French Appear Ready to Soften Law on Media Piracy; New York Times, 6/2/13

Eric Pfanner, New York Times; French Appear Ready to Soften Law on Media Piracy: "Elsewhere, countries that have adopted systems involving warnings and penalties, also known as graduated response, have tended to opt for less draconian measures than France or South Korea, sometimes involving private-sector deals rather than legislation. In the United States, for example, five major Internet providers recently agreed to put in place a so-called copyright alert system, negotiated with the entertainment industry. Sanctions, which can include a temporary slowdown in Internet access speed, do not kick in until an account holder ignores at least five warnings. Analysts say that the backtracking by the French could lessen legislators’ enthusiasm for graduated response systems in other countries, at least if they involve the threat of disconnection."

Harper Lee Sues Agent Over Copyright on ‘Mockingbird’; New York Times, 5/6/13

Julie Bosman, New York Times; Harper Lee Sues Agent Over Copyright on ‘Mockingbird’ : "According to the complaint, filed in federal court in New York, Mr. Pinkus “engaged in a scheme to dupe Harper Lee, then 80 years old with declining hearing and eyesight,” into assigning the book’s copyright to his company."

Court Dismisses Craigslist Suit Against Competitors; New York Times, 5/1/13

Nick Bilton, New York Times; Court Dismisses Craigslist Suit Against Competitors: "Craigslist does not have exclusive licenses to the postings on its classified advertising Web site, a federal court ruled on Tuesday. Craigslist alleged last year that the listings Web sites PadMapper and Lovely, as well as 3Taps, a company that collects public data and organizes it for the use of developers, were infringing on its copyright and trademark. Craigslist also made a number of other piracy-related claims against the trio and asked the court to shut them down. But Judge Charles R. Breyer of United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the charges on Tuesday. Craigslist’s terms of use do not give it an exclusive license to customers’ data, he said in his ruling, and without an exclusive license, the company cannot sue for infringement."

As Works Flood In, Nation’s Library Treads Water; New York Times, 5/3/13

Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times; As Works Flood In, Nation’s Library Treads Water: "Fantasia, the R&B star and one-time “American Idol” winner, recently slipped into the library to register a song for copyright, another of the library’s most visible and important functions. Last year the library registered more than 511,500 claims to copyright, many of which fill the storage rooms and off-site locations, walls of hopes and dreams. Roughly 2,000 new items are filed per day. “People will write a poem on a piece of paper and send it in to get it registered,” said David Christopher, chief of operations for the library’s Copyright Office. “Then they will call and ask, ‘Did you get my poem?’ They’re passionate about it. To them, it’s their creative output.”"

Jeffrey Bleich, U.S. Ambassador, Urges Australians To Stop Stealing 'Game Of Thrones'; Reuters via HuffingtonPost.com, 4/26/13

Reuters via HuffingtonPost.com; Jeffrey Bleich, U.S. Ambassador, Urges Australians To Stop Stealing 'Game Of Thrones' : "Taking to Facebook, the U.S. ambassador to Australia is urging Australians to cease their illegal downloads of "Game of Thrones," saying that they are among the world's worst pirates of the wildly popular medieval television drama. In a post titled "Stopping the Game of Clones," Jeffrey Bleich - himself a devotee of the HBO series - compared the rampant piracy of online thieves to the plotting and machinations of the noble houses in the show."

My Copyright Career; New York Times, 4/13/13

Tracey L. Armstrong, New York Times; My Copyright Career: "Then, in December that year, I found a job as a clerk at the Copyright Clearance Center, which was then in an old mill building in Salem, Mass... I thought that I would keep the job for about a year and move on, but the copyright area began evolving from a back-room specialty to a basis of corporate competition. There were, and still are, a lot of challenges in helping businesses and academic institutions quickly access and license copyright-protected materials and compensate publishers and creators for the use of their content... In 2007, the center’s C.E.O., Joseph Alen, retired, and I was named to replace him. My challenge has been to change the company from a licensing agent for print materials to one offering global licensing solutions for all media, including images, blogs and e-books."

The Slow Death of the American Author; New York Times, 4/7/13

Scott Turow, New York Times; The Slow Death of the American Author: "Authors practice one of the few professions directly protected in the Constitution, which instructs Congress “to promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The idea is that a diverse literary culture, created by authors whose livelihoods, and thus independence, can’t be threatened, is essential to democracy. That culture is now at risk. The value of copyrights is being quickly depreciated, a crisis that hits hardest not best-selling authors like me, who have benefited from most of the recent changes in bookselling, but new and so-called midlist writers."

