Did you hear the echo? This past weekend, as many people know (and even more people don’t), Saturday marked the two-year anniversary of the event known as SOPA Blackout Day. In case you don’t remember it or missed it altogether, it was January 18, 2012 when various websites, most notably Wikipedia, went dark or semi-dark for the day in order ...
There’s a difference between debate and marketing. Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation unveiled an online PR blitz called Copyright Week. The campaign’s launchpad is a webpage that asks visitors to consider and support “six principles,” one per day, over six days which happen to lead up to Silicon Valley’s very own independence day, January 18th, 2012, a.k.a. “SOPA Blackout Day.” ...
The subject of copyright terms kept popping up last week, so I’ll take the message and dive in. I should be clear that I don’t have a strong opinion as to exactly what terms would be optimal at this point. Or to be more accurate, I don’t have the legal experience to account for all the implications of moving the ...
As the debate will no doubt rage (or stomp its feet) on the subject of copyright review in the coming year, one subject that will assuredly be on the table will be the terms of copyright (i.e. how long ownership can last). There is a persistent assumption that these terms are somehow the exclusive privilege of large corporations. As Robert ...
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my Internet service cut out from time to time, and I’m strongly considering suing my ISP for periodically violating my right to free expression. Sound absurd? Good. Then, I draw your attention to Terry Hart’s recent update in the case known as Lenz v UMG. What happened was Mrs. Lenz, a grandmother, ...
