Re:Create Executive Director: Keep America Winning Online By Promoting A Balanced Copyright System. Executive Director Joshua Lamel penned a December 14 op-ed in Morning Consult calling for balanced copyright provisions, such as safe harbors and fair use, to be included in a renegotiated NAFTA if copyright is included in the agreement. Lamel wrote: “Fair use benefits 18 million American workers, contributes $2.8 trillion to the economy and accounts for $368 billion in exports. It is an indispensable part of our economy and would render our current copyright system useless if it did not exist.”
Analyzing The Latest In Fair Use Case. CCIA’s Matt Schruers recapped the latest round of oral arguments in a Project DisCo blog post on Oracle’s attempt to roll back last year’s legal victory for fair use in Google v. Oracle. Referencing the May 2016 ruling, Google “argued that the jury’s interpretation of the fair use defense was reasonable.” Schruers noted, “Because copyright fair use is decided by an open-ended, multi-factor four-prong test…Oracle is in the unenviable position of arguing that no reasonable jury could have found for Google on any of the factors — a conclusion that the trial court already rejected.”
Copyright Office’s New Rule Puts Safe Harbors At Risk. In a recent blog post, Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Elliot Harmon wrote about a new Copyright Office rule that requires websites to register online by December 31 to keep its safe harbor protections. “Without safe harbors, small Internet businesses could face bankruptcy over the infringing activities of just a few of their users,” warned Harmon. “That’s just the beginning. If certain big media and entertainment companies get their way, it will become much more difficult for websites of any size to earn their safe harbor status.”
This 6-Year-Old Made $11 Million Reviewing New Toys On YouTube. 6-year-old Ryan, star of the YouTube channel “Ryan ToysReview”, made $11 million in just one year by reviewing new toys on YouTube, reported The Washington Post. “Ryan ToysReview” began in 2015 with a simple video of Ryan opening a Lego train set at age 3. Today, “Ryan ToysReview” has over 10 million subscribers. “If a product gets 10 million, 20 millions views, and you see that Ryan loves it, or other kids love it, it has a huge impact at retail,” said Jim Silver, CEO of the review site Toys, Tots, Pets, and More.
Copyright Predictions For 2018. Information Today’s Corilee Christou asked policy experts about their big copyright predictions for 2018, including the status of the CASE Act and nomination for Register of Copyrights. Law expert Jonathan Band commented that “much of the action in the copyright space will remain in the courts. Any legislation relating to Copyright (and the Copyright Office) is too contentious to be resolved by Congress.” Meanwhile, when asked about the status of the NAFTA renegotiations, Creative Commons policy lead Timothy Vollmer replied, “Civil society organisations continue to raise awareness of the problematic nature of the ‘policy laundering’ done through unaccountable and secretive ‘free trade’ (read: investor rights) agreements.”