The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
A healthy copyright system must balance the need to provide strong economic incentives through exclusive rights with the need to protect important public interests like free speech and expression. Fair use is foundational to that balance. It's role is to prevent copyright from stifling the creativity it is supposed to foster, and from imposing other burdens that would inhibit rather than promote the creation and spread of knowledge and learning.
The Fair Use Project (FUP) was founded in 2006 to provide legal support to a range of projects designed to clarify, and extend, the boundaries of fair use in order to enhance creative freedom and protect important public rights. It is the only organization in the country dedicated specifically to providing free and comprehensive legal representation to authors, filmmakers, artists, musicians and other content creators who face unmerited copyright claims, or other improper restrictions on their expressive interests. The FUP has litigated important cases across the country, and in the Supreme Court of the United States, and worked with scores of filmmakers and other content creators to secure the unimpeded release of their work.
For more information please visit STLR's website. Read more » about Copyright in the Digital Age - 16th Annual Stanford Technology Law Review Symposium
Please join us as we gather to remember Aaron Swartz on the evening of Thursday, January 24th.Four Factors In Search Of a Question: Anchoring Fair Use to Free Expression and Social Value Read more » about Four Factors In Search Of a Question: Anchoring Fair Use to Free Expression and Social Value
During late 2011 and January 2012, millions of people protested the passage of the controversial copyright bill the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in Congress. The protests culminated in the largest online protest in the history of the Internet, with web giant Wikipedia and thousands of other websites going black in a day of self-censorship. In a few short months, the protesters achieved something remarkable: they defeated money, politicians, Hollywood, and the copyright lobby, all in the name of a “free and open Internet.” This talk with Professor Edward Lee, explains these grassroots movements as a form of popular constitutionalism. Courts didn't define speech rights. People did. And, in the end, it was the people's view of free speech that carried the day. Read more » about CIS Speaker Series - Stopping SOPA: Copyright, Free Speech, and Popular Constitutionalism
May 14, 2012
This week, David Levine interviews Prof. Hamilton Bean of the University of Colorado Denver, author of the book No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence. Read more » about Hamilton Bean - Hearsay Culture - Show #161 - KZSU-FM
May 7, 2012
In July 2012, several major internet access providers (including, very likely, yours) will roll out a new program supposedly intended to inhibit online infringement via peer top peer file-sharing networks. The program is a result of a deal, announced last year, between ISPs and big content providers to work together police online infringement, educate allegedly infringing subscribers and, if subscribers resist such education, take various steps including restricting their internet access. As always, the devil is in the details, and the details here are devilish indeed. EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry outlined how the program will work and explained why subscribers might want to demand a reboot. Read more » about Is Your ISP Becoming A Copyright Cop? The Graduated Response Program and "Voluntary" Efforts to Police Online Infringement
April 23, 2012
A talk show on KZSU-FM, Stanford, 90.1 FM, hosted by Read more » about Jennifer Holt - Hearsay Culture - Show #160 - KZSU-FM
April 23, 2012
An evening conversation with CIS Executive Director of the Fair Use Project Anthony Falzone and Congressman Darrell Issa where they will discuss topics about SOPA, PIPA and internet freedom. Read more » about SOPA, PIPA and Internet Freedom - Where Do We Go From Here? Audio
