When Black Panther opened last month and proceeded to set records at the box office, it just so happened to be 200 years, almost to the day, after Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Tuckahoe, Maryland. The significance of this particular symmetry might be observed through any number of lenses, including those distorted by presentist emotions, which tend to ...
Is the internet broken yet? I suppose if you’re reading this, it isn’t. And if you’re not reading this, you’re looking at something else. On the internet. Yesterday, the House passed the hotly-contested FOSTA, which is now the acronym for the anti-sex-trafficking legislation that combines the earlier bill SESTA with various amendments. Eric Goldman has called the progeny a Frankenstein, ...
In Monday’s post (and quite a few others) I stated that certain parties have worked very hard to distort the character of the fair use doctrine until it no longer has any boundaries or meaning, and simply nullifies copyright’s protections. For the last two years, every time I’ve made that accusation, the case foremost in mind has been TVEyes v. ...
Today marks the start of the fifth annual Fair Use Week when library institutions, academics, and several anti-copyright organizations disseminate public-facing messages—from useful to whimsical—on the virtues of the fair use doctrine in copyright law. There is, of course, nothing wrong with highlighting the utility of fair use per se, but the mere fact that these parties devote so much ...
“…it was the age of wisdom…” Goldman v. Breitbart et al An opinion handed down last week by a New York district court marks a substantial victory for rights holders, especially photographers and other visual artists. In November, I wrote about this case and opined that a too-broad application of what’s known as the “server test” effectively strips a class ...