A Setback for Resellers of Digital Products; New York Times, 4/1/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; A Setback for Resellers of Digital Products: "The case has been closely watched as a test of whether the first sale doctrine — the legal principle that someone who owns a copy of a copyrighted work, like a book or album, is free to resell it — can be applied to digital goods. In an order dated Saturday, Judge Richard J. Sullivan of United States District Court in Manhattan ruled that ReDigi was liable for copyright infringement, and seemed entirely unmoved by ReDigi’s arguments."

Copyright wars are damaging the health of the internet; Guardian, 3/28/13

Cory Doctorow, Guardian; Copyright wars are damaging the health of the internet: "So what is the solution to the copyright wars? It's the same solution we need to the press-regulation wars, to the war on terror, to the surveillance wars, to the pornography wars: to acknowledge that the internet is the nervous system of the information age, and that preserving its integrity and freedom from surveillance, censorship and control is the essential first step to securing every other desirable policy goal."

The Fair Use/Fair Dealing Handbook; InfoJustice.org, 3/27/13

Jonathan Band, InfoJustice.org; The Fair Use/Fair Dealing Handbook: "More than 40 countries with over one-third of the world’s population have fair use or fair dealing provisions in their copyright laws. These countries are in all regions of the world and at all levels of development. The broad diffusion of fair use and fair dealing indicates that there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments."

Copyright Ruling Rings With Echo of Betamax; New York Times, 3/26/13

Eduardo Porter, New York Times; Copyright Ruling Rings With Echo of Betamax: "[T]he court held that the publisher’s right to ban imports was trumped by Mr. Kirtsaeng’s right of first sale. He might not be allowed to make unauthorized copies of the books. But as with old library books or secondhand Gucci bags at a flea market, if the books had been bought legally, whether imported or sold originally in the United States, Mr. Kirtsaeng could sell them. The decision picks at the scab of an argument that has raged since the first copyright law was enacted in 18th-century Britain: how to balance the interest of copyright holders to profit from their creations — giving them an incentive to create more — against the social goal of promoting access to the movies, books and software programs they create. Like the Betamax decision in 1984, the Supreme Court’s ruling last week underscores the challenges placed by globalization and information technology on the very idea of protecting intellectual property. It adds to a maze of laws, legal decisions and technological barriers governing what companies and people can do with their stuff in the new economy. And it will probably change the way companies deliver media. Is the decision good or bad? Probably both. It depends who you are."

Sounds of Copyright Reform; Library Journal, 3/22/13

Michael Kelley, Library Journal; Sounds of Copyright Reform: "This country’s fascinating and invaluable patrimony of recorded sound and culture is at risk. Libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies have approximately 46 million recordings in their collections and more than six million are “in need” or “in urgent need” of preservation, according to the National Recording Preservation Plan released by the Library of Congress (LC) in December. The condition of another 20 million of the recordings is unknown, and these numbers do not include important material in private hands. This is a sprawling, complex issue dispassionately and, in a certain sense, maddeningly chronicled in the LC report, which is the first national plan for audio preservation and is the culmination of a decade of work by the library and the National Recording Preservation Board. Unless the report’s recommendations are acted upon, which would allow for the digitization of and broader access to endangered analog formats, then it is likely that within the next 15 or 20 years much of this soundscape will have become so degraded that it will be all but impossible to preserve."

Justices Permit Resale Of Copyrighted Imports; New York Times, 3/19/13

Adam Liptak, New York Times; Justices Permit Resale Of Copyrighted Imports: "The copyright case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, No. 11-697, arose from the activities of a Thai student who attended Cornell University and the University of Southern California. The student, Supap Kirtsaeng, helped pay for his education by selling textbooks that his friends and relatives had bought in Thailand at low prices and shipped to him. A publisher of some of the textbooks, John Wiley & Sons, sued Mr. Kirtsaeng for copyright infringement, and it won $600,000 in the lower courts. In a 6-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court threw out that award and ruled that imported copyrighted goods were subject to the same rules as goods bought in the United States: owners of particular copies can do what they like with them. In legal jargon, the court applied the first-sale doctrine to copyrighted materials from abroad. Under that doctrine, buyers of books, records and other copyrighted goods may lend or sell them as they wish. The decision will have consequences for all manner of products, including books, records, art and software."

