The Walking Dead producer criticises Game of Thrones executive over piracy; Guardian, 6/19/14

Mark Sweney, Guardian; The Walking Dead producer criticises Game of Thrones executive over piracy:

"Gale Anne Hurd said that if consumers want to continue to see shows such as Walking Dead and HBO’s Game of Thrones – which have broken viewing records while also topping the global chart of most-pirated TV shows – then more needs to be done to crack down on piracy.

“The truth is you wouldn’t imagine stealing someone’s car [or] a piece of art they have created,” she said, speaking to the Guardian at the Cannes Lions festival. “We are poised on the precipice in filmed entertainment – TV and movies – because of the prevalence of piracy the content creators will not get a revenue stream to the point that they won’t be able to create. That is the danger of piracy.”

Jeff Bewkes, the chief executive of HBO’s parent, Time Warner, has said that Game of Thrones piracy has been “better than an Emmy” as a publicity machine to help drive TV subscriptions."

Mail Online chief in clash with Australian reporter over copyright; Guardian, 6/19/14

Amanda Meade, Guardian; Mail Online chief in clash with Australian reporter over copyright:

"The spat between News Corp and Mail Online over copyright in Australia has spilled over to the Cannes Lions advertising festival, with a late night altercation between website publisher Martin Clarke and a reporter from a Murdoch title...

The background to this French farce is legal action by News Corp against the newly launched rival website Daily Mail Australia, which Rupert Murdoch’s Australian has accused of theft, breach of copyright, plagiarism and “parasitical practices”.

Mail Online responded on Monday by accusing News Corp of lifting its stories on at least 10 occasions."

Jack Kirby's Heirs Get Huge Support in Quest to Bring Marvel Fight to Supreme Court (Exclusive); Hollywood Reporter, 6/19/14

Eriq Gardner, Hollywood Reporter; Jack Kirby's Heirs Get Huge Support in Quest to Bring Marvel Fight to Supreme Court (Exclusive) :

"The case is Lisa Kirby v. Marvel Characters, concerning whether the estate of comic book legend Jack Kirby can terminate a copyright grant on such creations as Spider-Man, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and The Mighty Thor. In August 2013, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's ruling that determined Kirby's heirs couldn't wrest back his share of rights to these characters because the former Marvel freelancer had contributed his materials as a "work made for hire." As such, Marvel was considered the statutory author, and Kirby (and his heirs) never had any termination rights under the 1976 Copyright Act to begin with.

In the past couple of months, there have been growing signs that the case might indeed be picked up at the Supreme Court for review."

Athletes' Tattoo Artists File Copyright Suits, Leaving Indelible Mark; Wall Street Journal, 6/16/14

Jacob Gersheman, Wall Street Journal; Athletes' Tattoo Artists File Copyright Suits, Leaving Indelible Mark:

"The question of who owns the copyright to a tattoo has never been settled in court, but lawyers and scholars say there is no obvious reason why tattoo artists shouldn't be covered by the same rights granted to photographers or other visual artists. To be copyrightable, artwork needs to have some originality. It also has to be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression." That can be a canvas, film or audio. Skin counts, too, in the case of a custom tattoo designed by an artist, said Case Western Reserve University law professor Aaron Perzanowski, who teaches intellectual property law."

Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules in case of the heckled brand; Guardian, 6/16/14

Jessica Glenza, Guardian; Sherlock lives in public domain, US court rules in case of the heckled brand:

"A US court has ruled that Sherlock Holmes – along with 46 stories and four novels he’s appeared in – is in the public domain, reaffirming the expiration of the copyright once owned by the estate of Scottish writer Arthur Conan Doyle.

The ruling by the seventh US circuit court of appeals in Chicago comes after the Doyle estate threatened to sue the editor of a book of original Holmes fiction if the author didn’t pay licensing fees.

Doyle’s estate contacted Leslie Klinger in 2011, when he was about to publish an anthology of original fiction starring Holmes, A Study in Sherlock: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon. The estate demanded publisher Random House pay $5,000 in licensing fees for the use of the Holmes character.

Random House paid the fees, even though Klinger thought that the Holmes stories were in the public domain."

Music Industry Officials Agree on Need for Licensing Rule Changes, but Little Else; New York Times, 6/10/14

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Music Industry Officials Agree on Need for Licensing Rule Changes, but Little Else:

"The complex system of music licensing came under attack in a congressional hearing on Tuesday, as entertainment and media executives pleaded for changes to how music rights were acquired and paid for online and by radio and television stations.

Yet the executives offered little common ground about how to solve the problems they highlighted, and repeatedly clashed with one another during two and a half hours of testimony — giving lawmakers a preview of how difficult it may be to satisfy all parties in the rapidly evolving but fractious music market.

The hearing, before a House Judiciary subcommittee, was part of a broad review of copyright led by Robert W. Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia who heads the Judiciary committee.

The seven witnesses on Tuesday, representing the Grammy Awards, the music-licensing agency BMI, television stations and Silicon Valley technology companies, spoke about decades-old government regulation and the patchwork of federal laws that govern music licensing."

Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books; NPR, 6/10/14

Lynn Neary, NPR; Court OKs Universities' Quest To Turn To More Digital Copies Of Books:

"A U.S. appeals court has ruled against a group of authors, deciding in favor of a consortium of universities in a case that hinged on copyright law and provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The universities had allowed Google to make digital copies of more than 10 million books so that they could be searchable by specific terms."

Why It's So Hard to Get the Law to Protect a Good Joke (Guest Column); Hollywood Reporter, 6/8/14

James J.S. Holmes and Kanika D. Corley, Hollywood Reporter; Why It's So Hard to Get the Law to Protect a Good Joke (Guest Column) :

"Comedians work hard to refine their craft, which often results in the creation of an intangible asset — a signature style of comedy. Such assets are deserving of intellectual property rights protection — but which one(s)?

