Now Hiring: Screenwriters — “When a writer types THE END, it is the beginning of a process that involves hundreds of jobs and services before the script even reaches the actual production stage. Staff at the Producer’s office, Studio execs and Story execs and their staff who are employed to read, develop, finance and produce your script get to keep their jobs because of writers. Agents, Managers, Lawyers who negotiate the writer deals, all have jobs in part because of writers. Once the script goes into the production stage, the amount of jobs required to produce a film grows exponentially; crews of 100-400 and more become necessary; local vendors and merchants in the location where my script is being filmed benefit and are able to boost employment. Hotels, car rental agencies, airlines, local restaurants, stores, shops, all benefit enormously by my typing THE END.”
Do weaker copyrights really increase economic growth? — No, says Tom Sydnor. Following an analysis of a recent Lisbon Council report that found it contained serious methodological blunders to reach its conclusion that weaker copyright protection increases economic growth, Sydnor looks at several of the “serious errors of law” the report also made.
‘Don’t Be Mad’: Scott Borchetta Talks Apple Negotiations, How Taylor Swift Told Him About Her Letter — “What really went down leading up to Taylor Swift’s show-stopping Father’s Day letter to Apple regarding streaming payments during Apple Music’s free trial?”
Modernizing the Copyright Office — “The key question is: Are at least some of the complaints about the copyright system more matters of the limitations of the Copyright Office than they are limitations of copyright law? The answer seems to be yes, and with more autonomy and better infrastructure, a 21st Century Copyright Office should be able to solve some of the logistical problems consumers face when trying to use creative works.”
Guild to Congress: Close Internet Piracy Loopholes, Implement “Notice and Stay-Down†— “Court decisions have construed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Notice and Takedown provisions to mean that a copyright owner is required to send a notice for each separate instance (i.e., copy) of infringement, specifying the URL. But as soon as a pirated copy is taken down, it is usually put right back up. Needless to say, copyright owners cannot keep up with this senseless game, and individual authors do not begin to have the resources to send a new notice every time a pirated copy is posted or reposted. We are asking for a ‘Notice and Stay-Down’ regime: once a webhost knows a work is being infringed, it should not continue to receive “safe harbor†immunity from claims of infringement unless it takes reasonable measures to remove all infringing copies of the same work.”