And I’ve never owned a David Bowie tee-shirt.  Or any Bowie merchandise other than his albums. But like tens of millions around the world, who are today mourning the loss of one of music’s best loved, most diverse, and most influential artists, I sure as hell have long been a fan. Oddly enough, I had in mind to buy Bowie’s ...

As a follow-up to my post from last week discussing the Copyright Office review of Section 512 of the DMCA, I’m going to shift from my usual format of the editorial essay to outright endorsement of grassroots efforts aimed at letting Congress know that artists and creators want to see change to obsolete aspects of US law that unfairly disadvantage ...

Readers may be astonished, relieved, or understandably apathetic, to learn that a federal judge in California has ruled that a Sulawesi macaque may not sue for copyright infringement.  In fact, Judge William Orrick broadened his ruling to affirm that no animal may own a copyright. The judge swears he looked and looked but could find no evidence to indicate that ...

When most people discuss or debate copyright’s value in the contemporary market, they talk about the utility of the law—typically arguing the efficacy or rationale of specific contours like term length or enforcement—while generally overlooking the philosophical principles that led to the IP clause being written into the U.S. Constitution in the first place.  This is of course not uncommon ...

Embed from Getty Images In a wonderful book called The Battle for Christmas, author Stephen Nissenbaum relates the evolution of this holiday from its pagan roots to the modern Christmas as it came to be celebrated in the United States. He tells us that in agrarian England most labor would be done by December and that it was often a ...