Monday, January 21, 2013, by Laura Arredondo-Santisteban The First Circuit released a recent opinion addressing issues involving copyright and news photography, arguably refusing to expand the scope of copyright protection to independently existing facts captured by photojournalists. The case Harney v. Sony Pictures Television, Inc. involves a photograph, taken by freelance photographer Donald Harney, for …
Friday, January 18, 2013, by Anu Madan On January 11, 2012, software programmer, Internet activist, and computer prodigy Aaron Swartz was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment. According to New York City’s chief medical examiner, Swartz committed suicide by hanging. As an advocate for Internet freedom, Swartz strongly believed that information, which could potentially benefit …
Friday, January 18, 2013, by Holly Bannerman On December 18, 2012, President Obama signed the Patent Law Treaties Implementation Act of 2012, which implements the provisions of the Hague Agreement and the Patent Law Treaty. The Act is intended to unify America’s design patent laws with the rest of the world. In order to effectuate …
Thursday, January 17, 2013, by Anne Marie Tosco In January of 2012, the Supreme Court unanimously held that law enforcement could not put a warrantless GPS tracker on a suspect’s car in United States v. Jones. Following the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act compelling the …
Wednesday, January 16, 2013, by Amanda Jones In November the voters in California voted in favor of a proposition which would require registered sex offenders to disclose information concerning their internet usage. The proposition, termed the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act (“CASE Act”) applies to all those currently on the sex offender registry along with …
Friday, January 11, 2013, by Collier Johnson II On December 14, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and opened fire on students and teachers killing twenty students and six adults. Unfortunately, school shootings have become all too familiar in America. In 1999, fifteen people were killed in a school shooting …
Friday, January 11, 2013, by Jonathan Ambrose In a blog posted on Wednesday, January 9th, Jonathan McIntosh recounts his recent struggle to get his mash-up video “Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed” back on YouTube after an invalid DCMA takedown was filed. The video, which depicts what might have happened if Edward Cullen had directed his …
Wednesday, November 28, 2012, by Virginia Wooten On December 2, 2012, the International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”) will hold the World Conference on International Telecommunications (“WCIT”) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The ITU currently serves as the United Nations’s specialized agency on information and telecommunications, and the ITU regulates networks and technologies to ensure they connect …
Wednesday, November 28, 2012, by Cara Richards A federal court in Pittsburgh has ruled that the government can track internet users to their location without a search warrant. The court reasoned, in United States v. Stanley, that internet users have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their IP address nor can they expect privacy protection for the information they …
Wednesday, November 21, 2012, by Seiko Okada The Copyright Office, upon request of Congress, is currently asking public comments on creating a federal resale royal right in the United States for visual artists. See Federal Register for the original notice and notice of extension of deadline (until December 5, 2012). An artist resale royalty right …