As discussed in an earlier post, Valancourt Books, a small, on-demand publisher, filed suit against the Copyright Office and the Department of Justice and argued that the Office’s demand for physical copies of published books is unconstitutional. Valancourt alleged that the authority granted by §407 of the Copyright Act to demand the copies (or be fined) is a violation of ...

On August 7, photographer Jeff Sedlik and tattoo artist Katherine Von Drachenberg (Kat Von D) filed motions for reconsideration of summary judgment, with both sides arguing that their allegations are favored by the Supreme Court’s decision in Goldsmith v. Warhol delivered on May 18, 2023, finding for plaintiff Lynn Goldsmith. The parties also filed oppositions on August 21. I’ll cut ...

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. (Proverbs 16:18 KJV) Citing 2,749 works in suit, six of the major music labels (UMG, et al.) have filed a multi-count complaint against Internet Archive (IA), Brewster Kahle personally, Kahle’s foundation, and an audio digitizing service operated by an individual named George Blood. Total potential damage award with legal ...

One of the more challenging aspects of copyright advocacy is the fact that many artists and creators are conflicted about enforcing their own rights, and from observation, the disconnect is ideological. For the last 30 years, copyright skepticism has been woven into political narratives rooted in criticism of corporations and the excesses of capitalism—popular themes among the political left, which ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that among the 2023 recipients of the EFF Award (formerly the Pioneer Award), it will honor Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Asanova Elbakyan this September. The Russian-based Sci-Hub is an enterprise-scale pirate site specifically built to host scientific papers about which the EFF states: Through Sci-Hub, Elbakyan has strived to shatter academic publishing’s monopoly-like mechanisms in ...