Photo by kentoh By now, you may have encountered a handful of headlines stating that the new, Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has temporarily halted new privacy rules passed under Obama’s Chairman Tom Wheeler.  As a general takeaway, you’re also likely to see statements like “Republicans favor corporations over consumer privacy,” and as with all things under the Trump imprimatur, trust ...

photo by DevonYu Well, here we go.  I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop, and it looks like Josh Tabish, campaigns director for Vancouver-based OpenMedia, has decided to be among the first to throw a loafer. In an editorial for Wired, he warns that “the copyright barons” are coming now that Trump is in the White House. It has a been ...

Amicus briefs were filed recently in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of BMG Rights Management v Cox Communications. In November of 2014, BMG sued Cox (an ISP) for contributory copyright infringement, and a US District Court found for the plaintiff in December of 2015, awarding $25 million in damages. The suit was based on evidence that ...

  Photo by Pond5. Christopher Zara, writing for Backchannel, offers an excellent discussion about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.  He provides historical context and a balanced presentation of the challenges that have arisen from the differences between the law’s intent and its application. “Given how often Section 230 is championed, cited, and showered with superlatives, you ...

Online service providers (OSPs) are generally shielded by two major statutes from liabilities that may stem from the content uploaded by users of their platforms.  Section 512 of the DMCA (1998) provides the conditions under which an OSP may avoid liability for copyright infringement, and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (1996) covers just about every other kind of ...

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