A new business called OmniQ has filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to grant cert in ReDegi v. Capitol Records, alleging that the Second Circuit’s opinion in December 2018 effectively brings an end to the First Sale doctrine.  The company is developing a patent pending model that (presumably) would facilitate an online market for “used” and hard-to-find motion pictures.  Its brief ...

Many years ago while still in college, I was on the train to New York City—a beautiful ride along the eastern banks of the Hudson River.  Several rows from me sat a family of American tourists who caught my attention when I heard the dad say, “Look kids, there’s Alcatraz.”   Reasonably confident that Alcatraz sits on an island in San Francisco ...

From the Techdirt Sycophants Department In his post of May 28, Mike Masnick dutifully opened his hymnal and joined the chorus in a rendition of “How to Criticize the CASE Act,” lending his bel canto to the refrain that the new law would create a “copyright trolling court.”  As explained here and here, this is an inscrutable criticism because the ...

There should be little doubt that the video clip doctored to make Speaker Pelosi look drunk should be seen as a sign of new hazards to come in the digitally-enhanced war on reality.  The video is not even very sophisticated compared to what is actually possible right now with technology like “deepfakes,” and we can expect to see far more ...

Last week, bills to create a new, small-claim copyright process were introduced in both the House and Senate.  Generally referred to by the House name the CASE Act, the proposed changes to Title 17 will establish a Copyright Claims Board (CCB) at the U.S. Copyright Office with the purpose of offering rights holders a path to remedy infringements without the ...

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