Under the Copyright Act, protection extends to original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed. It follows that artistic content in tangible form, such as a comic's written jokes performed to an audience (or recorded), is entitled to protection. Taken to its logical conclusion, if comedic works are copyrightable, then those who engage in "joke thievery" should find themselves subject to suit for copyright infringement, thereby entitling the complainant to the Copyright Act's statutory damages and attorneys' fees.

Not so fast! A thorough review of the tenets of the Copyright Act when viewed in the context of professional comedians raises a problem."

Kennedy letters fiercely protected for decades; Boston Globe, 6/10/14

Matt Viser, Boston Globe; Kennedy letters fiercely protected for decades:

"In 1966, in a letter to a friend in Ireland, Jacqueline Kennedy seemed to see her future. She described her “strange” world, one in which “privacy barely exists, and where I spend all winter in New York holding my breath and wondering which old letter of mine will come up for auction next!”

All these years later, her family is still carefully guarding her legacy — and launching a new attempt to prevent the auction of letters she wrote to an Irish priest.

Caroline Kennedy has gotten involved in trying to establish ownership over the batch of more than 30 deeply personal letters that her mother had written to the Rev. Joseph Leonard over nearly 15 years. Those letters — in which Kennedy revealed some of her most private thoughts on marriage, motherhood, and death — had been set to be auctioned.

But under questions of ownership, copyright, and morality, the letters were pulled. The same day that attorneys for Caroline Kennedy contacted the Irish auction house planning to sell the letters, the auction was canceled. And the financially strapped college that discovered the letters and was hoping for a windfall — All Hallows College in Dublin — is now planning to close some 172 years after it opened."

Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy; U.S. Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force, July 2013

U.S. Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force; Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy: "“In April 2010, then Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke launched the Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF), which brings together the technical, policy, trade, economic, and legal expertise of many Commerce bureaus, including the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the International Trade Administration (ITA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Economic and Statistics Administration (ESA). Together, these bureaus have worked in the IPTF to identify leading public policy and operational challenges in the digital economy. In turn, the IPTF has developed approaches to strengthen protections for consumer data privacy, enhance cybersecurity practices, safeguard the global free flow of information, and ensure balanced and meaningful protection for intellectual property while preserving the dynamic innovation and growth that have made the Internet and digital technology so important to our economy and society. The paper that follows is the latest result of these cross-agency and multistakeholder discussions.”"

U.S. Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force to Host Series of Roundtables on Copyright Internet Policy Topics; Press Release, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 4/16/14

Press Release, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; U.S. Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force to Host Series of Roundtables on Copyright Internet Policy Topics:

"Public meetings were called for in U.S. Commerce Department’s Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy

Washington– The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force will host roundtable discussions in cities around the country on several copyright Internet policy topics, as part of the work envisioned in the Green Paper. The purpose of the roundtables is to engage further with members of the public on the following issues: (1) the legal framework for the creation of remixes; (2) the relevance and scope of the first sale doctrine in the digital environment; and (3) the appropriate calibration of statutory damages in the contexts of individual file sharers and of secondary liability for large-scale infringement. The roundtables, which will be led by USPTO and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), will be held in Nashville, TN on May 21, 2014, Cambridge, MA on June 25, 2014, Los Angeles, CA on July 29, 2014, and Berkeley, CA on July 30, 2014. The meetings were called for in the Task Force’s Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy released last year.

In the Green Paper and subsequent requests for public comments on October 3, 2013, the Task Force stated its intention to hold roundtable discussions on these issues. On December 12, 2013, the Task Force held a day-long public meeting to discuss the issues identified for its further work in the Green Paper, which included panel discussions on remixes, the first sale doctrine, and statutory damages, as well as other topics. The purpose of the planned roundtables is to seek additional input from the public in different parts of the country in order for the Task Force to have a complete and thorough record upon which to make recommendations.

Requests to participate and observe are due three weeks in advance of each of the respective roundtables. While the Task Force may not be able to grant all requests, it will seek to maximize participation to the extent possible. The agendas and webcast instructions will be available approximately one week prior to each meeting on the Task Force website at www.ntia.doc.gov/internetpolicytaskforce and the USPTO website at www.uspto.gov/ip/global/copyrights/index.jsp. Additional information including RSVP instructions and directions can be found at http://events.Signup4.com/copyrightgreenpaper and in the Federal Register Notice: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-04-16/pdf/2014-08627.pdf.

For further information regarding the meeting, please contact Ben Golant, Office of Policy and International Affairs, at (571) 272-7070, or benjamin.golant@uspto.gov or Hollis Robinson, Office of Policy and International Affairs, at (571) 272-1500, or hollis.robinson@uspto.gov."

Don Henley Claims 'Arrogant' Frank Ocean, Okkervil River Stole Songs; Rolling Stone, 6/4/14

Kory Grow, Rolling Stone; Don Henley Claims 'Arrogant' Frank Ocean, Okkervil River Stole Songs:

"In addition to condemning Ocean, Henley explained why he prevented Okkervil River from recording his solo song "The End of Innocence" and releasing it online for free. Although that group's frontman, Will Sheff, had previously claimed Henley had objected over money issues, the Eagle told the Telegraph it was because the group had changed his lyrics.

"They don't understand the law either," Henley said. "You can't rewrite the lyrics to somebody else's songs and record it and put it on the Internet. I'm sorry, but it wasn't an improvement. We were not impressed. So we simply had our legal team tell them to take it down and they got all huffy about it." Furthermore, Henley wondered how they would feel if he turned the tables on them and recorded an Okkervil River song with his own lyrics. "Maybe they wouldn't care, but I care," he said. "We work really, really hard on our material. We spend months writing it and years recording it. You don't go into a museum and paint a moustache on somebody else's painting. Nobody would think of doing that." He summed things up by saying, "If you respect somebody, you ask their permission to diddle around with their work – you don't just go and do it."

