(Originally published at Copyright Alliance as part its “Secret History of Copyright” series of blogs.) “Students of the nineteenth-century drama come sooner or later to the realization that the most important dramatist of the period was Shakespeare.” – Marvin Felheim, The Theater of Augustin Daly (1956) – Most people are probably familiar with the word hack as a pejorative for ...
There is one consistent flaw inherent to most anti-copyright agendas. Because so many contemporary theories and attitudes tilting against copyright are largely predicated on the introduction of digital technologies, a false dichotomy persists between access and authorship. Since the days of NAPSTER, authors have endured a litany of techsplaining on the (not quite true) theme that the cost of access ...
I listened yesterday morning to oral arguments presented (via video conference) on Monday before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. ComicMix LLC. As a quick recap, in 2016, Dr. Seuss Enterprises (DSE) filed a copyright claim against publisher ComicMix over a mash-up book called Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!. The author/illustrator team who created ...
When I saw the theme of this year’s World IP Day, Innovate for a Green Future, I will admit that it was hard not to be cynical. In light of the reinvigorated political assault on science—let alone to be thinking about climate change in the middle of a pandemic—it is tempting to believe that the debate about global warming still rages—or ...
On April 14, Eric Garder, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, published a story under the headline: Court Rules Photographer Gave Up Exclusive Licensing Rights by Posting on Instagram. There is nothing technically wrong with that headline—and Gardner did not, I believe, misrepresent any facts in his article. But when I saw photographer Doug Menuez share this story on Facebook the other ...
