“We are all authors now.” This has long been a talking point of anti-copyright organizations. I have credited it to Gigi Sohn, co-founder and former director of Public Knowledge because she kept tweeting it during House Judiciary Committee hearings on building copyright consensus in May 2013; but I don’t really know who said it first. I only know that it’s ...
After the CASE Act passed the Senate Judiciary Committee* on Thursday last week, the critics hit “Publish” on the blogs they had written with the intent to scare users—doubling down on the narrative that the Copyright Claims Board (CCB) for small claims will lead to a whirlwind of infringement judgments against ordinary and innocent users. I and others have explained ...
Now that the bill creating a small claim provision for independent authors of works is making progress in Congress, EFF has pivoted to its standard late-stage strategy whenever they try to kill legislation: the dissemination of scare-mongering bullshit. I do not mean that I disagree with them. There are not two sides to the story they are telling or considerations ...
Holy whiplash segues, Batman. There I was reading a perfectly interesting article by Sarah Jeong on the potential hazards of selling one’s personal data, when she took an incomprehensible—if mercifully brief—detour into the realm of copyright law. She presents a reasonable enough case that the companies now offering to help us “broker” our private data (e.g. health information) may be ...
A new business called OmniQ has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to grant cert in ReDegi v. Capitol Records, alleging that the Second Circuit’s opinion in December 2018 effectively brings an end to the First Sale doctrine. The company is developing a patent pending model that (presumably) would facilitate an online market for “used” and hard-to-find motion pictures. Its brief ...
