After a brief hiatus due to vacation and holidays, we’re back!
Copyright And The Public Interest: Not Necessarily Competing Forces —  “It does not serve the aspirations of developing societies to return to a system in which the voices of the people serve the whims of the private elite, or worse, to allow governments to be the sole determining body in the matter of cultural works. By permitting creative genius to be fueled by market forces, we unleash the cultural power and potential of the diversity of individuals, freeing creative impulses from the tyranny of centralized controls and making creative works accessible to the public at large. While copyright may be inadequate on its own in creating fair market conditions, it remains by far the most powerful tool for fostering creativity and democratizing culture itself.”
IPA: ‘Freedom of expression linked to copyright’ — A new report from the International Publishers Association looks at the connection between weak freedom of expression protections in developing countries and weak copyright protections.
The Lisbon Council’s 2015 Intellectual Property and Economic Growth Index: A Showcase of Methodological Blunder (PDF) — According to a Phoenix Center analysis, a recent report purporting to show that so-called flexible copyright limitations and exceptions have a positive economic effect “is junk science and should be ignored.” The analysis details some of the report’s methodological flaws.
Five Hard Lessons We Learned Making GHOST SHARK 2: URBAN JAWS — Some perhaps helpful advice for new filmmakers, as well as an interesting look into DIY filmmaking. And the filmmakers conclude by saying, “Enjoy our strange little movie, and please, for the love of God, don’t pirate it.”
40 states line up with Mississippi in Google Adwords pharma scrap — “‘In my ten years as Attorney General, I have dealt with a lot of large corporate wrongdoers. I must say that yours is the first I have encountered to have no corporate conscience for the safety of its customers, the viability of its fellow corporations or the negative economic impact on the nation which has allowed your company to flourish,’ Hood wrote in a letter to Google chairman Eric Schmidt.”
Copyright Office modernization efforts deserve broad support — From Tom Sydnor at American Enterprise Institute: “the outdated and ineffective IT procurement processes at the Library of Congress have forced the US Copyright Office to try to run a 21st century copyright system with 19th and 20th century technologies. That anachronism disserves the legitimate interests of everyone affected by copyrights – creators, creative industries, content distributors, and users of expressive works. The Copyright Office needs independent IT funding and procurement authority, and internal IT personnel, in order to use the latest technologies to make copyright registration, recordation, and search far more effective, efficient and accessible than they are today.”
Supreme Court Recognizes that Patents are Property — In a case involving raisins, obviously. The Court’s discussion applies just as much to copyright.
Authorship and Authority in the Moral Foundations of Moral Rights — Brian Cwik sketches out an alternative justification for moral rights, one that shows that moral rights and copyright have more in common than often suggested.
How Television Won the Internet — Reports of “old media’s” demise have been premature. “The fundamental recipe for media success, in other words, is the same as it used to be: a premium product that people pay attention to and pay money for. Credit cards, not eyeballs.”