Professor Mark Lemley’s Words Of Wisdom For The DMCA: Let It Be. In the third episode of Copy This, host Kirby Ferguson talks with Mark Lemley, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Ferguson and Lemley help listeners navigate the complex – yet important – details of the DMCA, what safe harbors are, and the difference between “notice and takedown” and “notice and staydown” to understand why a careful balance must be struck to protect copyright owners and new creators. With some new calls to change Section 512 of the DMCA, Lemley notes the law has worked “amazingly well” and advises the best thing we can do is to “leave it be.”
ICYMI: Reactions To The Goodlatte-Conyers Copyright Proposal. The Re:Create Coalition and its members posted to Medium highlights of comments in response to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Ranking Member John Conyers’ Copyright Office policy proposal. The Coalition and its members stated their opposition to giving more autonomy to the Copyright Office, as well as their concerns with the establishment of a small claims court.
Re-Introduced YODA Bill Would Improve Copyright System. In Congress reintroduces YODA, a bipartisan bill that protects your right to treat devices as your property, Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow reports on the You Own Devices Act (YODA) that was re-introduced by Representatives Blake Farenthold (R-TX) and Jared Polis (D-CO) to modernize copyright law for the 21st century. “YODA simply states that your device belongs to you,” said Rep. Farenthold. “If you wish to sell that device, the software that enables it to work is transferred along with it, and that any right you have to security and bug fixing of that software is transferred as well.”
How Donald Trump’s SCOTUS Appointment Neil Gorsuch Could Affect Copyright And Fair Use. In Digital Rights Issues on the Horizon at the Supreme Court, Kate Tummarello with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) lists the pending court cases that could impact fair use and innovation. This includes Lenz v. Universal, otherwise known as the “dancing baby” case, which centers around a mother’s video that was removed from YouTube because it had part of a Prince song playing in the background. EFF has argued that “copyright holders should be held accountable if they force content to be taken down based on unreasonable charges of infringement.”