*Guest post by Caile Morris, ARL Law & Policy Fellow* On March 15, 2016, the California Assembly amended a Bill, AB-2880, dealing with state intellectual property. Introduced by Assemblyman Mark Stone in late February, the main goal of AB-2880 is to grant local and state governments the authority to create, hold, and exert intellectual property rights. The federal government is…

This post was originally published on the Stanford University Center for Internet and Society blog. Annemarie Bridy is a Professor of Law at the University of Idaho College of Law, an Affiliate Scholar at Stanford University Center for Internet and Society, and an Affiliate Fellow for the Yale Law School Information Society Project. Jonathan Taplin’s op-ed (Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t) in the…

Tech Groups And Public Urge Copyright Office To Preserve DMCA Safe Harbor Status Quo. After last week’s Copyright Office DMCA roundtables in California, a number of outlets noted that “discussion was heavily skewed in favor of copyright owners.” Jeff Lyon with Fight for the Future, a non-profit organization that encouraged nearly 10,000 comments from Internet users in favor of protecting…

When DisCo last covered the Oracle v. Google copyright infringement case, it was in the aftermath of the Federal Circuit’s ill-considered conclusion that software methods received copyright protection. I specifically criticized the Solicitor General’s decision to wave the Supreme Court off the case, advice that the Court followed.  Now the case has been sent back to the district court, which is…

  Public Knowledge balanced copyright advocates Raza Panjwani and John Bergmayer will appear at public roundtable discussions May 18-20 to discuss software-enabled consumer devices (May 18) and the DMCA’s Section 1201 anticircumvention provision (May 19-20) at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. The U.S. Copyright Office is hosting these public roundtables as it studies how various provisions of copyright…

Google Vs. Oracle Trial Focuses On Fair Use, Could Shape Future Of Software Innovation.  Fortune provides a Q&A guide to the ongoing Google/Oracle copyright trial, which could determine the future of fair use of unlicensed APIs (application program interfaces)–the “set of instructions that allow one type of software talk to another.” Oracle is suing Google for using Oracle-owned APIs without…

Copyright Office Section 512 Roundtables Conclude In NYC, Head To CA. This week, the Copyright Office hosted a series of public roundtables in New York as part of its study of the DMCA’s Section 512, the safe harbor provision which enables free speech and creativity on the Internet. Re:Create Coalition members Michael Petricone (Consumer Technology Association), Matthew Schruers (Computer &…

  Raza Panjwani, copyright law expert at PK and the podcast guest who has received the most fan mail, returns to PKitK to tell Meredith Whipple everything there is to know and more about the 12-year Google Books lawsuit, in light of the recent Supreme Court rejection.   Click here to download the podcast. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here. Subscribe to…

On April 29, 2016, the Australian Productivity Commission issued a nearly 600 page draft report on Intellectual Property Arrangements recommending a number of positive changes to provide better balance to the intellectual property system, including recommendations on fair use, shorter copyright terms, and specifying that copyright licensing does not override limitations and exceptions for libraries and archives. In the overview, while…

At the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive panel “Copyright & Creators 2026” on Friday, March 11, policy experts–including a fanworks leader, social justice advocate, futurist and veteran reporter–debated the trajectory of copyright law over the next decade. Organized by the Re:Create Coalition, the panelists took on copyright law’s impact on consumers, fans, digital entrepreneurs, and underprivileged communities today and discussed…