United States copyright law allows anyone to record a cover of any song without asking permission, so long as the musician does not alter the original. Henley told the Telegraph he was perfectly fine with that aspect of the law, but "that's not what Mr. Ocean nor Okkervil River did.""

Beastie Boys win $1.7 million in copyright case vs. Monster Beverage; Reuters, 6/5/14

Nate Raymond, Reuters; Beastie Boys win $1.7 million in copyright case vs. Monster Beverage:

"Beastie Boys' fight for their right to not let Monster Beverage Corp use the hip-hop group's music without their permission resulted in a verdict of $1.7 million on Thursday.

A federal jury in Manhattan issued the verdict on the eighth day of trial in a copyright dispute between members of the Brooklyn-born band and the energy drink maker over songs the band says Monster used without a license in a 2012 promotional video.

The Beastie Boys had sought up to $2.5 million for copyright infringement and false endorsement."

Okkervil River Responds to Don Henley: Copyright Laws Kill Art: Will Sheff writes artists "communicate back and forth with each other over the generations, take old ideas and make them new"; Rolling Stone, 6/4/14

Will Sheff, Rolling Stone; Okkervil River Responds to Don Henley: Copyright Laws Kill Art: Will Sheff writes artists "communicate back and forth with each other over the generations, take old ideas and make them new":

"All of these artists, on some level, drew from a folk tradition, and, as I got deeper into their work, they led me to old-time American folk and blues – to artists like Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Dock Boggs, Skip James and the Carter Family. As I fell deeper and deeper in love with these artists I started noticing something that they all had in common – they all copied each other. Woody Guthrie took the melody from the Carters' "Little Darling Pal of Mine" and he wrote "This Land Is Your Land." Robert Johnson took the already-existing blues tales about selling your soul to the devil and they ended up incorporated into his whole image. Bob Dylan took the Scottish ballad "Come All Ye Bold Highway Men" and used it for "The Times They Are A–Changin'." Nina Simone transformed the ridiculous Morris Albert MOR ballad "Feelings" and improvised re-written lyrics, stretching the song over the 10-minute mark and creating something harrowing from it.

I realized that this is what artists are supposed to do – communicate back and forth with each other over the generations, take old ideas and make them new (since it's impossible to really "imitate" somebody without adding anything of your own), create a rich, shared cultural language that was available to everybody. Once I saw it in folk art, I saw it everywhere – in hip-hop, in street art, in dada. I became convinced that the soul of culture lay in this kind of weird, irreverent-but-reverant back-and-forth. And I concluded that copyright law was completely opposed to this natural artistic process in a way that was strangling and depleting our culture, taking away something rich and beautiful that belonged to everyone in order to put more money into the hands of the hands of a small, lawyered few."

Copyright infringement suit filed against Led Zeppelin for 'Stairway to Heaven'; CNN, 6/3/14

Lisa Respers France, CNN; Copyright infringement suit filed against Led Zeppelin for 'Stairway to Heaven' :

"A lawsuit has been filed claiming that the iconic Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" was far from original.

The suit, filed on May 31 in the United States District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania, was brought by the estate of the late musician Randy California against the surviving members of Led Zeppelin and their record label. The copyright infringement case alleges that the Zeppelin song was taken from the single "Taurus" by the 1960s band Spirit, for whom California served as lead guitarist...

The estate is seeking court ordered damages and writing credit for California, born Randy Craig Wolfe. Part of the defense includes a printed interview conducted with California prior to his death from drowning in 1997. In the 1997 interview with Listener Magazine, the guitarist claims that some of the music from "Stairway to Heaven" was taken from his group's song.

Bluebeard as a Geek: Plundering in High-Tech: On ‘Halt and Catch Fire,’ It’s Imitation vs. Invention; New York Times, 5/30/14

Alessandra Stanley, New York Times; Bluebeard as a Geek: Plundering in High-Tech: On ‘Halt and Catch Fire,’ It’s Imitation vs. Invention:

"There are absolutists who still believe that everything on the Internet should be free and see themselves as partisans, not parasites. Their motto might as well be “intellectual property is theft.”

Some of those true believers may enjoy a new AMC drama, “Halt and Catch Fire,” which begins on Sunday and is set in Texas in the early 1980s, when PCs were still in their infancy, and IBM dominated the industry.

But it’s an odd show for most viewers to accept at face value. And not just because it’s hard to construct thrilling action sequences out of microchips, floppy disks and coffee breaks. In today’s era of high-tech billionaires and the cult of the start-up, this series goes back in time to glorify imitation, not innovation...

Even the title is so abstruse that an explanation is spelled out in block print at the beginning:

“HALT AND CATCH FIRE (HCF): An early computer command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained.”...

Buccaneering on the high seas, the kind that involves daggers, planks and rum, is romantic partly because it remains safely in the past. Copyright piracy, on the other hand, may be too close for comfort."

New Authors Alliance wants to ease some copyright rules; SFGate, 5/31/14

Meredith May, SFGate; New Authors Alliance wants to ease some copyright rules:

"Academic authors aren't generally known for making a lot of noise, but these days, 250 of them are speaking up to call for a change in U.S. copyright laws, which they say make it hard to access and share their work online. They want the law changed to reflect the reality of publishing in the digital age.

The Bay Area-based Authors Alliance was formed recently at the Internet Archive in San Francisco to push for a new Copyright Act that loosens the restrictions on citing, digitizing and sharing published work...

