Online Copyright Infringement Declining With Help Of America’s Balanced Copyright Policies. Despite misleading claims by the entertainment industry, data shows that copyright infringement is on the decline worldwide thanks to America’s notice and takedown system and increased access to legitimate content. Furthermore, a recent analysis indicates that over 99% of the problem comes from countries other than the U.S. Check out Re:Create’s fact sheet for more on the effectiveness of America’s balanced copyright framework.
Content Filtering Hurts Startups. Engine’s Evan Engstrom published an op-ed for Inside Sources examining the EU member countries’ struggles with implementing content filtering that is “incapable of doing what European policymakers expect of it.” Content filtering will “drastically raise the cost of operating an online platform startup…leading to a chill in new startup growth.”
Bogus Copyright Claims Block Free Speech On Super Tuesday. On Super Tuesday, automated copyright infringement claims blocked the campaign speeches of three of the candidates. Techdirt captured how CBS, which was streaming the same pool report as all other outlets, sent automated notices to places also streaming footage of the speeches, including candidates streaming their own rallies and other news organizations. The campaign speech obstruction shows the reality of flawed copyright policies, like the EU’s copyright directive.
Law Presentation About Copyright Law Faulted For Copyright Violation. A presentation at an NYU School of Law IP conference was ironically the target of a copyright takedown notice. According to The Verge, the presentation about music copyright policy featured brief clips of famous songs to guide the discussion. It was later posted to the school’s YouTube channel which made it the target of several Content ID violation notices. After a failed fair use claim and NYU risking losing its entire YouTube channel, the situation was eventually resolved with some conversations with YouTube. The Verge uses the incident as a warning about policy proposals that would make sites adopt even harsher policies or risk legal liability.
Tech “Tower of Babel”: Understanding the Oracle Google Copyright Lawsuit. “Should a Yoga guru be able to copyright a functional sequence of Yoga poses…Should J.K. Rowling be able to prevent others from writing books that involve magical beings…?” Brigham Young University professor Clark Asay asked these questions in an op-ed breaking down the complicated software APIs at the heart of the Google v. Oracle copyright lawsuit. “Functionality masquerading as creativity is not the type of creativity copyright is meant to protect. Or at least it shouldn’t be, because if we force subsequent innovators such as Google to deviate from common standards in pursuit of arbitrary distinctions, then copyright has certainly lost its way in promoting creativity that matters,” he wrote.