One year ago, domain name registry Donuts, Inc. and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) entered into an agreement termed the Trusted Notifier Program in a joint effort to combat piracy. The voluntary initiative “introduced a new way to work towards mitigation of clear and pervasive cases of copyright infringement,” and according to Donuts’ one-year summary, has been a success for “rights owners, registrants and the public at large.” Read more
Tag: copyright
CPIP’s Sandra Aistars & Scalia Law Alumnae Urge Federal Circuit to Protect Creators and Rein In Fair Use in Oracle v. Google
On February 17, 2017, CPIP Senior Scholar Sandra Aistars filed an amicus brief in Oracle v. Google, a copyright case currently before the Federal Circuit. Prof. Aistars worked in conjunction with Scalia Law alumnae Antigone Peyton and Jennifer Aktins of Cloudigy Law and third-year law student Rebecca Cusey to file the brief on behalf of 13 intellectual property scholars, including CPIP’s Matthew Barblan, Devlin Hartline, Sean O’Connor, Eric Priest, and Mark Schultz. Read more
Shaping Fair Use to Promote Fair Markets
How does fair use policy in copyright law affect markets for the production and distribution of creative works? As we come to the end of Fair Use Week, it’s a good time to highlight a report by the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal and Economic Public Policy Studies, titled “Fair Use in the Digital Age,” that offers interesting insights into how we can optimize fair use to promote fair markets. Read more
Can Copyright Help Fight Censorship in China?
Free expression in China has long been a fraught concern for the entertainment industry. Last year, Chinese regulators forbade local companies from working on foreign films that could “harm national dignity and interest of China, cause social instability, or hurt the national feeling,” striking at the rapidly expanding Chinese post-production industry for Hollywood films. Read more
IP Scholars Explain Why We Shouldn’t Use SurveyMonkey to Select Our Next Register of Copyrights
In a letter submitted to House Judiciary Committee today, nine IP scholars (organized by CPIP’s Sandra Aistars) express their support for the Committee’s proposal to modernize the Copyright Office. The letter identifies three major challenges facing the Copyright Office, including “(1) insufficient funds, staff, and infrastructure to efficiently perform its core functions; (2) operational impediments stemming from its integration with the Library of Congress; and (3) potential risk of constitutional challenges to its decision-making authority should the Office take on increased regulatory or adjudicatory responsibility.” Read more
How IP Helps Individuals
This is the second in a series of posts summarizing CPIP’s 2016 Fall Conference, “Intellectual Property and Global Prosperity.” The Conference was held at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University on October 6-7, 2016. Videos of the conference panels and keynote address, as well as other materials, are available on the conference website. Read more
Intellectual Property Backgrounds of President Trump’s Potential Supreme Court Nominees
By Andrew Baluch[1] & Devlin Hartline
President Donald Trump will soon announce his nominee to fill the vacancy left at the Supreme Court by late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. On September 23, 2016, the Trump campaign revealed that there are twenty-one candidates under consideration for the nomination. Read more
Creative Upstarts and Startups: How IP Creates Opportunities and Opens Doors
This is the first in a series of posts summarizing CPIP’s 2016 Fall Conference, “Intellectual Property & Global Prosperity.“ The conference was held at Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University on October 6-7, 2016. Videos of the conference panels and keynote address, as well as other materials, are available on the conference website. Read more
Librarians’ Contradictory Letter Reveals an Alarming Ignorance of the Copyright System
On December 14th, a group of librarians sent a letter to Congress explaining why they believe the Copyright Office should remain under the control of the Library of Congress. Written by University of Virginia Library’s Brandon Butler, the letter is a self-contradicting and uninformed response to recent recommendations on reform of the Copyright Office offered by leading members of the House Judiciary Committee. Read more
Digital Single Market Must Protect the Rights of All Authors and Publishers
Cross-posted from the Mister Copyright blog.
In 2015, the European Commission unveiled a plan to “create a free and secure digital single market” that would expand and standardize the EU’s digital economy for the benefit of consumers. The strategy was named the Digital Single Market and one of its objectives is to modernize the EU copyright framework to fit the digital age. Read more