Copyright Law

The Google Books Amended Settlement Agreement and International Works

Posted on November 14, 2009
The long-awaited Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) was filed yesterday. The relevant documents (including the new version of the settlement and a summery of the main changes) are available here. As someone who was looking into the international law aspects of the settlement recently, one of the first places for me to look was the new definition to a ?Book?, which now reads as follows: 1...

German Music Sampling Decision Translated

Posted on November 13, 2009
It was brought to my attention that the German high court decision on copyright and music sampling I had previously blogged on here received a fresh English translation that is now available online. (Thanks Tom Braegelmann!) It provides a highly detailed and careful exposition of the legal situation in Germany concerning music sampling and copyright law...

Paris in the Ninth Circuit

Posted on September 25, 2009
I simply could not resist sharing this one, for those who don?t check IPKat regularly. Apparently, transformativeness is not only a big deal in copyright fair use law, but also in tort claims for misappropriation of celebrities? name and likeness (aka the right of publicity)...

A New Study on Privacy Online in Israel

Posted on August 20, 2009
Calls to better safeguard users' privacy online and improve protection of personal data on the Internet are commonplace. The concerns about privacy issues are sometimes coupled with demanding higher legal standards of protection pertaining to access and use of personal data obtained over the Internet by third parties, may they be the government and its agencies or private entities that collect and use personal data for commercial purposes...

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A New Book: Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars

Posted on August 20, 2009
Copyright treatise? author and, for the past few years, Google?s copyright counsel William Patry has recently published a new book with Oxford University Press bearing the title ?Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars?. I was among those who deeply regretted (though fully understood) Mr...

Supreme Court Denies Cablevision Review

Posted on June 29, 2009
Today the Supreme Court reportedly resolved not to hear the appeal on the Second Circuit?s Cablevision decision. This denial comes shortly after the Court has received the U.S. Government's brief recommending to reject the petition. Is this good news or bad news? It depends on whom you ask...

A New Study on DRMs and their Impact on Privileged Use

Posted on May 16, 2009
Patrícia Akester from the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge has just published a new study on DRM. Here?s the abstract: Copyright incentives and rewards to producers of works have been able to exist alongside other values, such as freedom of expression...

Pam Samuelson on Google Books

Posted on April 18, 2009
Pam Samuelson offers some interesting reflections on the Google book search agreement. Her warnings are worth listening to. Prof. Samuelson is quite critical about the agreement and the new creature it contemplates- the Book Rights Registry (BRR). The BRR is a to-be-formed entity which, among other things, will represent the interests of rightholders under the agreement and administrate the distribution of revenues among registered authors and publishers...

Copyright reservations, anyone?

Posted on April 02, 2009
Link to the Greenpeace website here with the actual poster (PDF) featuring the slogan "Not Only Banks, Save Also the Environment!"

The Supreme Court Takes Up Copyright Case ? Reed Elsevier v. Pogrebin

Posted on March 22, 2009
On March 2 the Supreme Court granted certiorari on a copyright case covering the question whether section 411(a) of the Copyright Act restricted the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts over copyright infringement actions. <!--break--> The cert petition filed last summer by Reed Elsevier et al...

?Everything. I record everything.?

Posted on March 06, 2009

A "Key" Keywording Decision

Posted on January 23, 2009
[I posted this one yesterday but somehow it didn't work, so here's another try.] Keywording (aka keying) is the practice of registering with search engine words, terms, acronyms etc. that are protected by trademarks owned by someone else. The registration triggers the advertisement of the registrant and places it on the results page when users enter the keyword into the search box and run their search...

A "Key" Keywording Decision

Posted on January 22, 2009
Keywording (aka keying) is the practice of registering with search engine words, terms, acronyms and the like that are protected by trademarks owned by someone else. The registration triggers the advertisement of the registrant and places it on the results page when users enter the keyword into the search box and run their search...

ICANN's Plan for New Top Level Domains

Posted on December 17, 2008
pICANN?s recent initiative to open the generic domain names space to an application, register-your-favorite-gTLD process struck me as very problematic from the moment I had first heard about it. Ars technica has a href=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081216-icann-plan-for-new-tlds-comes-under-barrage-of-criticism...

