A bit rushed, but lots of content here!
- The Librarian of Congress is seeking public input on “expertise needed by the Register of Copyrights”. Comment submission deadline is January 31, 2017
- The House Judiciary Committee released a concrete policy proposal for copyright reform, which includes suggestions for revising the structure of the Copyright Office (giving it more independence); creating advisory committees; upgrading IT infrastructure; and starting a copyright small-claims court within the Copyright Office.
- Several library copyright specialists (myself included) signed on to a letter to the Judiciary Committee responding to their proposals, and to the letter sent by former Registers Peters and Oman earlier in the month.
- Brandon Butler, copyright specialist at the University of Virginia, who wrote the main text of the letter, expands on the background and motivation for the letter.
- My signature to that letter was largely motivated by sentiments in the Peters/Oman letter, and elsewhere, that suggest library values are inherently in tension with copyright. I wrote a blog post expanding on those issues.
- A response critiquing the letter.
- Other responses to the House Judiciary proposal on the structure of the Copyright Office came from the Duke University Libraries and the Library Copyright Alliance.
- Some other responses have focused more on the proposed small claims mechanism – most agree that current legal mechanisms are cost-prohibitive for small rightsholders, but many question why this small claims court should live in the Legislative Branch, instead of the Judiciary, with all other federal courts. Another article explores the proposed mechanism in greater detail, questioning whether it solves the problems it is intended to address.
- Several library copyright specialists (myself included) signed on to a letter to the Judiciary Committee responding to their proposals, and to the letter sent by former Registers Peters and Oman earlier in the month.
- Indian courts upheld existing practices of unpaid course copying, in the face of a legal challenge from publishers. The case is -not- based on fair use as it’s formulated in US law, but on some principles of fairness. International analysis is pretty interest. The Hindu.com; The 1709 blog.
- A New York appeals court ruled there is no public performance right in pre-1972 sound recordings. This ruling is in tension with some from other circuits, setting the stage for possible future Supreme Court review.
- Project DisCo responds to the Copyright Office’s report on software-enabled consumer products with a general response to the reporth and a deeper discussion of Interoperability and Competition
- A California jury dismissed copyright infringement claims from Cisco by applying the copyright doctrine of “scenes a faire” to software code.
- Report from an association of libraries and universities on the law around text and data mining in France and the UK (in French).
- A brief was filed by the band The Slants, in their case defending their trademark, which is being challenged as offensive.
- The Supreme Court has ruled that damages for design patent infringement can be considered with greater granularity, which is a big win for Samsung, and may greatly reduce the damages they were awarded against Apple. (It’s also a sensible evolution for design patent law in general,as Sarah Burstein elucidates in the article.) Burstein also has an interesting article in progress on the meaning of the phrase “article of manufacture” in 1887.