Imagining a Swap Meet for E-Books and Music; New York Times, 3/7/13

David Streitfeld, New York Times; Imagining a Swap Meet for E-Books and Music: "On Thursday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published Apple’s application for its own patent for a digital marketplace. Apple’s application outlines a system for allowing users to sell or give e-books, music, movies and software to each other by transferring files rather than reproducing them. Such a system would permit only one user to have a copy at any one time. Meanwhile, a New York court is poised to rule on whether a start-up that created a way for people to buy and sell iTunes songs is breaking copyright law. A victory for the company would mean that consumers would not need either Apple’s or Amazon’s exchange to resell their digital items... Libraries, though, welcome the possibility of loosened restrictions on digital material. “The vast majority of e-books are not available in your public library,” said Brandon Butler, director of public policy initiatives for the Association of Research Libraries. “That’s pathetic.” He said that 60 percent of what the association’s 125 members buy was electronic, which meant sharp restrictions on use."

Suit Says Sherlock Belongs to the Ages; New York Times, 3/6/13

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; Suit Says Sherlock Belongs to the Ages: "A few weeks later, after a leading Holmes scholar and longtime Irregular filed a legal complaint against the Conan Doyle estate arguing that Sherlock Holmes and the basic elements of his world were in the public domain, various online Sherlockian conclaves exploded... The suit, which stems from the estate’s efforts to collect a licensing fee for a planned collection of new Holmes-related stories by Sara Paretsky, Michael Connelly and other contemporary writers, makes a seemingly simple argument. Of the 60 Conan Doyle stories and novels in “the Canon” (as Sherlockians call it), only the 10 stories first published in the United States after 1923 remain under copyright. Therefore, the suit asserts, many fees paid to the estate for the use of the character have been unnecessary."

We Aren’t in the Old Kansas, Toto; New York Times, 2/28/13

Brooks Barnes, New York Times; We Aren’t in the Old Kansas, Toto: "...there are also some important differences between the two movies — especially if you’re an eagle-eyed Hollywood copyright lawyer. “Oz the Great and Powerful,” directed by Sam Raimiand arriving in theaters on Friday, is an original story built on material culled from L. Frank Baum’s books. But lifting from “The Wizard of Oz,” a tantalizing notion given its continued popularity, was strictly forbidden. Warner Brothers now owns that 1939 MGM film, and Warner is almost as well known as Disney for aggressively policing its copyrights."

German Copyright Law Targets Google Links; New York Times, 3/1/13

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; German Copyright Law Targets Google Links: "As originally proposed by the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel last year, the law was seen as a clear attempt by a European government to force big Internet companies like Google to share some of the billions of euros they earn from the sale of advertising placed alongside the news that Google links to. But a last-minute change, proposed last week by the Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Ms. Merkel’s government, allowed for the use of “individual words or the smallest excerpts of text” free, meaning that only those companies who reproduce full texts for commercial use will be required to compensate the news publishers. The weakened bill passed Germany’s lower house, the Bundestag, 293 to 243. But it will require approval by Germany’s upper house, the Bundesrat, which is controlled by the Social Democrats and the Greens, in the opposition, which have sought to have the bill scrapped altogether. ...critics contend that a watering-down law not only fails to grant full legal clarity to either of the two sides but also opens the door to long legal disputes over the exact definition of a snippet and how much text can be legally reproduced by the search engines without incurring charges.

White House Delivers New Open-Access Policy That Has Activists Cheering; Chronicle of Higher Education, 2/22/13

Jennifer Howard, Chronicle of Higher Education; White House Delivers New Open-Access Policy That Has Activists Cheering: "The memo also nodded to scientific publishers, saying the Obama administration recognizes that publishers provide "valuable services," such as coordinating peer review, "that are essential for ensuring the high quality and integrity of many scholarly publications." The memo called it "critical that these services continue to be made available." In a statement issued on Friday, the Association of American Publishers praised the new policy, which it said "outlines a reasonable, balanced resolution of issues around public access to research funded by federal agencies."... It was not immediately clear how the new policy would affect the prospects for the proposed Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act, a bipartisan bill introduced this month in Congress. If enacted, the legislation would require federal agencies with external research budgets of $100-million or more to make the results of federally financed research available to the public within six months of publication. Ms. Joseph of Sparc said that the bill would codify the core principles laid out in the White House directive, even though the legislation calls for public access within six months of publication rather than a year."

Online Piracy Alert System to Begin This Week; New York Times, 2/25/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Online Piracy Alert System to Begin This Week: "The Copyright Alert System, a program of escalating warnings and prods against people suspected of online copyright infringement, is finally going into effect this week, more than a year and a half after the plan was announced as part of an agreement between the entertainment industry and five major Internet service providers. The Center for Copyright Information, the organization created to administer the system, announced on Monday that the Internet providers would begin putting it in place “over the course of the next several days,” though it gave no specifics. The Internet companies are AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner Cable."