James Gleick on the Google Book Search Deal

Posted on December 02, 2008
In case you have not seen it yet, here?s James Gleick?s OP-ED in the NYT, discussing the settlement between Google and book authors and publishers. The interesting point he makes is that the new business model should increase the quality of published books...

Music Sampling Does Not Infringe on Copyright, But?

Posted on November 23, 2008
The German Supreme Court (BGH) clarified last week that sampling does not infringe on copyright in the work from which samples were taken for the purpose of creating a new work. There is a catch hiding in the details, though. read more

The Next Copyright Case to Hit the Supreme Court?

Posted on November 18, 2008
A while ago I commented here on the Second Circuit?s decision in The Cartoon Network/Cable News Network v. CSC Holdings/Cablevision. It seemed to me like a decision that would leave a mark, one with implications reaching far beyond the particular dispute between the particular parties...

German Court Orders to Block wikipedia.de Due to Offending Article

Posted on November 16, 2008
Here?s another bizarre Internet case that makes you wonder?. Typing now into your favorite Internet browser the address www.wikipedia.de (the German Wikipedia) will not lead you to the familiar Wikipedia homepage. Instead, you will find yourself starring at the following notice (original is in German, below is my loose translation): read more

Proposal to Extend Copyright Duration for Performances und Sound Recordings in Europe Criticized

Posted on October 25, 2008
As known to many, the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (CTEA) added 20 years to the duration of copyrights. Writing for the majority in Eldred v. Ashcroft, Justice Ginsburg mentioned the European rule of life-plus-seventy at least five times. It appeared to be a central argument in support of the CTEA and the SC was impressed...

German Court Finds Google?s Image Search Infringing

Posted on October 14, 2008
The German blogsphere is buzzing about the new opinion handed down by a court in Hamburg, finding Google?s image search infringing. The court agreed with the copyright holder of comics images, and held that the unauthorized display of the images as thumbnails on the search result pages violated his rights...

Lessig's Essay on a More Sensible Copyright Law

Posted on October 12, 2008
Prof. Lessig?s essay in yesterday?s Wall Street Journal is available here. One thing that caught my eye was an anonymous reader?s comment, containing the following text: read more

The Cartoon Network v. Cable News Network

Posted on August 23, 2008
The Second Circuit decided The Cartoon Network v. Cable News Network already two and a half weeks ago. This means light years in terms of blogging, but due to its importance I've decided to take the liberty and offer a late (and somewhat elaborate) entry discussing this ruling and some of its implications...

Jacobsen v. Katzer/Kamind ? Federal Circuit Upholds a Free Software License

Posted on August 14, 2008
As reported by Lessig and others, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded yesterday a ruling by the Northern District of California which denied the copyright claims of an open source software developer for violations of the Artistic License. This is a landmark decision which is likely to influence all types of free licensing, including Creative Commons licenses and the question of enforceability of copyright claims upon violation of free licenses in general...

Draft Introduction

Posted on August 03, 2008
A brief Draft Introduction to my study on copyright law is now available for download here.

Copy knol

Posted on July 29, 2008
There is a guy by the name of Meir Shraga. I did not know him until today, but now I can even see his picture smiling at me from the knol he has published for the entry ?Israel?. Mr. Shraga shamelessly copy-pasted the English Wikipedia entry on Israel...

Access-Right: An Inquiry Into the Problem of Digital Copyright Law

Posted on July 28, 2008
I have just completed the draft of my extended study on copyright law where I examine issues of access, access to information and digital copyright law. At bottom, I do not propose to abolish copyright law, nor do think that adjusting the current system could successfully survive the transition to digital markets and digital cultures...

Lessing on the orphan works bill

Posted on May 20, 2008
Prof. Lessig has an OP-ED in the NYT today about the orphan works bill rolling now in Congress. Among the important points mentioned there, here are my three favorites: (1) to the extent that foreign authors are substantially deprived of copyright protection as a result of the new rule, the amendment will probably violate U...

"Who needs copyright, anyway?"

Posted on May 17, 2008
John Degen, a Canadian novelist, has a thoughtful post on how he has resolved to make his latest novel, The Uninvited Guest, freely available for download online. It his a short yet touching divulgation of a writer?s musing about copyright protection in the digital age, and about thinking out of the box...

