Petition of the day — SCOTUSblog highlighted the petition in Perfect 10 v Giganews this week. Giganews initially waived its right to respond, but the Supreme Court has requested a response by October 20. The issue: “(1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit correctly held—in conflict with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 8th Circuits—that a defendant “profits from†direct infringement for purposes of vicarious copyright liability only if a plaintiff proves that its work, as opposed to the totality of the infringing content offered by defendants, was the reason customers were drawn to the defendant’s business; and (2) whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit correctly held—contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court—that a defendant does not engage in direct copyright infringement when it displays, reproduces, or distributes infringing material, so long as that conduct is accomplished through an automated process.”
Italian Supreme Court confirms availability of copyright protection to TV formats — From IPKat: “As reported by DIMT – Diritto Mercato Tecnologia, in its 2017 decision in RTI Reti Televisive Italiane Spa v Ruvido Produzioni Srl, decision 18633/17 (27 July 2017), the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) confirmed that TV formats can be protected under the Italian Copyright Act (Legge 633/1941), and clarified at what conditions such protection is available. The Court recalled that the Italian Copyright Act does not contain a notion of ‘format’. However the definition provided in Bulletin 66/1994 of SIAE, which also allows authors of formats to deposit them, should be taken into account.”
Having a Bubble Bath or Why the “Buried†Piracy Report Got It All Backwards — Per Strömbäck writes, “The main problem is that the study only looks at how sales changed from 2009 to 2013 (this is page 74 and following). This is like checking the temperature ten minutes after I start adding cold water to my bath! The large-scale impact of internet piracy of music started in 1999.”
Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices — A revised version of the Copyright Office’s Compendium is now available and effective as of today. The Compendium details the Copyright Office’s registration and examination practices in a publicly accessible manner and is highly useful for answering questions regarding issues such as copyrightability and originality. The revisions incorporate legal and regulatory changes since the previous version was published as well as public comments received by the Office responding to a draft of the revised version posted this past summer.