Do Copyright Professors Pay Attention to Economists? How Empirical Evidence on Copyright Piracy Appears (or Not) in Law Literature — Highly recommended new draft from Justin Hughes and Michael D. Smith which explores the question why, given that the vast majority of peer-reviewed empirical studies demonstrate that piracy harms authorized sales of copyrighted works, the majority of citations in the law literature are to the minority of studies that show little or no harm.
Digitizing Over 9 Million Historical Record Pages and Counting — “In 2021, the Copyright Office began digitizing the Historical Record Books Collection’s more than 26,000 volumes—over 26,000,000 pages—making it one of the most extensive digitization projects at the Library of Congress. … The Office published the first 500 digitized record books online in February 2022 and now has digitized more than 9 million pages of registration applications.”
Artist Who Duped Art Contest With AI Image Has Copyright Application Rejected — PetaPixel’s Matt Growcoot reports on this week’s ruling by the US Copyright Office’s Review Board which rejected an artist’s request to reconsider the Office’s refusal to register the copyright in a work generated using Midjourney.
It’s a Taking: Copyright Deposit Requirement Violates Fifth Amendment — “Addressing the issue for the first time, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that the Copyright Act of 1976’s requirement to deposit two copies of a work with the Library of Congress within three months of the work’s publication was unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.”
Microsoft says it will take the heat if Copilot AI commercial users get sued — “In a blog post about an initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment, Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith said the company will take the heat for any potential legal risks as more copyright holders question how AI companies handle protected works. Microsoft said the policy is an extension of its overall AI customer commitments, announced earlier this year.”