“Shorter copyright will encourage artists to keep on creating new work, will allow  new art forms (such as mash-ups) and will stop big businesses from relying on large back-catalogues rather than investing in new content.”   — The Pirate Party UK — The above statement by the UK Pirate Party, which is not alone in advocating a ten-year copyright term, is ...

View image | gettyimages.com Among the premises commonly stated to argue that we must “rebalance copyright for the 21st century,” we find two widely spread and oft-repeated generalizations, both of which are false.  The first generalization is about access, which proposes to speak for the consumer and implies—or explicitly declares—that copyright acts as a barrier to the diffusion of cultural ...

As I reported this February, the advertising industry announced a new initiative led by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) called the Brand Integrity Program Against Piracy.  That post outlines the basic principles of the program, but suffice to say, this is a voluntary effort by the major brand advertisers to keep their high-value ads off exploitative sites, whose traffic is ...

Andrew Orlowski, writing for The Register, has done the best job so far of placing the “Dancing Baby” case (Lenz v UMG) in its proper context — as part of Silicon Valley’s broader strategy to strip individuals of their rights.  Not just professional creators of copyrighted works. All individuals. “If Big Tech can get the public to cheer as they ...

There are several aspects to this week’s 9th Circuit Court ruling in the “Dancing Baby” case a.k.a. Lenz vs UMG.  Some of the language used by the court will cause a stir among legal experts as to whether or not this decision lays a foundation for rewriting fair use doctrine. But we have a long way to go on that ...

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