EFF: Tell Congress Copyright Claims Can’t Be Treated Like Traffic Tickets. In opposition to the CASE Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation is urging members of the public to contact their representatives to make their concerns heard. Citing the potential for abuse and how the bill will treat certain copyright claims like traffic tickets with damages awards of up to $15,000, EFF highlighted how the bill “would give a lot of authority to a new, quasi-judicial body in the Copyright Office, not the actual courts.”
SAVE The Date: ICA Creator Conference On May 29. The International Communications Association (ICA) is holding its “Creator Governance: Platform, Policies, Regulation & Rights” conference on Wednesday, May 29 at American University in Washington, DC. It will convene scholars, creators, activists, policy makers, and industry professionals to engage around concerns over and advocacy for more effective creator governance. Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel, Public Knowledge’s Meredith Rose, Center for Democracy & Technology’s Stan Adams, and New Creative Economy study author Robert Shapiro are among the list of panelists.
EU NGO Community Calls For Role In Implementation Of EU Copyright Directive. More than 40 human and digital rights organizations — including fundamental rights organizations, the knowledge community (in particular libraries), free and open source software developers, and communities — have written an open letter to the European Commission calling to be included in the implementation process of the EU Copyright Directive. The letter cites the “very explicit concerns about the fundamental and human rights questions” expressed by the signers throughout the legislative debate over Article 17. The letter further argues for constructive transposition and implementation to address these concerns and to help “ensure that the fears around automated upload filters are not realized.”
Houston Rockets & Other Teams’ Twitter Accounts Suspended Under DMCA. USA TODAY reported several sports teams’ Twitter accounts were suspended due to tweets that included copyrighted music. Twitter accounts for the Houston Rockets and football teams at Auburn, Rutgers, Iowa and Iowa State were all temporarily suspended. Under notice-and-takedown, Twitter is forced to block content that is flagged as copyright infringement (whether or not it is infringing or is protected by fair use). RedditCFB tweeted in support of the accounts: “(the laws put [Twitter] in a tight situation of assuming the person who filed is correct). YouTube is faced with similar circumstances.