FASTR Aims to Speed Open Access to Government-Funded Research; Library Journal, 2/21/13

Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal; FASTR Aims to Speed Open Access to Government-Funded Research: "The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) was introduced on February 14 in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. If passed, FASTR would require government agencies with annual extramural research expenditures of more than $100 million make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles based on their research freely available on the Internet within six months of publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The manuscripts would be preserved in a digital archive maintained either by the agency or in another suitable repository that permits free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation. The law is based on the National Institute of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, as well as the previously-proposed Federal Research Public Access Act, which was introduced last Congressional session (as well as in two previous Congresses), but never made it to a vote. It is co-sponsored in the Senate by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), and in the House of Representatives by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-PA), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). Doyle had sponsored FRPAA as well. Affected agencies would include the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health & Human Services, Homeland Security, and Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and the National Science Foundation."

U.S. Moves to Provide Quicker Access to Publicly Financed Scientific Research; New York Times, 2/22/13

Kenneth Chang, New York Times; U.S. Moves to Provide Quicker Access to Publicly Financed Scientific Research: "In a memorandum issued on Friday, John P. Holdren, science adviser to President Obama, called for scientific papers that report the results of federally financed research to become freely accessible within a year or so after publication. The findings are typically published in scientific journals, many of which are open only to paying subscribers. The new policy would apply to federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture, that finance more than $100 million a year of research. The agencies have six months to submit plans for how they would carry out the new policy. The hope is that broad access to scientific results will encourage faster progress on research and will let anyone apply the knowledge for technological advances."

For Music Industry, a Story of Two Googles; New York Times, 2/21/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; For Music Industry, a Story of Two Googles: "One Google is represented by its suite of entertainment media services like YouTube and Google Play, which have licensing agreements with the major labels and music publishers, along with movie studios and other media companies. That side is slowly becoming integrated into the fabric of the entertainment industry, through deals like the one announced by Billboard magazine this week that it would start incorporating YouTube play counts into its chart formulas. The other side of Google is its mighty search engine, the road map to the Internet, which people use to find content of all kinds — some of it preferred by the entertainment industry, but a great deal of it not. This is the side of Google that has the most frequent and public fights with the entertainment industry (though, to be sure, media companies have had no shortage of conflict with YouTube over the years)."

French Publishers Forge Deal With Google, Breaking Ranks With Europe; New York Times, 2/17/13

Eric Pfanner, New York Times; French Publishers Forge Deal With Google, Breaking Ranks With Europe: "Publishers in France say they have struck an innovative agreement with Google on the use of their content online. Their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, however, say the French gave in too easily to the Internet giant. The deal was signed this month by President François Hollande of France and Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, who called it a breakthrough in the tense relationship between publishers and Google, and as a possible model for other countries to follow. Under the deal, Google agreed to set up a fund, worth 60 million euroes, or $80 million, over three years, to help publishers develop their digital units. The two sides also pledged to deepen business ties, using Google’s online tools, in an effort to generate more online revenue for the publishers, who have struggled to counteract dwindling print revenue. But the French group, representing newspaper and magazine publishers with an online presence, as well as a variety of other news-oriented Web sites, yielded on its most important demand: that Google and other search engines and “aggregators” of news should start paying for links to their content."

Public Domain, My Dear Watson? Lawsuit Challenges Conan Doyle Copyrights; New York Times, 2/15/13

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; Public Domain, My Dear Watson? Lawsuit Challenges Conan Doyle Copyrights: "Some 125 years after his first appearance, Sherlock Holmes remains a hot literary property, inspiring thousands of pastiches, parodies and sequels in print, to saying nothing of the hit Warner Bros. film starring Robert Downey Jr. and such television series as “Elementary” and the BBC’s “Sherlock.” But according to a civil complaint filed on Thursday in federal court in Illinois by a leading Holmes scholar, many licensing fees paid to the Arthur Conan Doyle estate have been unnecessary, since the main characters and elements of their story derived from materials published before Jan. 1, 1923, are no longer covered by United States copyright law. The complaint was filed by Leslie S. Klinger, the editor of the three-volume, nearly 3,000-page “Annotated Sherlock Holmes” and numerous other Conan Doyle-related books."

