With the passing of John Perry Barlow last week, a number of articles and social media comments by internet activists offered variations on the theme that we have Barlow to thank for the internet as we know it. In general, they mean the internet that has thus far been allowed to function as a self-governing industry. While it is certainly ...
Good news for authors, creators, and sanity was delivered yesterday by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite remanding the case back to the district court for retrial on a specific matter of jury instruction, the opinion eviscerates two of COX’s most strained interpretations of copyright law, either of which could have had devastating effects for rights holders. BMG Rights ...
(republished by permission) The biggest story of 2017? To my mind, there is no contest — the broad emergence of an awareness that the irresponsibility masquerading as Internet freedom represented a threat to global societies and to cherished aspects of our humanity, and that a course correction was badly needed. While recognition of the fact that rewarding lack of accountability would likely ...
Just in time for Christmas, it seems Google is up to its Grinchy tricks in the House of Representatives, allegedly the big gun behind an effort to undermine the anti-child-sex-trafficking bill FOSTA, which is the House version of the Senate’s SESTA. Because these bills propose to amend the liability shield in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (1996), the ...
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 ...
