Copyright Exemptions Illustrate Need For Reform. As part of its triennial review, the Library of Congress announced on Tuesday a number of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s 1201 anti-circumvention rules. Exemptions included the authorization of vehicle software research, jailbreaking cell phones, and editing old video games. While many welcomed the decisions, some advocates cautioned that there is…

  Public Knowledge will host a press briefing Wednesday, October 28 at 2 p.m. EDT to discuss the Digital Millennium Copyright Act triennial exemption process for digital locks. The DMCA’s rules against bypassing digital locks harm consumers and interfere with everyday uses of technology, holding people liable for copyright violations just for accessing their own data on their own devices….

Major Victory For Fair Use In Book Digitization Case. A major ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was handed down on October 16 establishing Google’s program to digitize millions of books is legal under fair use. In a press release the Re:Create Coalition applauded the ruling and said, “This decision scores a major victory…

In June 2015, the Copyright Office released its report on Orphan Works and Mass Digitization.  When the report was released, ARL noted flaws with the report for both the orphan works legislation recommendation and the mass digitization/extended collective licensing pilot program proposal pointing out that libraries rely heavily on fair use.  The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) also submitted a response to…

Project DisCo readers know that a number of our contributors have regularly posted on the subjects of copyright and fair use. Indeed, the topic is not only important, but one for which change is frequent and sometimes lurching. Nothing exemplifies that better than the shifting sands of copyright enforcement by major U.S. and international sports organizations, like the National Football…

Singer/songwriter John Fogerty’s new memoir Fortunate Son reminds us that the fiercest battles in the copyright area often are not between rights holders and users or technology platforms, but between artists and their distributors. As a recent review of the memoir in the Washington Post explains, the brief success of Fogerty’s band Creedence Clearwater Revival “teed up a lifetime of…

It appears the National Football League is cracking down on the unauthorized proliferation of GIFs and Vines of league-owned content. Sometimes these snippets are of funny incidents or for serious study of various facets of the game. Two of the biggest violators, Deadspin and SBNation, recently were suspended by Twitter for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act after receiving takedown notices…

On October 16, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously affirmed the lower court’s fair use in Authors Guild v. Google, also known as the “Google Books” case. Google, through its Library Project, made digital copies of tens of millions of books submitted to it by libraries. It then included these copies in a search index…

  Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously found that the Google Books project, under which Google digitized, indexed, and permits users to search and view snippets of millions of printed books, constitutes a fair use. The following can be attributed to Raza Panjwani, Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge: “The circuit court’s decision is a…

NFL Shuts Down Deadspin And SB Nation Over GIFS. The NFL sent 18 takedown notices to Twitter this weekend regarding Deadspin’s alleged copyright violations while tweeting GIFS of NFL games. Meanwhile SB Nation’s Twitter account was similarly suspended for tweeting out GIFS of college football highlights. The NFL claimed exclusive rights to “intellectual property of the NFL and its Member…