DC Comics wins copyright lawsuit over Batmobile replicas; ComicBookResources.com, 2/8/13

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; DC Comics wins copyright lawsuit over Batmobile replicas: "A federal judge on Thursday dealt a crippling blow to a custom carmarker, siding with DC Comics in a ruling that declared the Batmobile isn’t merely an automobile but “a copyrightable character.” The publisher sued Gotham Garage owner Ben Towle in May 2011, accusing his California-based business of violating its trademarks and copyrights by manufacturing and selling unlicensed replicas of the 1966 and 1989 Batmobile. DC sought a permanent injunction, the destruction of all infringing products and damages of no less than $750,000 for each infringement. However, Towle countered that the U.S. Copyright Act affords no protection to “useful articles,” defined as objects that have “an intrinsic utilitarian function” — for example, clothing, household appliances or, in this case, automobile functions. He failed to persuade U.S. District Judge Ronald Lew with that argument last year in a motion to dismiss, and he was no more successful this time."

Copyright and Libraries – Help!; Library Journal, 2/4/13

Cheryl LaGuardia, Library Journal; Copyright and Libraries – Help! : "Copyright’s an issue whose prominence has increased enormously since the long-ago days when I worked in interlibrary loan, and we were assiduously keeping track of article requests for in-copyright journal issues. In those days copyright impinged on my daily library life, but in a pretty clear-cut manner: you simply couldn’t exceed the legal number of requests for articles from journal issues under copyright. That was pretty much how I encountered issues of copyright in the old days, and I was, after all, working in interlibrary loan. Now, although I’m not working in interlibrary loan, I find that copyright raises its head at nearly every turn of my (and others’) library work, via ebooks, eresource licensing, digital preservation, course management systems, scanners, new media storage and delivery—just take a look at the ALA Store’s list of titles on Intellectual Freedom and Copyright to see a slice of what’s been published in the library literature about copyright, and how it crops up in library work."

Internet copyright law has to have public support if it's going to work; Guardian, 1/31/13

Cory Doctorow, Guardian; Internet copyright law has to have public support if it's going to work: "I know lots of people who disagree about when and whether it's OK to reproduce creative works without permission. There are long, thoughtful debates about how long copyright should last; whether publicly funded works should be treated the same as privately created ones; whether scientific and scholarly works should be freely available; what sort of works qualify as "creative", and, of course, what fair dealing/fair use should and should not allow. But while I know plenty of proud pirates, I don't think I've ever heard of someone standing up for the good, old fashioned plagiarism. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are different things, of course."

In Dispute Over Ray Charles Songs, Family Gains Victory in Court; New York Times, 1/30/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; In Dispute Over Ray Charles Songs, Family Gains Victory in Court: "A dispute between the children of Ray Charles and the foundation to which he left most of his money is the latest battleground in one of the entertainment industry’s most contentious issues: the “termination rights” that allow artists and their families to recover the copyrights to their work from third parties like record companies or publishers. Last week a federal judge in California ruled that the Ray Charles Foundation cannot interfere with the efforts of seven of Charles’s 12 surviving children to recover the music publishing rights to about 60 of his classic songs, like “I Got a Woman,” “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and “Mary Ann.”... The case combines the drama of a family fight over a celebrity’s legacy with a detail of United States copyright law that poses a threat to the entertainment industry. An amendment to the law that took effect in 1978 let artists recover rights to their work after 35 years; the rule also applied to works copyrighted before 1978, but after a maximum of 56 years. Artists can do this by officially “terminating” the agreements that had transferred the work to other parties."

Caribbean Nation Gets an International Go-Ahead to Break U.S. Copyright Laws; New York Times, 1/28/13

Annie Lowrey, New York Times; Caribbean Nation Gets an International Go-Ahead to Break U.S. Copyright Laws: "Trade experts said that Antigua and Barbuda’s plan for retribution seemed designed to provoke American filmmakers and recording artists into pushing for Congress to allow foreign Internet gambling sites to serve American customers. They also noted that it was the United States that had pushed for the unusual “cross-retaliation” mechanism at the W.T.O., where trade violations that hurt one industry could be countered with trade actions against a completely different industry."

Playing Whac-a-Mole With Piracy Sites; New York Times, 1/28/13

Ben Sisario and Tanzina Vega, New York Times; Playing Whac-a-Mole With Piracy Sites: "This month, the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Innovation Lab released a report that ranked 10 ad networks on the amount of business they do with sites suspected of engaging in piracy, with Google and Yahoo placing high on the list. Ad networks use advanced computer algorithms to place ads on Web sites. They can be run by agencies, publishers or others. The implicit criticism of the report is that the operators of these networks know which sites traffic in copyright infringement and therefore could keep ads — and ad money — away from them if they wanted to."

