Copyright News Round Up

Copyright News Round Up

Week of August 18, 2017

Stay informed about all things Copyright with our weekly Copyright News Round Up.

Five Questions with Music Career Development Consultant Preshias Harris
By Copyright Alliance | What was the inspiration behind becoming music career development consultant?
I’ve always loved music. There was always music in our house when I was growing up in Kentucky. I knew I had to be in Nashville because that’s where the music is. As s soon as I could, I moved to Nashville and got a job as an intern at BNA Records and then Atlantic Records. It was a wonderful opportunity, working with recording artists such as John Anderson, Lorrie Morgan, Tracy Lawrence and Confederate Railroad.

Can a tweet be protected by copyright? If so, who owns the copyright?
By Terrica Carrington | Question: Can a tweet be protected by copyright? If so, who owns the copyright?
Answer: Yes, a tweet can be protected by copyright.
This is a question that’s been in the news recently, after the text of a shirt worn by Frank Ocean and sold by an online retailer was discovered to have been copied from someone’s tweet without authorization.

Friday’s Endnotes – 08/18/17
By Terry Hart | “Court Confirms the Obvious: Aiding and Abetting Criminal Copyright Infringement Is a Crime Devlin Hartline has a great analysis of the recent decision to not dismiss criminal charges against the owner and operator of alleged pirate site Kickass Torrents, Artem Vaulin. Among other things, Vaulin argued that the Copyright Act contains no criminal provisions for secondary liability. Hartline explains why the court rejected that argument.
Don’t be bound by Binded.com Carolyn Wright has some important words of caution about a new service from Binded that promises a fast and easy way to register copyrights in images.”

Return of Copyright Chick
By Rebecca Cusey | “After a brief hiatus to finish law school and take the Virginia bar, Copyright Chick is back.
While I was gone:
I helped write an amicus curiae brief in the copyright case Oracle.
Wrote a Comment for the Copyright Office for their Section 512 Study on the effectiveness of the DMCA, on behalf of the Arts and Entertainment Advocacy Clinic at Antonin Scalia Law School.”

Court Confirms the Obvious: Aiding and Abetting Criminal Copyright Infringement Is a Crime
By Devlin Hartline | “In July of 2016, a criminal complaint was filed in the Northern District of Illinois alleging that Artem Vaulin of the Ukraine was the mastermind behind the popular torrent site, Kickass Torrents (KAT). At the time, KAT was one of the largest pirate sites in the world, with an estimated 50 million unique visitors each month. The complaint charged Vaulin with several crimes, including criminal copyright infringement. The district court issued an arrest warrant for Vaulin and a seizure warrant for the various KAT domain names. Less than two weeks later, Vaulin was arrested in Poland and the KAT website was under the government’s control.”

Copyright and the Historical Record
By Terry Hart | “On August 18, 1787, James Madison proposed to the Constitutional Convention what would become Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution, granting Congress the authority to make copyright (and patent) laws. To mark 230 years since that occasion, I’m posting the text of a brief talk I gave during the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property’s fourth annual fall conference October 2016 (video of the talk available here). The text is mildly edited for style, since I talk less grammatically correct than I write.”

American Identity is in the Music
By David Newhoff | “My generation was raised on Schoolhouse Rock!. As such, we were not only told that America is a Melting Pot but were reminded of this on a regular basis in a song from that animated series, the melody of which is now ringing in the heads of any fellow Gen-Xers reading this post. Of course, the more mature truth is that America is not really a melting pot so much as it is a seething cauldron of incompatible ingredients that only manage to blend into something palatable after considerable simmer time. When The Great American Melting Pot episode first aired in May of 1976, it was just three months after violent race riots had broken out at a Florida high school over symbols celebrating the South in the Civil War.”

The Challenges facing Print Media: Is Copyright Reform part of the Answer?
By Hugh Stephens | “This year Canada is required to review and potentially update its copyright legislation. The passage of the Copyright Modernization Bill in 2012 included a statutory five year review. That formal review has not yet begun -it is scheduled to start in late fall – but in the meantime other work that could impact the review of copyright law is taking place. Among these are the cultural policy review that Heritage Minister Melanie Joly has committed to undertake, and a review on media industries, conducted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.”

Trump administration goes after China over intellectual property, advanced technology
By Ana Swanson | “President Trump signed an executive memorandum Monday afternoon that will likely trigger an investigation into China’s alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property, a measure that could eventually result in a wide range of penalties as the administration seeks a new way to deal with what it calls Chinese violations of the rules of international trade.”

China: Trump trade probe violates international rules
By John Bowden | “President Trump’s order to investigate trade practices in China violates international commitments made by the World Trade Organization (WTO), China says.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said Tuesday that Trump’s move to investigate whether Beijing requires companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to Chinese markets violates the spirit of international trade, and it pledged to ‘resolutely safeguard’ Chinese trade interests, The Associated Press reported.”

More Copyright Headlines here.

Photo Credit: Kubkoo/iStock/thinkstock & seb_ra/iStock/thinkstock

Photos edited by: Copyright Alliance

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