[NOTE:  Since publishing this post, GoldieBlox removed access to its original video and has replaced it with a generic version absent any reference to the Beastie Boys song.] I’d seen this video make the rounds on Facebook but didn’t know that it was at the heart of a new controversy regarding copyrights and fair use.  A promo for the innovative ...

As usual, Terry Hart at Copyhype comes bearing wisdom and footnotes in his follow-up post on the IIPA Report indicating that copyright industries contribute substantially to GDP.  From his post: The reaction from copyright skeptics about the report’s conclusions that copyright contributes significantly to the US economy was, essentially: “Does not.” The spin seems to be that, yes, industries that create ...

A new report released today by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) offers the following big headlines for FY2012:  the copyright industries, for the first time, contributed over $1 trillion to the U.S. economy, accounting for nearly 6.5% of GDP; these industries represent nearly 5% of all private-sector jobs (5.4 million) in the U.S.; these industries grew at an aggregate ...

Last week, the National Music Publishers Association put the top 50 unlicensed lyrics websites on notice.  President of the NMPA David Isrealite had a simple message to these top infringers:  “Get licensed, get offline, or get sued.”  And with two recent judgments in its favor, Isrealite has little doubt his organization would prevail in its pursuit of these cases.  Identifying ...

First of all, name if you can the serious competitors of any of the following: Facebook, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, Google. Go back ten years, name the biggest sites on the web, and you might notice that some of those names are either gone or really quite small compared to the dominant sites today. It isn’t even necessarily sinister, but it is a fact that the ...

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