The new alliance's goals include making it easier for scholars, libraries and private citizens to enter pre-Internet, out-of-print and "orphaned" works whose copyright holders are unknown, into the public domain. They want copyright law clarified and amended to allow libraries, archives and heritage groups the right to digitally reproduce and store books.

"Copyright law is so strict, stretching up to 95 years from publication in some cases, that without the right to digitize it we are in jeopardy of losing our long-term cultural and intellectual history," said alliance founding member Pamela Samuelson, a UC Berkeley law professor who filed briefs on Google's behalf during the eight-year book scanning controversy. The Authors Guild lawsuit against the tech giant was dismissed in November by a federal court in Manhattan."...

Others worried

But the push to allow more digital access to academic work is creating a schism among writers, pitting scholars against commercial writers backed by the Authors Guild, who fear their books could be too easily digitally copied and shared by universities, libraries and corporations, much the same way illegal song sharing has undermined the music industry.

The fears of commercial authors are unfounded, Samuelson maintains."

Pirate Bay founder arrested after two years on the run; Reuters via Guardian, 5/31/14

Reuters via Guardian; Pirate Bay founder arrested after two years on the run:

"One of the founders of file-sharing website Pirate Bay has been arrested in southern Sweden to serve an outstanding sentence for copyright violations after being on the run for nearly two years, Swedish police have said.

Peter Sunde had been wanted by Interpol since 2012 after being sentenced in Sweden to prison and fined for breaching copyright laws.

"We have been looking for him since 2012," said Carolina Ekeus, spokeswoman at the Swedish national police board. "He was given eight months in jail so he has to serve his sentence."...

Four men linked to Pirate Bay were originally sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of £2.85m. An appeals court later reduced the prison sentences by varying amounts, but raised the fine to £4.1m."

Federal CIOs, Take Open Data To Next Level; Information Week, 5/29/14

Bobby Caudill, Information Week; Federal CIOs, Take Open Data To Next Level:

"A prime example comes from the State of Michigan's Department of Human Services (DHS). Sadly, there are parents who opt to neglect their financial obligations to their children. Such individuals take steps to hide from the authorities, oftentimes using false contact information. In order to help get child support payments into the hands of the single parents in need, DHS asked a simple question: "How can we find these people?" The answer was in open data.

The data immediately available to the agency was not enough, so DHS looked to other sources in the state. Starting with the Secretary of State, DHS secured access to state drivers' license data. Gaining access to the contact information of the millions of people who are licensed to drive had a huge impact, but DHS found even more valuable information at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). It turns out people don't think to falsify information when applying for hunting or fishing licenses. By integrating that information with its existing data, the agency could finally take action to help those in need. From my perspective, this is true innovation."

RESPECT Bill Would Put Golden Oldies Under Federal Copyright; Billboard, 5/29/14

Glenn Peoples, Billboard; RESPECT Bill Would Put Golden Oldies Under Federal Copyright:

"A new bill could help artists and labels collect royalties on the digital performance of older recordings while adding to the royalty expenses of the digital services that play them.

Revealed Thursday, the RESPECT Act was introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and co-sponsored by Rep. George Holding (R-NC) and several other members of the House. The bill would place pre-1972 sound recordings under federal law. Because the performance right for these older recordings currently falls under states' laws, digital music services such as Pandora and SiriusXM do not pay royalties on them. (These services do pay publishers for the performance of the compositions, however.)

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake."

How does copyright work in space?; Economist, 5/22/13

G.F., Economist; How does copyright work in space? :

"CHRIS HADFIELD has captured the world's heart, judging by the 14m YouTube views of his free-fall rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity", recorded on the International Space Station (ISS). The Canadian astronaut's clear voice and capable guitar-playing were complemented by his facility in moving around in the microgravity of low-earth orbit. But when the man fell to Earth in a neat and safe descent a few days ago, after a five-month stay in orbit, should he have been greeted by copyright police? Commander Hadfield was only 250 miles (400 km) up, so he was still subject to terrestrial intellectual-property regimes, which would have applied even if he had flown the "100,000 miles" mentioned in the song's lyrics, or millions of kilometres to Mars. His five-minute video had the potential to create a tangled web of intellectual-property issues. How does copyright work in space?...

J.A.L. Sterling, a London-based expert on international copyright law, anticipated all this in a 2008 paper, "Space Copyright Law: the new dimension", in which he lists dozens more potentially problematic scenarios that could arise, some seemingly risible at first."

The Beastie Boys sue Monster Energy Co for copyright infringement; Reuters via New York Times, 5/27/14

John Russell,Reuters via New York Times; The Beastie Boys sue Monster Energy Co for copyright infringement:

"The Beastie Boys take Monster Energy Co to trial over claims the beverage maker used the band's songs without their permission."

New Nashville group to push for copyright reform; Tennessean, 5/25/14

Nate Rau, Tennessean; New Nashville group to push for copyright reform:

"A new group comprised of prominent Nashville music publishing companies and other copyright stakeholders has formed, seeking to add another voice to the ongoing debate about sweeping copyright reform.

The group, called Interested Parties Advancing Copyright, consists of about 50 independent publishers, administrators, business managers and entertainment attorneys.

IPAC submitted comments to the federal Copyright Office prior to Friday's deadline for industry stakeholders to weigh in on music licensing reform. IPAC also hopes to participate in next month's federal roundtable discussion in Nashville about the current methods for licensing musical works and sound recordings...

The group's formation comes at a critical time because Congress is in the middle of debates about broad copyright reform. At stake is the potential for sweeping changes to federal laws governing music licensing, performance royalties, digital royalties and music piracy enforcement."

