Copyright and Fair Use pages include a page of pointers to cases of importance to all who study copyright.

Case Law and Judicial Opinions
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/primary_materials/cases/index.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)