View image | gettyimages.com Among the premises commonly stated to argue that we must “rebalance copyright for the 21st century,” we find two widely spread and oft-repeated generalizations, both of which are false. The first generalization is about access, which proposes to speak for the consumer and implies—or explicitly declares—that copyright acts as a barrier to the diffusion of cultural ...
As I reported this February, the advertising industry announced a new initiative led by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) called the Brand Integrity Program Against Piracy. That post outlines the basic principles of the program, but suffice to say, this is a voluntary effort by the major brand advertisers to keep their high-value ads off exploitative sites, whose traffic is ...
There are several aspects to this week’s 9th Circuit Court ruling in the “Dancing Baby” case a.k.a. Lenz vs UMG. Some of the language used by the court will cause a stir among legal experts as to whether or not this decision lays a foundation for rewriting fair use doctrine. But we have a long way to go on that ...
I feel a little bit bad picking on Washington Post tech writer Caitlin Dewey as much as I have already, but it’s probably not as much as I would if I read her column with any purposeful frequency. Unfortunately, given the subjects I write about, people like to send me links to her articles. And I read them. And then ...
A few posts ago, I reported that the major lobbying muscle in the Internet industry backs a patent “reform” bill (HR 9) called the Innovation Act. I argued in that post that while this reform claims to eliminate nuisance “patent trolls” from clogging up the system with dubious claims, what it really does is eliminate competition from the market. Because, ...
