Aylin Kuzucan, Fenwick & West LLP, JDSupra; U.S. Copyright Office: DMCA Is “Tilted Askew,” Recommends Remedies for Rightsholders
"On May 21, 2020, the U.S. Copyright Office released its first full report—based
on 92,000 written comments, five roundtables and decades of case law—on
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512). The analysis
was intended to determine whether the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions
effectively balanced the needs of online service providers and
rightsholders. The Copyright Office concluded that the balance is
“tilted askew,” with largely ineffective copyright infringement
protections for rightsholders...
Going forward, the Copyright Office plans to post a new
website—copyright.gov/DMCA—with several educational and practical
elements, including model takedown notices and counter-notices. In
addition, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on
Intellectual Property plans to draft changes to the DMCA by the end of
2020. Any changes made will be critical for the copyright community to
monitor closely."
Showing posts with label rightsholders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rightsholders. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2020
Sunday, April 2, 2017
London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use; Publishers Weekly, March 16, 2017
Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly;
"In a packed room for the LBF’s 2017 Charles Clark Memorial Lecture, Judge Pierre Leval, America’s foremost copyright jurist and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit, told attendees that Google’s program to scan tens of millions of library books to create an online index “conferred gigantic benefits to authors and the public equally,” and did not “offer a substitute or interfere with authors’ exclusive rights” to control distribution.
“It was,” Leval concluded, “not a, quote, close case.”
Leval delivered his remarks in what was billed as a debate with intellectual property lawyer and former General Counsel for the U.S. Copyright Office, Jon Baumgarten. But at the outset, both Leval and Baumgarten—long time acquaintances—downplayed the debate aspect. Rather, at a time when proposed exceptions to copyright law have many publishers in the U.K. and Europe on edge, Leval spoke mainly as an ambassador for the American doctrine of fair use...
The key to American fair use, he said, was the flexibility the law gives judges. While he acknowledged there is something to be said for “predictability and bright line rules,” he insisted that hard and fast standards do not best serve the purpose of copyright...
In his portion of the talk, Baumgarten reiterated the publishing community’s main complaints with the decision, and about fair use in the digital age more broadly. Most prominently, that the decision overly expanded the right to freely copy others’ works, which, if widely practiced in the digital age will harm rightsholders. He also bemoaned what he saw as the courts’ expansion of what “transformative” means."
London Book Fair 2017: Judge Pierre Leval Defends Google Books Decision, Fair Use
"In a packed room for the LBF’s 2017 Charles Clark Memorial Lecture, Judge Pierre Leval, America’s foremost copyright jurist and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals Second Circuit, told attendees that Google’s program to scan tens of millions of library books to create an online index “conferred gigantic benefits to authors and the public equally,” and did not “offer a substitute or interfere with authors’ exclusive rights” to control distribution.
“It was,” Leval concluded, “not a, quote, close case.”
Leval delivered his remarks in what was billed as a debate with intellectual property lawyer and former General Counsel for the U.S. Copyright Office, Jon Baumgarten. But at the outset, both Leval and Baumgarten—long time acquaintances—downplayed the debate aspect. Rather, at a time when proposed exceptions to copyright law have many publishers in the U.K. and Europe on edge, Leval spoke mainly as an ambassador for the American doctrine of fair use...
The key to American fair use, he said, was the flexibility the law gives judges. While he acknowledged there is something to be said for “predictability and bright line rules,” he insisted that hard and fast standards do not best serve the purpose of copyright...
In his portion of the talk, Baumgarten reiterated the publishing community’s main complaints with the decision, and about fair use in the digital age more broadly. Most prominently, that the decision overly expanded the right to freely copy others’ works, which, if widely practiced in the digital age will harm rightsholders. He also bemoaned what he saw as the courts’ expansion of what “transformative” means."
Friday, October 16, 2015
Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal; BoingBoing.net, 10/16/15
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net; Titanic victory for fair use: appeals court says Google's book-scanning is legal:
"The Second Circuit ruling is remarkable for many reasons. First, the venue: the Second, which incorporates publishing's home base in New York City, is a court that is generally favorable to rightsholders. This isn't the first time the Second has surprised copyright extremists, though: last year, the court ruled that the Hathi Trust's noncommercial/academic book-scanning project was also fair use, making this the second high-profile loss for the Authors Guild in two years. The Hathi Trust ruling completely freaked out the Authors Guild and copyright maximalists everywhere. The Copyright Office, which is friendly to those interests, was motivated by Hathi to create a bizarre, incoherent proposal to put the Authors Guild in charge of who can use literature in America, giving them the power to collect license payments on behalf of writers who never joined the organization, including anonymous and long-dead writers -- this, of course, would give the Authors Guild more money with which to launch foolish, doomed, high-profile lawsuits. The Librarian of Congress is retiring after a generation in office and may well be replaced by someone who believes in fair use and user rights and a balanced approach to copyright, and since the Librarian of Congress controls the Copyright Office, the people outraged by Hathi are totally flipping out and calling for the separation of the Library of Congress and the Copyright Office, so that they can continue to have outsized influence over the future of creativity, culture and scholarship in America. The Google Books ruling will only make this fight more intense. Appointing a new Librarian will be one of Obama's last acts in office, and the Democratic party is deeply riven by internal disputes between the netroots and the big entertainment companies who are its financial backers. The war-rooms of both camps are definitely buzzing this morning."
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