As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle; New York Times, 1/28/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; As Music Streaming Grows, Royalties Slow to a Trickle: "A decade after Apple revolutionized the music world with its iTunes store, the music industry is undergoing another, even more radical, digital transformation as listeners begin to move from CDs and downloads to streaming services like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube. As purveyors of legally licensed music, they have been largely welcomed by an industry still buffeted by piracy. But as the companies behind these digital services swell into multibillion-dollar enterprises, the relative trickle of money that has made its way to artists is causing anxiety at every level of the business."

A Right to Unlock Cellphones Fades Away; New York Times, 1/25/13

Brian X. Chen, New York Times; A Right to Unlock Cellphones Fades Away: "Your right to unlock your cellphone is about to expire. Cellphone carriers say this is for your own good — and theirs. Unlocking a cellphone enables it to work on a wireless carrier other than the one you bought it from. If an AT&T iPhone were unlocked, for example, it could be used on T-Mobile USA’s network. In October, the Library of Congress decided to invalidate a copyright exemption for unlocking cellphones. This exemption expires Saturday, making the act of unlocking a cellphone potentially illegal, unless it is authorized by a carrier."

Public Universities to Offer Free Online Classes for Credit; New York Times, 1/23/13

Tamar Lewin, New York Times; Public Universities to Offer Free Online Classes for Credit: "In an unusual arrangement with a commercial company, dozens of public universities plan to offer an introductory online course free and for credit to anyone worldwide, in the hope that those who pass will pay tuition to complete a degree program. The universities — including Arizona State, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Arkansas system — will choose which of their existing online courses to convert to a massive open online course, or MOOC, in the new program, called MOOC2Degree. The proliferation of free online courses from top universities like Harvard and Stanford over the past year has prompted great interest in online learning. But those courses, so far, have generally not carried credit."

A Year After the Closing of Megaupload, a File-Sharing Tycoon Opens a New Site; New York Times, 1/20/13

Jonathan Hutchison, New York Times; A Year After the Closing of Megaupload, a File-Sharing Tycoon Opens a New Site: "At 6:48 a.m. local time Sunday, the Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom opened his new file-storage Web site to the public — one year to the minute after the police raided the mansion he rents in New Zealand. The raid was part of a coordinated operation with the F.B.I. that also shut down Megaupload, the file-sharing business he had founded. Mr. Dotcom faces charges in the United States of pirating copyrighted material and money laundering and is awaiting an extradition hearing in New Zealand. But on Sunday, he said his focus was on the new site, which was already straining under heavy traffic within two hours of its introduction. In the first 14 hours of the site’s operation, more than half a million people registered to use it, Mr. Dotcom said."

A Revamped Myspace Site Faces a Problem With Rights; New York Times, 1/20/13

Ben Sisario, New York Times; A Revamped Myspace Site Faces a Problem With Rights: "The new Myspace, which like the old MySpace lets people listen to huge numbers of songs free, has won early praise for its sleek design. But while it has said its intention is to help artists, it may already have a problem with some of the independent record labels that supply much of its content. Although Myspace boasts the biggest library in digital music — more than 50 million songs, it says — a group representing thousands of small labels says the service is using its members’ music without permission."

NIH Access Policy Gains Teeth; Library Journal, 1/16/13

Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal; NIH Access Policy Gains Teeth: "Soon, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will explicitly link grant funding to the successful submission of a final peer-review manuscript to the PubMed Central repository, in an attempt to increase compliance with the Institute’s public access mandate. The exact date on which the new policy will go into effect hasn’t yet been announced, but Dr. Sally Rockey, NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research, said on November 16, 2012, “We are giving funded organizations at least five months to prepare for our new process,” which would place the change at about mid-April or thereafter. The public access policy itself isn’t new: it was introduced on a voluntary basis in 2005, and made mandatory in 2008. But mandatory in theory didn’t always add up to compliance in practice: according to a 2012 report from the President’s National Science and Technology Council [PDF], fully a quarter of papers based on NIH-funded research are not submitted to PubMed Central."

Unlocking the Riches of HathiTrust; American Libraries, 1/16/13

American Libraries; Unlocking the Riches of HathiTrust: "The constitutionality of digital fair use was upheld this past October, when US District Court Judge Harold Baer summarily dismissed the Authors Guild’s year-old lawsuit against the HathiTrust library collaborative to block the use of its growing repository of millions of full-text book scans. Calling the project “the enduring work of libraries,” HathiTrust Executive Director John Wilkin told American Libraries the organization continues to plan “more and better” uses of its scanned content. An appeal is pending. Meantime, blogerati Karen Coyle, Barbara Fister, and James Grimmelmann shared with AL how they see this decision shaping the future of sharing digitally preserved print materials."

