(This post was first published as part of Copyright Alliance’s Secret History of Copyright Series) “This copyright bill is the doing as we would be done by.” — Walt Whitman, 1891— Upon passage of the international copyright law just about a year before his death, Walt Whitman’s comment (quoted in Part I) included this refrain of the Golden Rule, about ...
At a recent gathering of college alumni, a friend asked, “Is it me, or are you less active on Facebook these days?” He was right. I have all but bailed on the platform. As a practical matter, it was just becoming a big time-suck; and as we all know from experience, engaging via social media doesn’t only occupy the measurable ...
As many readers know, the EU has been considering various proposals to better protect copyright owners in the European digital market. In all cases, proposed legislation focuses on large, for-profit platforms that reap substantial revenues by exploiting copyrighted works without license or compensation. And as usual, the large, for-profit platforms have sought to describe these proposals in hyperbolic terms—as threats ...
In June, I wrote about the deeply flawed ruling in Brammer v. Violent Hues after the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia handed down some rather inscrutable opinions about an otherwise straightforward copyright infringement case. A production company company called Violent Hues used a photograph belonging to Russell Brammer on a website for the purpose of promoting a ...
(This post was first published as part of Copyright Alliance’s Secret History of Copyright Series) “Publishers move without concert, harmony, or agreement. There is no law to regulate their rights, and they have none (which are respected) by courtesy. They print the same book, and the spirit of competition is such as to destroy all correctness, all taste, and all chance ...
