If for no reason other than the fact that I’m out of monkey jokes, I’m pleased to announce that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has finally put an end to PETA’s ridiculous litigation in which the organization alleged that the Sulawesi crested macaque in the photograph known as the “monkey selfie” is rightfully the owner of the copyright in ...
In what may be the most aptly named copyright case in recent history, “Blurred Lines” (properly Williams v. Gaye) is generally viewed as a mistake that many composers and songwriters fear will have a chilling effect on the craft of music-making. The headline complaint is that the outcome thus far asserts copyright protection for musical style, and, if true, this ...
During Tuesday’s Joint Senate Committee hearing, as Mark Zuckerberg kept promising to take better control over content on Facebook, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked the CEO point blank if the site is a neutral platform or a publisher. Cruz acknowledged the company’s right to act as a publisher but also alluded to the fact that its liability protection under Section ...
So, here’s my non-technological, non-regulatory, short-term solution for what we’ll generally call the Russian hack problem: Share less. A lot less. If 100 million or so citizens shared just a little less noise, this would substantially mitigate the intended effects of Russian meddlers and other manipulators who stand to gain from Americans hating each other and, by extension, hating democratic ...
Attorney and journalist Charles J. Glasser published an editorial in The Daily Caller titled: Mind Manipulation? No, Censorship By Copyright is The REAL Threat to Elections. The irony of that misleading headline, which does not truly reflect the substance of Glasser’s article, is that it reinforces a general bias about copyright (i.e. that it is censorship) for the simple reason ...
