This funny music video (sung to the tune of "My Way") and featuring David Pogue's views on the iPhone, just made my morning. I think I now must go down and get the iPhone. And -- very cool -- the NY Times appears to understand at least one instance when it makes sense to embrace a "no rights reserved" approach to copyrighted content. Read more about iPhone: The Musical
The Copyright Office recently released a new site geared towards young people to "take the mystery out of copyright." I've finally taken a look at the information in the videos and accompanying materials, and it's all pretty factual and reliable information in my opinion. Read more about Educational Site About Copyright
The Copyright Office reports it's final rule about electronic copyright submissions and fees. Starting July 2 (for a limited number of copyright claims) it will begin accepting submissions of electronic copyright applications. The fees for electronic submissions will be $10 less than paper. (Electronic filing fees will be $35, while paper will remain $45) Read more about Electronic filings coming soon to the Copyright Office
The latest episode of Ian Ballon as a guest and discusses the latest in electronic commerce or "Internet Law". The episode starts off with a brief discussion about what it means to have "ecommerce" or "internet" as a type of law. John Palfrey brought up the Posner opinion that it doesn't really make sense to designate certain types of law by subject area (like "horse law"). Posner argues that it's all just "law", and then applied to different areas of business or life. Read more about TWiL on ecommerce
About a week ago the Ninth Circuit issued this ruling that analyzes the difference between a collective work and a derivative work in a copyright infringement case involving K2's use of a photographer's copyrighted images. This topic is not often litigated - the most famous cases I recall that deals with these definitional questions are the Nagel tile case (Mirage Editions, Inc. v. Albuquerque A.R.T. Co., 856 F.2d 1341 (9th Cir. 1988)) and the National Geographic cover case (Greenberg v. Read more about Copyright in derivative works vs. collective works
Haven't had a chance yet to read the full opinion yet, but the bottom line of this important ruling from the S.D.N.Y. is that a "download" of a file embodying a particular song is not a "public performance" of that song under the copyright act. This means that no royalty is due to the artist (or the artist's performing rights organization, like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC) when the song is downloaded. I'll update once I've read through it. Read more about A download is not a "performance"