On July 23, the District Court for the District of Columbia denied publisher Valancourt’s claims that the requirement to provide deposit copies of U.S. published works to the Library of Congress constitutes an unlawful taking under the Fifth Amendment and/or an infringement of speech under the First Amendment. Although many legal experts are likely to agree with the outcome, some ...
Recently, the New York and Maryland state legislatures passed nearly identical eBook licensing bills (and Rhode Island had a sister bill in the works) responding to complaints of inequity by various library associations. Couched in the rhetoric of seeking “reasonable terms” on behalf of readers, and claiming to be neither anti-publisher nor anti-author, what the libraries have in fact advocated ...
As a member of the Authors Guild, I occasionally peek at the discussion board, and any topics pertaining to copyright naturally get my attention. It appears that a common question among authors of both fiction and nonfiction is whether they may quote song lyrics in their books. Further, it seems that a typical experience for many writers is that they ...
In late January, I published a post advocating that we go ahead and cancel some culture. That piece was addressing the subject of platform responsibility, asserting that Facebook et al should feel free to stop amplifying disinformation, hate-mongering, and (unfortunately) sedition and that it should do so without all the dithering about speech rights. There, I asserted that neither Facebook, ...
Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a fair use decision in Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) v. ComicMix. After oral arguments were presented in April, I wrote about this case as an example from which creators could learn what not to do when they propose to make substantial use of protected works—especially very famous works. The lawsuit involves ...