Create a personal website in 2 minutes

Posted on April 28, 2008
Israel is a buzzing hive of small start-up technology companies that produce great ideas and original solutions. One of them is WIX, which offers a (free - as far as I could judge) web-based tool for creating personal and business websites within minutes...

Paper Abstract: Ontology of Information

Posted on April 11, 2008
I?ve just put the abstract of a new paper on my SSRN page. Temporary title is: Ontology of Information and its Lessons for Intellectual Property. The full abstract is available here (I am not yet able to make the full text available online). Here are a few lines from the abstract: read more

Old-Style Canadian Formalities and Copyright Reform

Posted on February 13, 2008
Next month Stanford CIS is hosting a conference about Legal Futures. Judging by the list of participants, the upcoming even should be nothing less than electrifying. This post is unrelated to the conference. In fact, it is not about legal ?futures? at all...

Israel?s Fair Use

Posted on January 30, 2008
Some time ago I did a post on the new copyright legislation in Israel. There are many interesting things about this law, and now, at the curtsey of Prof. Niva Elkin-Koren from Haifa University, there is an unofficial English translation of the new statute available...

When Judges Violate Copyright Free License Terms

Posted on January 04, 2008
I came across this anecdote earlier this week, reading in the Israeli press about a judge who quoted in a court opinion an article from the Hebrew Wikipedia, but who failed to mentioned her source. The judge apparently copy-pasted whole sentences from a Hebrew Wikipedia article about umbilical cord blood...

Mulligan and Perzanowski on the Sony BMG Rootkit Fiasco

Posted on December 18, 2007
I have never seen an SSRN paper receiving 1700 recorded downloads in mere three days or so. This is exactly what happened to ?The Magnificence of the Disaster: Reconstructing the Sony BMG Rootkit Incident? by Deirdre Mulligan and Aaron Perzanowski, forthcoming in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal...

Fair Use Project to Represent RDR Books in Harry Potter Lexicon Dispute

Posted on December 07, 2007
Here's a link to the press release. It is not my jurisdiction to cover this development - I trust you?ll hear more details and updates from Anthony and his team soon. I'd only say it looks like one of the most exiting and challenging fair use cases I?ve seen recently and a must-follow one...

CC and GFDL interoperability

Posted on December 02, 2007
Something significant has happened in the world of free licensing, Lessig has the details and a video. Apparently, an important step has been made towards interoperability between the license controlling Wikipedia articles (the GFDL v.1.2), and the CC license by-share-alike...

Sarkozy?s digital agenda

Posted on November 24, 2007
Zdnet reports on a new initiative in France to tighten copyright protection over the Internet and prevent illegal downloading. The French president himself gave announcements that makes one think he?s on payroll of the music and film industry ("we run the risk of witnessing a genuine destruction of culture...

New Copyright Statute for Israel

Posted on November 21, 2007
Some time ago I posted an update about the planned copyright reform in Israel. The Israeli copyright law now passed legislation and the text of the new statute is available for download here. You don?t get the chance to write your copyright law from scratch very often, maybe once or twice in a century...

Electra Entertainment v. McDowell: Is a thirteen year old still innocent (infringer)?

Posted on November 14, 2007
A federal district court in Georgia ordered a jury trial last week on the question whether a thirteen year old defendant was an innocent infringer or not. In Electra Entertainment Group Inc. V. Sarah McDowell (2007 WL 3286622 (M.D.Ga.), a teenager defendant admitted to have used P2P networks for exchanging sound recordings, but objected the demand of plaintiffs (the record companies) to pay maximum statutory damages of $750 per infringement, in this case 48 times, which makes the fine figure of $36k...

German Copyright Law Amended

Posted on October 31, 2007
Today was the official publication of a new amendment to the German Copyright Act. The amendment will enter into force in January 1st, 2008. After four long years of discussions, debates and negotiations, the final text is now available. A few highlights: read more

Elkin-Koren on Anticircumvention Law and Consumers-as-Participants

Posted on October 26, 2007
Prof. Niva Elkin-Koren has uploaded a paper titled Making Room for Consumer Under the DMCA, to be published soon in the BTLJ. The paper provides a terrific analysis and introduces an original perspective, proposing to perceive users of copyrighted works as participating consumers in information markets...