With all the talk about AI, one might think the problem of old-school media piracy has abated, but this week, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled Digital Copyright Piracy:  Protecting American Consumers, Workers, and Creators. Although much of the conversation was familiar territory (i.e., the economic value of the creative industries and the cost of piracy), the legislative ...

Remember the Trans Pacific Partnership?  The twelve-nation trade agreement that became an eleven-nation trade agreement when the U.S. pulled out?   As a general opinion, I will propose that when both a Bernie Sanders and a Donald Trump want to thrash a Fair Trade Agreement (FTA), it’s a pretty good indication that diametrically opposing ideologies have come to the same naïve conclusion.  Whether one’s anti-globalism is ...

For about an hour yesterday, I took a break from the drama unfolding in the Senate Judiciary Committee to tune into the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the CASE Act (H.R. 3945), which would create a Copyright Claims Board at the Copyright Office designed to adjudicate small copyright claims. It was almost hard to believe these two hearings were happening ...

On Wednesday this week, the Democratic Caucus will vote to choose the new ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee in order to fill the vacancy left by the departure of Rep. Conyers.  For those who don’t know, the House Judiciary Committee is where copyright law is made, specifically the IP subcommittee.  The senior Member, currently holding the ranking position ...

Photo by maxkabakov Against the drama of day-to-day Washington—and I’m already exhausted—Rep.  Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill that most people won’t notice except the copyright watchers. Unlike certain congressional action making the headlines this week, H.R. 1695 represents years of testimony, proposals, and discussion and can claim 29, bi-partisan cosponsors. The bill proposes to make the Register ...

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