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Category Archives: Copyright

Academics want to preserve video games. Copyright laws make it complicated.

Washington Post – “For decades, champions of the video game industry have touted gaming’s cultural impact as the equal of literature, film and music. Traditionally, the classic works from those mediums have been preserved for study by future generations, and amid gaming’s global rise in relevance, a group of video game scholars and advocates is… Continue Reading

‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ just entered the public domain. Here’s what that means for fans.

Washington Post – “Luke McGarry began drawing a nude Pooh Bear as soon as he heard the news. The original, nearly 100-year-old “bear of very little brain” from the Hundred Acre Wood had rung in this new year by entering the public domain. Now quite humbly, McGarry’s creative appetite felt rumbly. The Los Angeles-based artist… Continue Reading

Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age: 2021 – Chapters 1 and 2

Menell, Peter S. and Lemley, Mark A. and Merges, Robert P. and Balganesh, Shyamkrishna, Intellectual Property in the New Technological Age: 2021 – Chapters 1 and 2 (July 11, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3884159 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3884159 “Rapid advances in digital and life sciences technology continue to spur the evolution of intellectual property law. As professors… Continue Reading

Show me a 10ft paywall, I’ll show you a 12ft ladder.

Thomas Miller – I build things on the internet http://12ft.io / http://billclintonswag.com FAQ What? Prepend 12ft.io/ to the URL of any paywalled page, and we’ll try our best to remove the paywall and get you access to the article. Why? I believe Google Adwords killed the web. Google Adwords incentivized sites to peddle SEO optimized… Continue Reading

Who Owns a Recipe? A Plagiarism Claim Has Cookbook Authors Asking.

The New York Times: “U.S. copyright law protects all kinds of creative material, but recipe creators are mostly powerless in an age and a business that are all about sharing…U.S. copyright law seeks to protect “original works of authorship” by barring unauthorized copying of all kinds of creative material: sheet music, poetry, architectural works, paintings… Continue Reading

After COVID boom, ebook aggregators face licensing questions from Congress

Verge: “A Democratic senator launched an investigation into how publishers license ebooks to libraries on Thursday, calling on nine major ebook aggregators to provide details on the licensing agreements they make with libraries. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), sent letters demanding that aggregators like Overdrive and EBSCO provide them with… Continue Reading

Facebook allows stolen content to flourish its researchers warned

WSJ [paywall – this link may be free]: “Facebook has allowed plagiarized and recycled content to flourish on its platform despite having policies against it, the tech giant’s researchers warned in internal memos. About 40% of the traffic to Facebook pages at one point in 2018 went to pages that stole or repurposed most of… Continue Reading

Public.org asks FTC to investigate business practices of Lexis and Westlaw

Via Mary Whisner: “Public.Resource.Org filed a submission to the FTC on Friday asking the FTC to investigate business practices of Lexis and West (i.e., Thomson Reuters and Westlaw).  The submission and supporting declarations are very interesting—both because we use the products all the time and because the assertions of copyright and other business practices are… Continue Reading

Under the Umbrella: Promoting Public Access to the Law

Jones, D. R., Under the Umbrella: Promoting Public Access to the Law (October 16, 2021). Journal of Intellectual Property Law, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2021, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3935380 “People need to know the law and have access to the law. Allowing copyright claims in “the law” can lead to severe restrictions on public… Continue Reading

The Library Technology Market’s Failure to Support Controlled Digital Lending

The Scholarly Kitchen – The Library Technology Market’s Failure to Support Controlled Digital Lending – This article is by Nathan Mealey, Michael Rodriguez, and Charlie Barlow. Nathan is Associate University Librarian for Discovery & Access at Wesleyan University. Michael is Collections Strategist at the University of Connecticut Library. Charlie is the Executive Director of the… Continue Reading