Vimeo to Launch Music Copyright ID System; Billboard, 5/21/14

Andrew Flanagan, Billboard; Vimeo to Launch Music Copyright ID System:

"Vimeo, the hosting site popular with video artists of all stripes and which uses the motto "upload your own work," will be implementing a system they're calling Copyright Match, intended to prevent music copyright infringement on the site.

CEO Kerry Trainor tells Billboard the system will allow the company to be "a little more controlled in terms of making sure that copyrighted material in its entirety isn't being synched to Vimeo without proper licensing."...

The new system should be less severe than the Content ID system used at Vimeo's main competitor YouTube, which often pulls videos determined to be infringing with little notification to uploaders. Copyright Match, produced in partnership with audio identification company Audible Magic, will be a tiered process...

If videos have a fair use case -- one of the most problematic areas of copyright monitoring in the high-volume digital age -- Vimeo will hear them out and reinstate the video's visibility if it meets their criteria."

Justices Reinstate Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Raging Bull’; New York Times, 5/19/14

Adam Liptak, New York Times; Justices Reinstate Copyright Lawsuit Over ‘Raging Bull’ :

"The Supreme Court on Monday revived a copyright lawsuit against the owners of “Raging Bull,” the acclaimed 1980 movie for which Robert De Niro won an Academy Award as best actor for his portrayal of the boxer Jake LaMotta.

The case arose from a 1963 screenplay written by Frank Petrella in collaboration with Mr. LaMotta. Mr. Petrella died in 1981, and his daughter Paula inherited the rights to the screenplay.

She did not sue the movie’s owners until 2009, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said that was too late. The copyright law itself would have allowed the suit, as its three-year statute of limitations starts to run anew every time there is a fresh infringement."

Newspapers need robust copyright law protection; Albuquerque Journal, 5/17/14

Caroline Little, President & CEO, Newspaper Association of America; Newspapers need robust copyright law protection:

"Newspapers’ concern in this area is not the personal use of newspaper-generated content but rather its use by businesses that benefit financially through the unlicensed monetization of that content.

By taking newspaper content without paying for it, these companies undercut the fundamental economic model that supports journalism that is so important to our communities.

As an example of the importance of copyright protection, consider a case last year that was decided by a federal judge in New York. The case involved Meltwater, a for-profit service, which scraped Associated Press articles from the Internet and resold verbatim excerpts to subscribers.

The AP sued the news service for copyright infringement, and the court properly found that Meltwater’s customers viewed the service as a substitute for reading the original articles."

The Biggest Filer of Copyright Lawsuits? This Erotica Web Site; New Yorker, 5/15/14

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Five years of being intimidated by the Harvard Bluebook's copyright policies; BoingBoing.net, 5/16/14

Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing.net; Five years of being intimidated by the Harvard Bluebook's copyright policies: "Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, "For five years, Professor Frank Bennett, a distinguished legal scholar at Nagoya University School of Law, has been trying to add Bluebook Support to Zotero, the open source citation tool used all over the world. Professor Bennett asked Harvard Law Review for permission. They said no."

Seven people jailed in China's first online copyright lawsuit; ZDNet, 5/16/14

Cyrus Lee, ZDNet; Seven people jailed in China's first online copyright lawsuit:

"Zhou Zhiquan, CEO of the movie downloading website, was sentenced five years imprisonment for copyright infringement, and a fine of 1 million yuan (US$160,000).

Zhou's other six co-workers were sentenced in jail from one to three years, according to a Sina news report, which called the judgment "the first one ever" dealing with the country's online copyright infringement.

Siluhd.com was deemed as the country’s largest illegal high-definition movie downloading website, providing tens of thousands of high-definition Blu-ray movies as well videos and television programs. Its registered members had once exceeded 1.4 million.

However, in a crackdown in late April of 2013, when it was also the 13th World Intellectual Property Day, the Chinese police shut down the site and detained CEO and over 30 other employees for suspicion of infringing IP rights."

Copyright Licensing Organization Gets New Boss; New York Times, 5/14/14

Noam Cohen, New York Times; Copyright Licensing Organization Gets New Boss:

"Creative Commons, whose licensing system encourages the sharing of more than 500 million copyrighted works, on Wednesday appointed a veteran of similar open Internet projects to be its new chief executive.

The new leader, Ryan Merkley, 36, was recently the chief operating officer at the Mozilla Foundation, the organization that supports the open-source Firefox browser, and has also worked with the governments of Toronto and Vancouver...

Creative Commons was founded in 2001 with the idea of making it easier for people to give permission to the public to share or incorporate works under certain conditions — for example, if the new use is noncommercial, or credit is given...

Still, one of the principal challenges for the organization is to keep tabs on its licensees, Mr. Merkley said. The 500 million total “is an estimate, not an actual number,” he said. “It is hard to track them.”

That technical problem, he said, speaks to a larger concern: how to organize Creative Commons content so that the public can easily find and use it in their own projects."

Oracle wins copyright ruling against Google over Android; Reuters, 5/9/14

Dan Levine and Diane Bartz, Reuters; Oracle wins copyright ruling against Google over Android:

"Oracle Corp won a legal victory against Google Inc on Friday as a U.S. appeals court decided Oracle could copyright parts of the Java programming language, which Google used to design its Android smartphone operating system.

The case, decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, is being closely watched in Silicon Valley. A high-profile 2012 trial featured testimony from Oracle's chief executive, Larry Ellison, and Google CEO Larry Page, and the legal issues go to the heart of how tech companies protect their most valuable intellectual property.

Google's Android operating system is the world's best-selling smartphone platform."