Verizon Copyright Alert System Would Throttle Internet Speeds Of Repeat Online Pirates; HuffingtonPost.com, 1/11/13

Gerry Smith, HuffingtonPost.com; Verizon Copyright Alert System Would Throttle Internet Speeds Of Repeat Online Pirates: "Under Verizon's proposed program, subscribers accused of copyright infringement will receive a series of alerts, which critics of such programs call "six strikes." After the first two offenses, Verizon will send emails to subscribers with a link allowing them to see if illegal file-sharing is operating on their computers and how to remove it, according to the leaked document, which was confirmed as authentic by a Verizon spokesman. After the next two offenses, Verizon will redirect subscribers' browsers to a website where they must acknowledge receiving the alerts and watch a short video about "the consequence of copyright infringement," according to the document. After the fifth and sixth notices, accused copyright violators have the option of either accepting slower Internet speeds for two to three days or asking an arbitrator to review whether they are guilty of Internet piracy -- for the price of $35. If the arbitrator rules in the user's favor, the $35 is refunded and his or her Internet speeds go untouched. Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said the leaked document was "a discussion draft" and had not been finalized."

“Buffy vs Edward” remix unfairly removed by Lionsgate; ArsTechnica.com, 1/9/13

Jonathan McIntosh, ArsTechnica.com; “Buffy vs Edward” remix unfairly removed by Lionsgate: "Buffy vs Edward has now been offline for 3 weeks. Over the past year, before the takedown, the remix had been viewed an average of 34,000 times per month. Since none of YouTube’s internal systems were able to prevent this abuse by Lionsgate and our direct outreach to the content owner hit a brick wall, with the help of New Media Rights I have now filed an official DMCA counter-notification with YouTube. Lionsgate has 14 days to either allow the remix back online or sue me. We will see what happens."

Irish Newspapers Budge Slightly: Now Say Links Don't Require Payment, But Snippets...; TechDirt.com, 1/9/13

Mike Masnick,, TechDirt.com; Irish Newspapers Budge Slightly: Now Say Links Don't Require Payment, But Snippets... : "Meanwhile, the lawyers representing the charity have noticed that NLI appears to have backtracked ever so slightly and are now saying that "links alone" are not infringement, but if you include any text, you've gone over the line."

Chinese Man Pleads Guilty in Copyright Violation Case; New York Times, 1/8/13

Andrew Martin, New York Times; Chinese Man Pleads Guilty in Copyright Violation Case: "Mr. Li, who was based in Chengdu, paid a network of computer experts to scour the Internet to find commercial software they could “crack,” meaning they bypassed security protocols designed to prevent unauthorized access or reproduction. Ultimately, Mr. Li offered more than 2,000 pirated software products that could be used as applications in the military, engineering, space exploration, mathematics and explosive simulation, and sold them at a fraction of their retail price, which federal prosecutors said was over $100 million... On Monday, he pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Delaware to one count of conspiring to steal copyrighted software. He faces a maximum of five years in prison...Edward J. McAndrew, one of the prosecutors on the case, said Mr. Li’s arrest was among the largest criminal copyright cases to be successfully prosecuted by the government. "

Sony Issues Dylan CDs to Extend Copyright; New York Times, 1/7/13

Allan Kozinn, New York Times; Sony Issues Dylan CDs to Extend Copyright: "In an unusual response to provisions in a new European copyright law, scheduled to take effect by 2014, Sony Music has released a compilation of early Bob Dylan recordings that is bound to become one of his most collectible albums. “The 50th Anniversary Collection,” which carries a subtitle — “The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1” — that explains its purpose, was rushed to only a handful of record shops in Germany, France, Sweden and Britain just after Christmas."

The Wrong War Over eBooks: Publishers Vs. Libraries; Forbes.com, 12/11/12

David Vinjamuri, Forbes.com; The Wrong War Over eBooks: Publishers Vs. Libraries: "In a society where bookstores disappear every day while the number of books available to read has swelled exponentially, libraries will play an ever more crucial role. Even more than in the past, we will depend on libraries of the future to help discover and curate great books...For publishers, the library will be the showroom of the future. Ensuring that libraries have continuing access to published titles gives them a chance to meet this role, but an important obstacle remains: how eBooks are obtained by libraries. This column is the first in a two-part series about libraries and their role in the marketing and readership of books...The solution to the current pricing problem lies in understanding that the argument publishers and libraries are having is the wrong argument."

