- Copyright violations on PIPA sponsors’ websites? [VICE] “A SOPA Analogy” [David Henderson]
- DEA agent who mistakenly shot self loses appeal [BLT, earlier]
- “And people say libertarians lack empathy”: AP adopts pre-emptively disapproving tone toward advances in pain control [Coyote; related, Alkon on Primatene Mist]
- Cordray, NLRB recess picks allow President to reward key Democratic interest groups [Copland, Examiner] Litigation Lobby gunning for ban on consumer finance arbitration as Cordray priority [CL&P] Mike Rappaport on the recess appointment clause [LLL, earlier here, etc.]
- Keystone’s just the half of it: US environmental funders push shutdown of Canada energy production [Vivian Krause, Financial Post]
- Hot potato, or just hot business sector? “Credit Suisse Parts with Litigation Finance Group” [WSJ Law Blog]
- Speaking of shoplifters in elected office [Harrisburg Patriot-News on Perry County, Pa. case h/t commenter A.A.; earlier on California case]
Posts Tagged ‘copyright’
After SOPA protest day
- What did the protests accomplish? [Image of one-day change in Hill opposition courtesy TechCrunch, PC World, Timothy Lee/Ars Technica]
- Some of the best protests [Ad Age, earlier on Flickr’s clever entry and others]
- Going-dark site “strike” was a bit like Atlas Shrugged without the monologues [Greve] “So, nothing like #AS” [@nickgillespie] “…and fewer pirates” [@JohnPMcGuinness] “That’s a shame. I want to see Francisco’s money speech in binary code.” [@BenK84]
- Speaking of Citizens United… [John Samples/Cato, Popehat, @joshgreenman]
- Chris Dodd: we could turn off flow of Hollywood politibux if we don’t get this law [Politico] “Win/win!” [James Poulos]
- Where next? [Julian Sanchez, Cato, Kotaku (“PIPA not as bad as SOPA” claims), roll call via Pro Publica]
SOPA on the ropes?
Welcome news, if true: key members of Congress are said to be backing away from the rogue-sites legislation as currently written and in particular are willing to drop the hotly contested provisions on domain name blocking. [Timothy Lee, Sandoval/McCullagh, CNET, Mike Masnick/TechDirt] And suddenly the Obama administration is sounding skeptical notes too [Lee] As recently as last week the copyright enforcement bills were reported to be on a toboggan to quick passage [Industry Standard, earlier] More: Masnick.
Joyce copyright expires
Will I raise a glass to toast the Irish author’s long-awaited return to the public domain? Yes I said yes I will yes [Gordon Bowker, Independent, earlier here, here, and here]
But note: The jubilation is over the entry of the author’s work into the public domain in the European Union; in the United States most of the author’s writings remain tied up for a long time to come. Details here (thanks commenter JWB).
SOPA’s Hollywood accounting
Some advocates of the legislation cook the books when they count (and double-count and triple-count) the costs of piracy. [Julian Sanchez, Cato; Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
SOPA fight heats up
Brad Plumer in the Washington Post summarizes the provisions of the bill as well as the state of play on it in Congress as of mid-month. Although much commentary has assumed that persons determined to visit blocked sites could readily find ways around the SOPA restrictions, David Post notes that the draft bill authorizes the Attorney General to seek injunctions against persons who assist in circumventing the law, which might include websites that publish “here’s how to evade SOPA blocking” information. Timothy Lee at ArsTechnica notes growing opposition to the bill among conservatives, while Joshua Kopstein at Motherboard reviews a comic markup session. Meanwhile, “Gibson Guitar & Others On SOPA Supporters List Say They Never Supported The Bill” [Mike Masnick, TechDirt] Earlier here and here.
“SOPA: An Architecture for Censorship”
The proposed law is being promoted as a way of blocking piratical “rogue” sites, but once it’s up and working, and internet providers have begun automatically blocking sites from a list continually updated by the government, it won’t stop with copyright and trademark infringers. Extending the interdiction to other sorts of sites will be a relatively simple and straightforward matter:
With the legal framework in place, expanding it to cover other conduct — obscenity, defamation, “unfair competition,” patent infringement, publication of classified information, advocacy in support of terror groups — would be a matter of adding a few words to those paragraphs.
How long before a sentimental Congress yields to demands to block suicide- or anorexia-promotion sites, or perhaps those accused of glorifying the taking of illegal drugs or profiting from depictions of animal cruelty? [Julian Sanchez, Cato, more; earlier] More: Stephen DeMaura and David Segal, Roll Call (potential use against political candidates), Bill Wilson (ALG), The Hill, Stanford Law Review, “Don’t Break the Internet”.
The case against SOPA/”Protect IP”
My Cato colleague Julian Sanchez argues that a bill rapidly moving through Congress would give far too much power to authorities to close down websites without due process, yet would be readily circumvented by actual IP pirates. More: Sanchez/Cato, BoingBoing, Declan McCullagh (software execs blast proposal), Derek Bambauer/Prawfs (“Six Things Wrong With SOPA”), Stewart Baker/Volokh.
YouTube, Flickr in peril?
Concerns are mounting about something called the Stop Online Piracy Act, billed as giving authorities the power to close down “rogue” websites devoted to exchange of stolen content. [Timothy Lee, Cato at Liberty]
“Kurt Vonnegut And The Maddening Zealotry Of Literary Estates”
Whether it’s family members’ touchiness or lawyers’ zealous interpretation of intellectual property rights, things seem to be getting worse for biographers and others requesting permission to quote from letters and documents. [Craig Fehrman, The New Republic]