I know it seems like we have ample government shenanigans to watch on TV right now, but in case you missed the real barn-burner yesterday, it was announced that Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple has been named as the next Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel at the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Why? What were you paying attention to? You ...
Photo by stefanocarocci H.R. 1695, The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act, passed in the House of Representatives last week with a vote of 378-48. As the bill moves to the Senate, many of the usual suspects in anti-copyright circles have vowed to fight its full passage into law. By “fight,” I assume these groups will repeat a bit louder ...
Photo by maxkabakov Against the drama of day-to-day Washington—and I’m already exhausted—Rep. Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill that most people won’t notice except the copyright watchers. Unlike certain congressional action making the headlines this week, H.R. 1695 represents years of testimony, proposals, and discussion and can claim 29, bi-partisan cosponsors. The bill proposes to make the Register ...
On December 8th, the House Judiciary Committee announced its first policy proposal since beginning its review of the copyright law in the Summer of 2013. Among these early recommendations is that the Copyright Office should operate independent of the Library of Congress while remaining part of the Legislative Branch. Not surprisingly, copyright critics have already complained about this proposal, including ...
Just because the surgeon general serves at the pleasure of the president, that doesn’t mean we think the president is, therefore, the more qualified expert in medicine. We want a president to have views on domestic healthcare in general but not to have opinions about actual medical practice. That would be scary. Yet, solely on the grounds that the U.S. ...
