When most people discuss or debate copyright’s value in the contemporary market, they talk about the utility of the law—typically arguing the efficacy or rationale of specific contours like term length or enforcement—while generally overlooking the philosophical principles that led to the IP clause being written into the U.S. Constitution in the first place.  This is of course not uncommon ...

By now, you know that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a really big-ass global trade agreement among twelve nations including the United States—is at this point pending delivery to Congress for debate and presumptive ratification.  And this means we can expect to see various organizations and corporate interests dial up the rhetoric regarding key provisions in the deal. Although the TPP is a voluminous package ...

View image | gettyimages.com I imagine most people, whether they’re users of pirate sites or not, haven’t paid much attention to the growing number of safety warnings associating content theft with identity theft and related crimes against consumers.  For one thing, the whole idea of media piracy itself has, for too long, enjoyed undeserved credibility as a so-called victimless crime ...

Anybody can write an editorial criticizing copyright on the Internet. It’s easy and fun! By following this basic guideline to creating an effective rebuttal to any proposal for protecting or enforcing copyrights online, you’ll discover that very little understanding of the issues is required. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll see that you can apply these techniques to ...

In a Thanksgiving announcement, veteran photojournalist Yunghi Kim created ten $1,000 grants to be awarded one time to ten photographers.  The $10,000 kitty fueling this generous gift came from awards to Kim paid by copyright infringers of her work, and she states her reasons for creating the grants thus: “I am doing this to emphasize the importance of copyright registration of ...

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