SOPA/PIPA Copyright Bills Also Target American Sites
By Marvin Ammori • December 30, 2011 at 9:00 pm
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.
By Marvin Ammori • December 30, 2011 at 9:00 pm
By Marvin Ammori • December 8, 2011 at 12:07 pm
By Zohar Efroni • November 24, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Per today's ruling, injunctions against European ISPs requiring them to apply filtering tools that monitor traffic to prevent copyright infringement officially violate EU law. The Scarlet decision puts a major stick in the wheel of wholesale copyright holders fighting against file sharing activities. With the expected implementation of the ACTA in mind, this ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will likely affect both prospective copyright legislation in Europe and offensive strategies of rights holders in their operations against intermediaries. Read more » about The ECJ's Scarlet Decision: No Broad Filtering Duty for European ISPs
By Julie Ahrens • November 16, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Today Congress held hearings on the latest IP legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). We are taking part in American Censorship Day to help spread the word and stop this bill. We’ve outlined five of the most important problems with SOPA.
1. SOPA violates due process. Under SOPA, any private copyright or trademark owner can cut-off advertising and payments to any website by alleging that the operator “avoid[ed] confirming a high probability” that “a portion” of its site is being used to infringe copyrights. Advertisers and payment companies (e.g. Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal) are then required to stop doing business with that site. It seems likely that content owners (or people merely claiming to be content owners) will often succeed in shutting down websites without ever going to court. The proposed legislation also gives the Attorney General and the Justice Department the power to shut down websites before they are actually judged infringing. Courts will be able to order any Internet service provider to stop recognizing an accused site immediately upon application by the Attorney General, after an ex parte hearing. By failing to guarantee the challenged websites notice or an opportunity to be heard in court before their sites are shutdown, SOPA violates due process. Read more: Letter to Congress from over 100 law professors techdirt explains that SOPA would create the Great Firewall of America.
Read more » about Stop Censorship: The Problems With SOPAAmicus brief filed in the Third Circuit on behalf of Brave New Films urging affirmance of the district court’s finding of fair use and rejection of plaintiff’s DMCA claims. Read more » about Murphy v. Millennium Radio Group - Amicus Brief
We filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit in support of the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL urging the Fourth Circuit to grant rehearing or rehearing en banc, after a divided panel ruled that the Raven’s incidental use of a copyrighted logo in historical game films was not a fair use. Read more » about Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens and NFL, et al. - Amicus Brief
Meltwater News ("Meltwater") is a search engine and research tool that allows users to search for and obtain information about news items that have been made publicly available on the Internet. Read more » about Associated Press v. Meltwater
We filed an amicus brief in the Second Circuit on behalf of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts urging the appeals court to reverse a district court decision that ignored established fair use principles that many artists rely upon in creating their work. Read more » about Cariou v. Prince
The FUP filed this suit on behalf of a University of Denver conductor and others, challenging Congress’s restoration of copyright to works that had entered the public domain. Read more » about Golan v. Holder
We filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation asking the First Circuit to affirm the district court’s reduced damages award in Sony v. Tenenbaum, a file-sharing case in which a jury originally ordered a college student to pay $675,000 for infringing copyright in 30 songs. Read more » about Sony v. Tenenbaum
For the originator of a meme, legal protections are slim, and that’s the way it should be, says copyright attorney Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School. “If you’re the first person to do the video S- -t Girls Say, that doesn’t mean someone else can’t use the same idea with girls saying different stuff,” he says. “Just because you’re the first one to do something doesn’t mean you should be the only one to get to do it.”
Read the full publication at the original link below. Read more » about The Growing Power of the Meme
CIS Affiliate Scholar Marvin Ammori's latest article for The Atlantic.
The Supreme Court will soon hear a case that will affect whether you can sell your iPad -- or almost anything else -- without needing to get permission from a dozen "copyright holders." Here are some things you might have recently done that will be rendered illegal if the Supreme Court upholds the lower court decision: Read more » about If You've Ever Sold a Used iPod, You May Have Violated Copyright Law
Come and meet the staff of CIS! Be introduced to our Documentary Film Program and Consumer Privacy Project.
Learn how to get involved with the Center for Internet and Society. Hear about the classes we are teaching and opportunities for students to work with us. Highlights include: Shepard Fairey v. The AP, WhatApp.org. Read more » about CIS Introduction Meeting
For more information and to register please visit:
http://lst.stanford.edu/best_practices Read more » about 6/12: Sixth Annual E-Commerce Best Practices Conference
Please register at: http://publishingcourses.stanford.edu/legal-frontiers/
A joint conference of:
• Media Law Resource Center
• Stanford Publishing Courses
• Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society
A conference on emerging legal issues
surrounding digital publishing and content distribution Read more » about 5/14 & 5/15: Legal Frontiers in Digital Media
Tech Policy Summit is the only executive conference of its kind that brings together prominent leaders from the private and public sectors to examine critical policy issues impacting technology innovation and adoption in the United States and beyond.
<a data-cke-saved-href="" href="" http:="" events.techpolicycentral.com="" tps="" register.php"="">Registration is now open for the 3rd annual Tech Policy Summit, which will be held May 11-13, 2009 at the San Mateo Marriott hotel in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read more » about 5/11-5/13: 3rd Annual Tech Policy Summit
March 7, 2012
Stanford Center for Internet and Society Speakers Series Talk - Read more » about Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Audio)
March 7, 2012
In her talk, based on her forthcoming book from Yale Press, Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity, Sonia Katyal will discuss the intersection of art, commercial speech, and trademark law within the First Amendment, and will show how the law has shifted in response to the constitutional challenges the branding movement has created. In her talk, Katyal will focus on the "antibranding" movement in popular art and culture, which she defines to include the expressive activities of artists and activists who direct their energies towards challenging corporate branding. The greatest threat to cultural and artistic freedom, she argues, stems not from the pervasive power of the government, but instead from the powerful reach of corporate branding over artistic and consumer response. Read more » about Sonia Katyal - Contrabrand: Art, Advertising and Property in the Age of Corporate Identity (Video)
March 1, 2012
STLR Symposium 2012 - Co-Hosted by the Center for Internet and Society Read more » about PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Audio)
March 1, 2012
STLR Symposium 2012 - Co-Hosted by the Center for Internet and Society
Moderator: Declan McCullagh, Chief Political Correspondent, CNET
Panelists:
Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation;
Mike Masnick, Editor, Techdirt Blog;
Betsy Zedek, Senior Counsel, Content Protection, Fox Group Legal
A.J. Thomas, Partner, Jenner & Block Read more » about PROTECT IP/SOPA - 2012 STLR Symposium - First Amendent Challenges in the Digital Age (Video)