Stallone did not copy screenplay for "The Expendables": judge; Reuters, 12/27/12

Jonathan Stempel, Reuters; Stallone did not copy screenplay for "The Expendables": judge: "A federal judge has reaffirmed his decision to dismiss a lawsuit accusing actor Sylvester Stallone of copying someone else's screenplay to make his popular 2010 movie "The Expendables." U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan on Thursday rejected claims of copyright infringement damages by Marcus Webb, who contended that the movie's screenplay contained 20 "striking similarities" to his own "The Cordoba Caper.""

Game of Thrones most pirated TV show; Guardian, 12/24/12

Mark Sweney, Guardian; Game of Thrones most pirated TV show: "Game of Thrones was the most-pirated TV show of the year, with a single episode being illegally downloaded by more people than typically watch the hit programme in the US. HBO's Game of Thrones, which in the UK is aired on Sky Atlantic, knocked off last year's "winner", serial killer show Dexter to be named the most-pirated TV show of 2012. The annual report, by news site TorrentFreak, found that one episode of Game of Thrones was downloaded 4.28m times."

UK copyright laws to be freed up and parody laws relaxed; Guardian, 12/20/12

Mark Sweney, Guardian; UK copyright laws to be freed up and parody laws relaxed: "The government is to scrap an archaic law that makes it illegal for music fans to download a legally-purchased CD onto a laptop, smartphone or MP3 player, and has rejected calls from record companies for a tax to cover lost sales as a result. Vince Cable, the business secretary, unveiled the plans on Thursday in a 52-page report detailing a freeing up of the UK's intellectual property and copyright laws. Cable, responding to the Hargreaves report on the future of intellectual property published last year, proposed changes including making "format shifting" legal and relaxing parody laws to allow comedians, broadcasters and other content creators more scope."

WIPO To Negotiate Treaty For The Blind In June; ‘Still Some Distance To Travel’ ; Intellectual Property Watch, 12/18/12

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; WIPO To Negotiate Treaty For The Blind In June; ‘Still Some Distance To Travel’ : "In a swift 15 minute session this morning delegates at the World Intellectual Property Organization extraordinary assembly agreed to convene a high-level meeting in Morocco in June to finalise a treaty on international exceptions to copyrights on books in special formats for visually impaired people."

Alicia Keys Sued Over 'Girl on Fire': Is It Based on a Blogger's Ear?; Hollywood Reporter, 12/17/12

Eriq Gardner, Hollywood Reporter; Alicia Keys Sued Over 'Girl on Fire': Is It Based on a Blogger's Ear? : "Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire" is featured prominently in a current American Express commercial and this week sits at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's also the subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed last week in California federal court. The plaintiff is Earl Shuman, an accomplished songwriter who in 1962 co-authored the composition, "Lonely Boy," a song that reached No. 2 on Billboard's chart in 1970 after being recorded by Eddie Holman as "Hey There Lonely Girl."

Staffer axed by Republican group over retracted copyright-reform memo; ArsTechnica.com, 12/6/12

Timothy B. Lee, ArsTechnica.com; Staffer axed by Republican group over retracted copyright-reform memo: "The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives, has told staffer Derek Khanna that he will be out of a job when Congress re-convenes in January. The incoming chairman of the RSC, Steve Scalise (R-LA) was approached by several Republican members of Congress who were upset about a memo Khanna wrote advocating reform of copyright law. They asked that Khanna not be retained, and Scalise agreed to their request."

Feeling the Heat, Yoga Chain Bows to Bikram, Despite Federal Ruling; New York Times, 12/10/12

Andy Newman, New York Times; Feeling the Heat, Yoga Chain Bows to Bikram, Despite Federal Ruling: "A popular New York-based chain of yoga studios accused by Bikram Yoga of copyright infringement has decided to let go, despite a Copyright Office ruling that supported its position. The chain, Yoga to the People, has agreed to stop offering its high-temperature classes that are patterned after Bikram Yoga in order to settle a federal lawsuit filed by Bikram, according to a joint press release issued by both parties last week. But Yoga to the People’s founder, Greg Gumucio, said on Monday that he was not getting out of the hot-yoga business: Yoga to the People is working on a new sequence that will also be offered in a super-heated room and incorporate some poses from the sequence popularized by Bikram’s founder, Bikram Choudhury, but will also include other poses... Correction: December 10, 2012 An earlier version of this post stated erroneously that the federal Copyright Office did not specifically mention Bikram yoga in its ruling that a sequence of exercises cannot be copyrighted. In fact, the the Copyright Office did cite Bikram yoga as an example of an uncopyrightable exercise sequence."