Obama Signs Nation's First 'Open Data' Law; Information Week, 5/12/14

William Welsh, Information Week; Obama Signs Nation's First 'Open Data' Law:

"President Barack Obama enacted the nation's first open data law, signing into law on May 9 bipartisan legislation that requires federal agencies to publish their spending data in a standardized, machine-readable format that the public can access through USASpending.gov.

The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (S. 994) amends the eight-year-old Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act to make available to the public specific classes of federal agency spending data "with more specificity and at a deeper level than is currently reported," a White House statement said."

EU rejects international solution to library and archive copyright problems; causes collapse of WIPO meeting; IFLA, 5/6/14

IFLA; EU rejects international solution to library and archive copyright problems; causes collapse of WIPO meeting:

"Discussions by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights (SCCR) broke down in the early hours of Saturday morning 3 May, after the European Union (EU) attempted to block future discussion of copyright laws to aid libraries and archives fulfill their missions in the digital environment.

Library and archive delegations from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada and the UK attended the 27th meeting of the SCCR from 28 April – 2 May 2014, to push for an international treaty to help libraries and archives preserve cultural heritage, facilitate access to essential information by people wherever they are in the world.

The meeting ended in disarray at 1:30am on Saturday morning, after the EU tried to have crucial references to “text-based” work on copyright exceptions removed from the meeting conclusions - a move viewed by other Member States and library and archive NGOs present as an attempt to delay, if not derail, any progress on copyright exceptions at WIPO."

The Conservative Case For Taking On The Copyright Lobby; Business Insider, 4/30/14

Derek Khanna, Business Insider; The Conservative Case For Taking On The Copyright Lobby:

"Current U.S. law provides copyright protection for the life of the author plus 70 years. For corporate authors, the term is 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication. But those changes reflect only part of the reality. In fact, lobbyists have usurped the policymaking process itself to ensure that whenever one term of copyright is set to expire the law is extended.

Several times, these extensions have even been made retroactively, reapplying copyright protections to works that already had moved into the public domain. Thus, the degree to which the current life-plus-70 standard can be relied on to accurately project when a specific work may move into the public domain is limited.

The practical effect of this policy is, effectively, a regime of indefinite copyright. During oral arguments of the 2002 case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said of the policy of continual copyright extension that it "flies directly in the face of what the framers had in mind, absolutely."

If You Repeat A Lie Often Enough

Jack Valenti, then head of the Motion Picture Academy of America, testified during the legislative runup to passage of 1998's Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (colloquially known as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act) that "copyright term extension has a simple but compelling enticement: it is very much in America's economic interests."

We have lots of reasons to be skeptical of Valenti’s claim. One, it wasn’t backed by data. Two, there is overwhelming data to the contrary from economists. Three, Valenti was well known for making stuff up that was demonstrably untrue and for having little regard for the rest of the economy."

Claiming a Copyright on Marx? How Uncomradely; New York Times, 4/30/14

Noam Cohen, New York Times; Claiming a Copyright on Marx? How Uncomradely:

"The Marxist Internet Archive, a website devoted to radical writers and thinkers, recently received an email: It must take down hundreds of works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels or face legal consequences.

The warning didn’t come from a multinational media conglomerate but from a small, leftist publisher, Lawrence & Wishart, which asserted copyright ownership over the 50-volume, English-language edition of Marx’s and Engels’s writings.

To some, it was “uncomradely” that fellow radicals would deploy the capitalist tool of intellectual property law to keep Marx’s and Engels’s writings off the Internet. And it wasn’t lost on the archive’s supporters that the deadline for complying with the order came on the eve of May 1, International Workers’ Day...

Still, Mr. Walters said the archive respected the publisher’s copyright, which covers the translated works, not the German originals from the 19th century. On Wednesday, the archive removed the disputed writings with a note blaming the publisher and a bold headline: “File No Longer Available!”"

Open data: slow down Whitehall's approach has the subtlety of a smash-and-grab-raider and it must take its own advice on best practice; Guardian, 4/18/14

Editorial, Guardian; Open data: slow down Whitehall's approach has the subtlety of a smash-and-grab-raider and it must take its own advice on best practice:

"Open data is potentially of incalculable value. The capacity to merge and manipulate information from a range of public bodies is already delivering wider benefit that ranges from better policing to environmental protection. It will lead to sharper policy making, cheaper drugs and improved health strategies. More contentiously, it could also develop into a valuable revenue stream for government. Whitehall is understandably excited about the potential. But it is approaching the whole open data project with the subtlety of a smash-and-grab raider...

A year ago, the government's own review into open data was published. Its first call was for a National Data Strategy, open to audit, that would set out what data should be released and in what form. Other recommendations included a focus on security, releasing anonymised data only into "safe havens" and introducing tough penalties on end users that fail to safeguard it. This may be part of the best practice HMRC insists it is committed to observing, but external experts are sceptical. Whitehall needs to take its own advice. It needs a strategy, one that explains exactly what the criteria for release of data are, sets out security safeguards that withstand challenge and introduces tough penalties for any breach that demonstrate a genuine respect for privacy."

The Shadow of the Billion-Dollar Copyright Award; National Law Review, 4/28/14

John K. Burke and Vedder Price, National Law Review; The Shadow of the Billion-Dollar Copyright Award:

"On March 18, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision with significant impact for copyright owners in Alaska Stock v. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub. Co., holding that a registration for a compilation covers any copyrightable component works that are also owned by the applicant, even if the registration application did not list the title and author of each component work.

This ruling affirms that a copyright owner can obtain a single copyright registration covering a large number of works. For example, a magazine might contain over 100 separately copyrighted images along with 10 individually copyrighted articles. If the copyrights for the compilation, the photographs and the articles are held by a single owner, all of these works may be covered using a single registration by applying for a copyright in the compilation of the magazine. Using this approach, the owner is saved from needing to submit 111 separate copyright applications, each requiring a separate application and fee.

