Victory for Users: Librarian of Congress Renews and Expands Protections for Fair Uses; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 10/27/15

Parker Higgins, Mitch Stoltz, Kit Walsh, Corynne McSherry, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Victory for Users: Librarian of Congress Renews and Expands Protections for Fair Uses:

"The new rules for exemptions to copyright's DRM-circumvention laws were issued today, and the Librarian of Congress has granted much of what EFF asked for over the course of months of extensive briefs and hearings. The exemptions we requested—ripping DVDs and Blurays for making fair use remixes and analysis; preserving video games and running multiplayer servers after publishers have abandoned them; jailbreaking cell phones, tablets, and other portable computing devices to run third party software; and security research and modification and repairs on cars—have each been accepted, subject to some important caveats.

The exemptions are needed thanks to a fundamentally flawed law that forbids users from breaking DRM, even if the purpose is a clearly lawful fair use. As software has become ubiquitous, so has DRM. Users often have to circumvent that DRM to make full use of their devices, from DVDs to games to smartphones and cars.

The law allows users to request exemptions for such lawful uses—but it doesn’t make it easy. Exemptions are granted through an elaborate rulemaking process that takes place every three years and places a heavy burden on EFF and the many other requesters who take part."

It's OK to hack your own car, US copyright authorities rule; Reuters via Guardian, 10/27/15

Reuters via Guardian; It's OK to hack your own car, US copyright authorities rule:

"Car owners and security experts can tinker with automobile software without incurring US copyright liability, according to newly issued guidelines that were opposed by the auto industry.

The Library of Congress, which oversees the US Copyright Office, agreed with fair use advocates who argued that vehicle owners are entitled to modify their cars, which often involves altering software."

Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free; Atlantic, 10/20/15

Robinson Meyer, Atlantic; After 10 Years, Google Books Is Legal: Thanks to a landmark ruling, information just got a little more free:

"In other words, Google Books is legal.

And not only that, but the case is likely resolved for good. In 2012, a district court ruled that Hathitrust, a university consortium that used Google Books’s scans to make books accessible to blind students, was not only a legal form of fair use but also required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Experts say that the Supreme Court is unlikely to hear an appeal, because so many district court judges, and two different federal circuits, have found themselves so broadly in agreement about the nature of transformative use online.

“The Authors Guild is deluding itself to think that this is an area that is open and controversial in the view of the lower courts,” Grimmelmann said.

This isn’t only good news for fans of Google Books. It helps makes the legal boundaries of fair use clear to other organizations who may try to take advantage of it, including libraries and non-profits.

“It gives us a better senses of where fair use lies,” says Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America. They “give a firmer foundation and certainty for non-profits.”"

Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Public Draft: Positioning the United States Copyright Office for the Future; U.S. Copyright Office, 10/23/15

U.S. Copyright Office; Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Public Draft: Positioning the United States Copyright Office for the Future:

"Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante today released a public draft of the Copyright Office’s Strategic Plan, setting forth the Office’s performance objectives for the next five years.

Reflecting the results of four years of internal evaluations and public input, the Strategic Plan lays out a vision of a modern Copyright Office that is equal to the task of administering the Nation’s copyright laws effectively and efficiently both today and tomorrow. It will remain in draft form for 30 days to permit public feedback, and will take effect on December 1, 2015."

Senators Probe Copyright’s Impact on Software-Enabled Devices; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 10/23/15

Kit Walsh, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Senators Probe Copyright’s Impact on Software-Enabled Devices:

"Senators Grassley and Leahy, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, have published a letter to the Copyright Office asking it to analyze the impact of copyright law on “software-enabled devices” (such as cars, phones, drones, appliances, and many more products with embedded computer systems). This issue is crucial because technology and the law have evolved in a way that no one could have intended when Congress wrote the present copyright laws, and that evolution has restricted customers’ freedoms to repair, understand, and improve on the devices they buy.

Many problems with the current state of the law have been catalogued: Security researchers, patients with networked medical devices, smart phone owners who want to switch carriers or to improve their phones, and auto repair communities have all come forward asking for relief from one of the most problematic laws, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And those communities represent just a handful of the twenty-seven categories being considered for exemption from Section 1201 in this one proceeding...

At this time, the senators are not proposing any particular reforms, merely asking the Copyright Office to conduct a study and take input from the public."

Copyright concessions may be downside of TPP deal; Globe and Mail, 10/22/15

Globe Editorial, Globe and Mail; Copyright concessions may be downside of TPP deal:

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a good deal for Canada. It will give Canadian businesses new access to markets in Asia and provide consumers with less expensive goods.

But no deal is perfect. Based on the few details available at this point, Canada may have yielded to changes to its copyright regime by agreeing to extend protections on original works from the current 50 years beyond the death of the author, to 70.

In effect, this country and the other TPP partners will adopt U.S. rules that were largely crafted by lobbyists for Disney, which sought to forestall Mickey Mouse entering the public domain.

There is no mention of this on the federal government website summarizing the pact. Instead, it emerged via leaks and information released by other countries, and was brought to the fore by intellectual property experts like University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, who reckons Ottawa “caved.”"

Netflix sued for streaming Bicycle Thieves 'without copyright'; Guardian, 10/23/15

Ben Child, Guardian; Netflix sued for streaming Bicycle Thieves 'without copyright' :

"Netflix has been accused of illegally streaming the classic Italian neo-realist drama Bicycle Thieves.

Corinth Films, which claims copyright for Vittorio De Sica’s famous 1948 tale of poverty-stricken postwar Rome, has filed a suit in a New York federal court. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the company accepts that Bicycle Thieves is in the public domain in the US but suggests the subtitled version of the film, which Netflix has previously included on its service, remains under copyright.

“At no time have defendants contacted the plaintiff in order to seek its license for the internet exhibition of the picture, either in whole or in excerpted portions,” the complaint reads. “Despite lacking any rights to exhibit the English subtitled version of the picture, defendants act as though they have exhibition rights.”

Bicycle Thieves, which is also known as The Bicycle Thief in the US, is considered by critics to be one of the greatest films of all time. In a 2008 review for the film’s re-release, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw described De Sica’s harrowing drama as a “brilliant, tactlessly real work of art”."