Washington — A Morning Consult poll shows Americans have found value in a range of tech services they are using even more frequently during the pandemic. The poll, commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, showed how important consumers found video chat, video streaming, food delivery services and the range of services gaining popularity. Overall, a majority of Americans (62%) said…

The oft-heated debate over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) Section 512 is nothing new, but this summer’s scorching heat might just bring the debate to a boiling point. The Copyright Office has finally released its long-awaited report on Section 512, the Senate is holding a series of hearings on the DMCA, and as EU members struggle to implement the Directive on…

EU Court Opinion States YouTube Not Liable For Copyright Infringement. The advocate general for the EU’s highest court issued an opinion on July 16 stating that online platform operators are not legally responsible for copyright infringement. “As EU law currently stands, online platform operators, such as YouTube and Uploaded, are not directly liable for the illegal uploading of protected works…

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many campuses closing temporarily. These closings have heavily affected access to research labs and materials. In order to ensure the continuation of vital research, libraries including Penn State University Libraries, George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida, and The Ohio State University Libraries are sharing a wide range of information and skills…

Engine Blog Re:Create’s Get to Know Our Members blog series helps others better understand the different ways Re:Create members work to support balanced copyright laws and why they are so motivated by copyright issues. For this post, we heard from Engine. 1: What is your organization’s mission? Engine is a policy, advocacy, and research organization supporting startups as an engine…

One of the main criticisms of the Copyright Office (“the Office”)’s report on Section 512 of Title 17 is that it focused upon the impact of Section 512 on rightsholders and online service providers (“OSPs”), and largely ignored Section 512’s impact on users. The Copyright Office redressed this oversight in a June 29, 2020 letter the Office wrote in response…

California Uses Copyright Excuse To Avoid Police Transparency. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is taking on the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) for using copyright as justification for skirting state transparency laws. According to a Newsweek report, EFF was denied access to POST’s open data portal on training materials for the use of automated license plate…

Re:Create’s Get to Know Our Members blog series helps others better understand the different ways Re:Create members work to support balanced copyright laws and why they are so motivated by copyright issues. For this post, we heard from Andy Hickner, Co-Chair of the Medical Library Association Governmental Relations Committee. 1: What is your organization’s mission? The Medical Library Association (MLA) is…

Re:Create Executive Director: Websites We Rely On Actually Rely On Balanced Copyright Law. In an op-ed published by Inside Sources, Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel highlights the increasingly prevalent role the internet plays in our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and how policy proposals from the entertainment industry would threaten the tools that are keeping us connected as a society….

The sudden changes to our society and economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged Americans’ capacity to innovate, demonstrating once again how indispensable the internet is to human ingenuity and productivity. We’re living indoors and online, and the fact that our transformed lives are still occupied, engaged, aspiring and fulfilling is a testament to the sweeping utility of the…