Re:Create Study Review Finds Opportunities For Creators Today Is “Unprecedented.” In an analysis of Re:Create’s new economic study released last week, Techdirt‘s Mike Masnick commended the “impressive” report for showing that “for actual creators, today is an astounding, unprecedented period of opportunity.” Masnick also highlighted the report’s findings that these creators are in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. His analysis concluded that “these tech platforms have enabled many millions of people to earn billions of dollars that’s only possible because they’re open platforms that get past the old gatekeeper system.”
Next Week! Mark Your Calendars For Fair Use Week. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) announced that its annual Fair Use Week will take place February 26 – March 2. The week celebrates the importance of fair use in America’s legal framework — promoting progress, enabling free speech and expression, and supporting balanced copyright. Interested in learning more? Check out ARL’s toolkit for how advocates and organizations can participate.
Dropping A Challenge Flag On New York Court Copyright Ruling. A February 15 court ruling on embedded tweets “could have a wide-ranging impact on social media and publishing,” wrote The Verge‘s Adi Robertson. The case was brought on by a photographer whose photo of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady led to a flurry of speculation amongst sports fans. Multiple news sites, including Breitbart, Vox Media, and Yahoo, embedded fan tweets with the copyrighted photo in their coverage of the story. A New York District Court judge rejected the news outlets’ defense, holding them liable for copyright infringement even if they weren’t hosting the image on their site. Robertson noted the ruling could “make a basic feature of web publishing riskier to use,” and noted that the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenged the ruling as “legally and technically misguided.”
Trending Hashtag Celebrates The “Black Nerd Community.” In celebration of Black History Month and coinciding with the popularity of Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther, #28DaysOfBlackCosplay seeks to highlight historical moments and figures as well as the everyday accomplishments of the the black community. A Syfy Wire column by Briana Lawrence explained the origin of the trending hashtag which first began in 2015: “The idea was to make black cosplayers more visible in the community, more importantly, she wanted them to be highlighted in a positive, more encouraging light.”
Kids Tweet The Darndest Things. While considering whether to submit a cartoon to the Scholastic Awards, an eighth grader discovered something “disturbing” about the terms and conditions. In a personal essay for Boing Boing, student Sasha Matthews detailed her discovery that all student contest applicants would transfer their copyrights and give Scholastic the ability to publish and sell students’ work without permission or share in the profits. After tweeting her own cartoon illustrating Scholastic’s “underhanded” efforts, Matthews wrote, “I hope that Scholastic will respond with a better explanation for why they claim ownership of students’ copyrights and why the term is hidden, but for now I’m content to warn others before they make a choice they’re not aware of.”