Content Creators Want Congress To Revamp Decades-Old Copyright Law; Inc., September 25, 2025

BEN BUTLER , Inc., Content Creators Want Congress To Revamp Decades-Old Copyright Law

"“There’s a growing practice of using the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown tools built into platforms to restrict and shut down competition [which] are considered traditionally unfair trade practices,” Kayla Morán, a lawyer specializing in trademark and contract law, said last week during a hearing examining content creators and entrepreneurship before the House Committee on Small Business...

As content creation becomes more lucrative, creators can protect their IP by filing as LLCs, Morán said, shifting the liability from the person to the business. LLCs protect business assets from the owner of the business, creating a distinction between the two. Social media accounts can be protected as business assets, thus giving creators more legal protections if a podcast name gets stolen, for example, or in cases of impersonation.

But filing as an LLC as opposed to being a sole proprietorship requires registration fees and higher costs, which vary by state. And filing as an LLC doesn’t prevent the IP from being stolen, it would protect it from being pursued as an asset in a personal lawsuit against the creator. 

Morán and Christina Brennan, who runs a social media management company, said entrepreneurs they work with don’t have the knowledge of contract law and how taxes on social media earnings work.

One way to help bridge the disconnect, Morán suggests, would be for the Small Business Administration to provide guidance, plus access to lawyers that can advise on common challenges that bubble up for content creators, like with protecting IP."

Cloudflare Sidesteps Copyright Issues, Blocking AI Scrapers By Default; Forbes, July 2, 2025

Emma Woollacott , Forbes; Cloudflare Sidesteps Copyright Issues, Blocking AI Scrapers By Default

"IT service management company Cloudflare is striking back on behalf of content creators, blocking AI scrapers by default.

Web scrapers are bots that crawl the internet, collecting and cataloguing content of all types, and are used by AI firms to collect material that can be used to train their models.

Now, though, Cloudflare is allowing website owners to choose if they want AI crawlers to access their content, and decide how the AI companies can use it. They can opt to allow crawlers for certain purposes—search, for example—but block others. AI companies will have to obtain explicit permission from a website before scraping."

Taylor’s Version of copyright; Harvard Law School, April 3, 2024

Brett Milano, Harvard Law School ; Taylor’s Version of copyright

"When Taylor Swift began re-recording her old albums and releasing the new, improved “Taylor’s Version,” she did more than delight a nation of Swifties. She also opened significant questions about the role of intellectual property in contract law, and possibly tipped the balance toward artists.

According to Gary R. Greenstein, a technology transactions partner at Wilson Sonsini, the Swift affair is one of many that makes these times especially interesting for copyright law. Greenstein’s current practice focuses on intellectual property, licensing, and commercial transactions, with specialized expertise in the digital exploitation of intellectual property. He appeared at Harvard Law School on March 28 for a lunchtime talk, which was presented and introduced by Chris Bavitz, the WilmerHale Clinical Professor of Law and managing director of the law school’s Cyberlaw Clinic. “I have been doing this for 28 years now and there is never a dull moment,” Greenstein said.

Greenstein placed the Swift story in the larger context of music copyrights. In music, he explained, there are always two copyrights. The first is for the musical work itself, and this is usually controlled by the composer/songwriter, or by a publishing company acting on their behalf. The second is the “master,” the recorded performance of the work, and this is usually controlled by the label."

Post by Georgia Harper to Digital Copyright Listserv, University of Maryland University College, re Publisher Restrictions on Linking, 12/5/08

Post by Georgia Harper [Scholarly Communications Advisor for the University of Texas at Austin Libraries and 2006-2008 Intellectual Property Scholar, University of Maryland University College, Center for Intellectual Property] to Digital Copyright Listserv, University of Maryland University College, re "Publisher restriction on linking":

"Lori: You asked, "Does this licensing agreement just side-step copyright law and guidelines? Can publishers really stop educational fair use in this way? I'd be very interested in outside reading on this topic, links to blogs, etc., and your comments.

Answers: Yes. Yes. Comment: You've stumbled upon the famous Harvard Business Review exception to everything. Contracts that are negotiated, which your institutional subscription to EBSCO was (by someone), allow the parties to agree to just about anything they want to, short of ax murdering (i.e., crimes and misdemeanors, civil wrongs, etc.). So there you have it. HBR wants separate permissions licenses (or a heftier share of the EBSCO dinero) for the uses that everyone expects they are paying for when they subscribe to EBSCO, so be it. Sign here (again, which someone at your institution did). Outside reading - Harvard's explanation that fails to address the basic question, "why do you think your stuff is worth so much more than everyone else's:"http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.caul.edu.au%2Fdatasets%2Fhbr2008course-use.pdf&ei=06M5SeCjKIyG8gSvyLzoBg&usg=AFQjCNG07SMjR2zJbtgtn-yvJ4j4cvY18Q&sig2=R9dps-NZjzjaAq0j8INM8A
I suppose the answer is, "well, it is worth more if people will pay more,right?" Right.

To learn more about how and under what circumstances licenses trump copyright rights and privileges, well, that's a huge topic. Google 'relationship contract law copyright' for starters. Several good links on the first page, enough to get you going."