It’s been 10 years since the disastrous SOPA/PIPA legislation was rejected by the American people and Congress. But what if it had passed?  We take a look back on how different our everyday lives and culture would be if SOPA PIPA had been enacted. Hollywood’s cultural gatekeepers tried to leverage their lobbying power a decade ago to decide the rules…

Our second installment features a discussion about “social media entertainment” (SME) with David R. Craig, a clinical professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Professor Craig helped coin the term to characterize “a new cultural industry that is most distinguished by how creators operate off of social media platforms.” He helps explain why these new SME creators…

From influencers making TikTok videos at the White House, to the surge in platforms that help online creators earn money, 2021 was yet another exceptional year for online creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Below is Re:Create’s annual list of online creativity highlights — all made possible by platforms that rely on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). → Bernie Sanders’ mittens…

A Link-And-Snippet Tax Is Not The Answer to Promote Local Journalism A diverse group of voices told the U.S. Copyright Office that creating a new ancillary copyright would amount to a “link-and-snippet tax” that is unconstitutional, harmful for small publishers and unlikely to address the problem its intended to solve: the decline in local journalism. First and foremost, links and…

Re:Create is launching a new “Copyright Corner” Q&A series to feature conversations with leading policymakers, academics and thought leaders to break down complex copyright issues and examine how copyright interacts with American jobs, creativity and innovation. Anyone reading this blog understands just how complex copyright law is. While a core reason for this series is to foster a better understanding…

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has interfered with a staggering array of speech and innovation, from security research to accessibility for those with disabilities to remix and even repair. By forbidding unauthorized access to a copyrighted work—even for purposes that don’t infringe copyright—the DMCA effectively erased over a century of law that limits copyright to protect free expression. Every three years,…