Zack vs. the RIAA
The first in a series of three short videos from the Digital Natives project of U of St. Gallen and the Berkman Center that tells the story of Zack McCune, a Brown student (and Berkman intern) who “won...
View ArticlePutting some analog back into the digital copyright fight
Here’s how the DMCA has worked so far: A copyright holder (henceforth “publisher”) notices an instance (henceforth “video”) of what it thinks is a violation of its copyright on a site such as YouTube...
View ArticleDMCA exemption season
Once every three years, the copyright office considers proposed exemptions to the DMCA’s forbidding of attempts to circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM) protections. Yesterday at 5pm was the...
View ArticleHappy Birthday to You isn’t copyrighted???
In a comment to a distressing post about YouTube automatically taking down any video that contains any copyrighted material, even if it’s covered by Fair Use, a commenter posts a seemingly learned post...
View ArticleDoctors and the DMCA
TechDirt reports that some doctors are having patients sign contracts that say the patients won’t rate the doctor online. Worse, the contract assigns to the doctors the “intellectual property” rights...
View ArticleRIAA wins DMCA case: Now illegal to decompose
The RIAA has won a ruling that the DMCA‘s provision that forbids backward engineering software to see how it work applies also to musical recordings. The ruling forbids any attempt to figure out the...
View ArticleWendy Seltzer on the other problem with DRM
Wendy Seltzer has posted an article that will run in Berkeley technology Law Journal (Jan. 25 2010) . In it she argues that the problems with DRM go beyond its failure to accommodate Fair Use: The fair...
View ArticleThe economics of accusation: Penalty for false DMCA claims is low
Here’s how DMCA take-down notices work: Let’s say you post a video of a silent, purple, evening rainfall to YouTube under the title “Purple Rain.” Big Mean Co. owns the rights to Prince’s song of that...
View ArticleUnknowing v. Lessig
Not since the NFL sent a takedown notification to Wendy Seltzer because she posted the NFL’s copyright notice has a takedown notice been so unknowing. Wendy is a law professor and the head of the...
View ArticleAnti-circumvention, 18th century style
The 1998 Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA), among other restrictions, makes it a criminal act to try to figure out how a software program works if it uses copyright protections (typically some...
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