Going forward, content distributors such as website operators that regularly publish large numbers of copyrighted works must take care to ensure they only use works with the permission of the copyright owner."

With Aereo, Supreme Court digs into copyright nuances; CNet, 4/22/14

Joan E. Solsman, CNet; With Aereo, Supreme Court digs into copyright nuances:

"The Supreme Court, grilling lawyers for TV-streaming service Aereo and the broadcast TV companies seeking to shut it down, focused Tuesday on issues of private versus public performance, universal uncertainty about risks to cloud computing, and the difference between true innovation versus technological cleverness to avoid paying for content.

At stake in the copyright case is how people watch and pay for TV in the digital age, and how the companies that create content are compensated. The case could also call into question the legality of cloud-computing services unrelated to TV, something several justices brought up with both sides."

At Stake in the Aereo Case Is How We Watch TV; David Carr, 4/22/14

David Carr, New York Times; At Stake in the Aereo Case Is How We Watch TV:

"Again and again, Aereo has been tagged as a Rube Goldberg-like invention. Some justices appeared to agree with that view, suggesting that Aereo was exploiting a loophole, a clever end run around federal copyright law...

Aereo is a hybrid of old and new, built on a legion of miniature antennas that grab programming out of the airwaves, as has happened since the dawn of television, but then storing that content in the cloud to be called down in an instant or at a time of the subscriber’s choosing. As arguments proceeded, you could see the justices grappling with the implications attached to the start-up: was it a cable company, was it a cloud storage enterprise, and most important, was it distributing the broadcasters’ programming to the public and if so, should it pay the price for doing so?"

Pandora sued by record labels for copyright infringement; CNet, 4/17/14

Dara Kerr, CNet; Pandora sued by record labels for copyright infringement:

"Pandora has been hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit by major record labels, according to The New York Times. The labels contend that the music streaming service must pay license fees for songs recorded before 1972.

The suit was filed in New York state court by Sony, Warner, and Universal, according to the Times. The labels argue that even though older songs, like James Brown's "I Got You" and the Beatles' "Hey Jude," aren't protected under federal copyright law -- they are covered by state laws.

The record labels claim they lose millions of dollars yearly from Pandora, other streaming music services, and satellite radio companies for playing older songs. Many of these songs are played on streaming stations like "Golden Oldies" and "50s Rock 'n' Roll," and the labels say they should get royalties for these pre-1972 songs."

Boy named after Wayne Rooney not allowed personalised Easter egg due to 'copyright law'; Express.co.uk, 4/14/14

Sarah Ann Harris, Express.co.uk; Boy named after Wayne Rooney not allowed personalised Easter egg due to 'copyright law' :

"A LITTLE boy named after England striker Wayne Rooney was told he could not have his name written on an Easter egg because of "copyright issues".

Staff at a branch of Thorntons in Bury, Greater Manchester, refused to ice three-year-old Rooney's name on a chocolate egg in case it broke copyright laws, said the child's angry mother, Jo-anne Scholes.

She said instead, as a compromise, staff agreed to put her son's full name, Rooney Scholes, on the egg, bought by a family friend on Saturday...

There is no copyright or trademark protection for people's names under UK law."

Of Bundles, Bindings, and the Next Great Copyright Law; Library Journal, 4/17/14

Kevin L. Smith, Library Journal; Of Bundles, Bindings, and the Next Great Copyright Law:

"What will the next great copyright law look like? It depends to a large degree on what we think is great about the current copyright law. Many of the problems and proposals for reform that I listened to in Berkeley made me think that the pressure of digital technology is too much for the very notion of copyright, and that the legal regime built around that concept is collapsing under the weight. The question, I think, is whether we should try to keep strengthening the structure of the law to withstand that pressure, which is the approach we have taken so far, or whether perhaps we should reduce the pressure by returning to a more lightweight set of protections. As someone pointed out during the week, our first copyright law in the U.S. protected simply the right to copy, publish, and vend a work. Maybe we could return to that approach by just protecting the right to commercially exploit a work of authorship and stripping away many of the protections, and hence the required exceptions, that cause so many problems for museums, schools, universities, and individuals who simply want to engage in socially beneficial activities that do not threaten the core markets for those works."

Big data and open data: what's what and why does it matter?; Guardian, 4/15/14

Joel Gurin, Guardian; Big data and open data: what's what and why does it matter? :

"Big data and the new phenomenon open data are closely related but they're not the same. Open data brings a perspective that can make big data more useful, more democratic, and less threatening.

While big data is defined by size, open data is defined by its use. Big data is the term used to describe very large, complex, rapidly-changing datasets. But those judgments are subjective and dependent on technology: today's big data may not seem so big in a few years when data analysis and computing technology improve.

Open data is accessible public data that people, companies, and organisations can use to launch new ventures, analyse patterns and trends, make data-driven decisions, and solve complex problems. All definitions of open data include two basic features: the data must be publicly available for anyone to use, and it must be licensed in a way that allows for its reuse. Open data should also be relatively easy to use, although there are gradations of "openness". And there's general agreement that open data should be available free of charge or at minimal cost."

SOPA Defeat Haunts Efforts to Rein In Illegal Copying, British Official Says; New York Times, 4/17/14

Michael Cieply, New York Times; SOPA Defeat Haunts Efforts to Rein In Illegal Copying, British Official Says:

"Following the defeat in 2012 of the Stop Online Piracy Act, movie companies and other advocates for copyright owners both here and in Britain have been pointed toward voluntarism. That has meant, among other things, agreements under which Internet service providers send escalating warnings to those who are believed to be downloading copyrighted material illegally.

But at a news briefing in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Mr. Weatherly, a plainspoken type, also talked of escalating pressure — legal and otherwise — on those who advertise on sites where illegal downloading is taking place. “There are some laws in place, but we might need to beef up a couple of them a bit more,” suggested Mr. Weatherly, who spoke of an effort to “strangle the advertising revenue from the illegal sites.”"

Ted Hughes Estate Cuts Off Access, Biographer Says; New York Times, 3/31/14

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; Ted Hughes Estate Cuts Off Access, Biographer Says: "

The estate did not offer an explanation for its withdrawal of access, but rejected the suggestion there were any secrets it was “attempting to keep hidden,” according to The Guardian. The Hughes archive was purchased by the British Library in 2008, but copyright remains with the estate. Mr. Bate said his contract with Faber was canceled by mutual consent, and that he would rewrite the book for HarperCollins, consulting with lawyers about how much he could quote or paraphrase in keeping with fair use laws."

Trace the past with NY Public Library's Open Access Maps Project; CNet, 4/7/14

Bonnie Burton, CNet; Trace the past with NY Public Library's Open Access Maps Project:

"For over 15 years, the Lionel Pincus & Princess Firyal Map Division at the New York Public Library has been scanning maps from all over the world including those of the Mid-Atlantic United States from 16th to 19th centuries and even topographic maps of Austro-Hungarian empire ranging from 1877 and 1914.

Most notably, the NYPL has scanned more than 10,300 maps from property, zoning, and topographic atlases of New York City dating from 1852 to 1922.

There's also a "diverse collection of more than 1,000 maps of New York City, its boroughs and neighborhoods, dating from 1660 to 1922, which detail transportation, vice, real estate development, urban renewal, industrial development and pollution, political geography among many, many other things," NYPL posted in late March on its blog.

These and many more of the 20,000 cartographic works scanned are now available as high-resolution downloads for anyone who wants to visit their site.

"We believe these maps have no known US copyright restrictions," NYPL posted. "To the extent that some jurisdictions grant NYPL an additional copyright in the digital reproductions of these maps, NYPL is distributing these images under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.""

Academic Publishing Waiver Raises Concern; Chronicle of Higher Education via New York Times, 4/6/14

Megan O'Neil, Chronicle of Higher Education via New York Times; Academic Publishing Waiver Raises Concern:

"Faculty authors who contract to write for the publisher of Nature, Scientific American and many other journals could be signing away more than just the economic rights to their work, according to the director of the Office of Copyright and Scholarly Communications at Duke University.

Kevin Smith, the Duke official, said he stumbled across a clause in the Nature Publishing Group’s license agreement last month stating that authors waive or agree not to assert “any and all moral rights they may now or in the future hold” related to their work. In the context of scholarly publishing, “moral rights” include the right of the author always to have his or her name associated with the work and the right to have the integrity of the work protected so that it is not changed in a way that could result in reputational harm.

“In many countries, you can’t waive them as an author,” Mr. Smith said. “But in the Nature publishing agreement you are required to waive them, and if you are in a country where a waiver is not allowed, you have to assert in the contract you won’t insist on those rights.”

Grace Baynes, a spokeswoman for the Nature Publishing Group, declined to say how long the language on moral rights had been included in its license agreement."

Studios hit Megaupload with copyright-infringement lawsuit; Los Angeles Times, 4/7/14

Richard Verrier, Los Angeles Times; Studios hit Megaupload with copyright-infringement lawsuit:

"Hollywood studios are turning the screws on Kim Dotcom, founder of the once infamous piracy website Megaupload.

Several major U.S. studios on Monday filed a lawsuit against Kim Dotcom (a.k.a. Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor) and others associated with Megaupload, alleging that they encouraged and profited from massive copyright infringement of movies and television shows before they were indicted on federal criminal charges and Megaupload was shut down."

Government open data proves a treasure trove for savvy businesses; ComputerWorld, 3/24/14

Cindy Waxer, ComputerWorld; Government open data proves a treasure trove for savvy businesses:

""We're at a tipping point," says Joel Gurin, senior adviser at New York University's Governance Lab (GovLab) and author of Open Data Now: The Secret to Hot Startups, Smart Investing, Savvy Marketing, and Fast Innovation. "This is the year open data goes from being a specialized expertise to becoming part of a CIO's tool kit. It's a very exciting time."

But unlocking open data's value remains a challenge. For one thing, much of today's open data flows from a whopping 10,000 federal information systems, many of which are based on outdated technologies. And because open data can be messy and riddled with inaccuracies, IT professionals struggle to achieve the data quality and accuracy levels required for making important business decisions. Then there are the data integration headaches and lack of in-house expertise that can easily hinder the transformation of open data into actionable business intelligence.

Yet for those IT leaders who manage to convert decades-old county records, public housing specs and precipitation patterns into a viable business plan, "the sky's the limit," says Gurin."

Are MOOCs - massive open online courses - the future of education?; The Australian, 4/5/14

Julie Hare, The Australian; Are MOOCs - massive open online courses - the future of education? :

"TODAY you can study with a Nobel Laureate - at home, for free. Is this the end of traditional university education?

Last August, Diccon Close went back to university, enrolling in an esoteric-sounding course called “Maps and the Geospatial Revolution” from Pennsylvania State University in the US. It was the first proper study Close, 49, had done since he passed his economics degree in the 1980s and he was pleased with himself when he gained a distinction. To do the five-week course, Close didn’t have to fly to the States or turn up to a campus. He completed it on his laptop in moments etched out from his frantic schedule while living and working in Sydney. His cohort consisted of 48,000 people from 150 countries and they were all connected through chat rooms and social media. For all he knows, he might have had a classmate living around the corner. Best of all, it didn’t cost him a cent."