Today is World’s Fair Use Day (WFUD), “a free, all-day celebration of the doctrine of fair use: the legal right that allows innovators and creators to make particular uses of copyrighted materials. WFUD will take place at the Newseum in Washington D.C. on Tuesday January 12, 2010.” More here.

A group of international organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL) have banded together to form Copyright Watch. A database of national copyright laws, the organization seeks to, raise awareness of the importance of balanced copyright law in the information society, and draw attention to points of commonality and [...]

“You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” A recent post appearing in the Celebrity and News section of Lipstick Alley rekindled a debate over the true origins of the Matrix trilogy. In 1999 an author named Sophia Stewart filed suit in Federal Court [...]

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch sat down with Australia’s Sky News to discuss the future of internet publishing. Frustrated with the free movement of information on the web, Murdoch criticized news outlets, including the BBC, stating, “if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we’ll be suing them [...]

The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics, has been compiling a database of searchable Cease and Desist (C&D) notices. With the intent of “helping Internet users [...]

In an update to Wednesday’s Roundup: EMI sues bluebeat.com for offering Beatles catalog, a Federal Court Judge on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing bluebeat.com from, “directly or indirectly infringing in any manner [on] copyrighted work.” The order granting the TRO (below) notes, Defendants claim in their Opposition that they sell “entirely different [...]

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed multilateral agreement  meant to quell international copyright piracy and counterfeit goods. While in negotiations today in Seoul, Korea (November 4-6, 2009), many are concerned that the agreement will be over-restrictive and have chilling effects.  Particularly troubling is the United States drafted section on Internet Service Providers (ISPs). [...]

The Beatles record label, EMI, sued bluebeat.com, its parent company, Media Rights Technology Inc., and Chief Executive Hank Risan for offering songs from the band’s catalog for 25 cents. More here. Professor Donald Jones sued the legal blog Above the Law for posting his faculty photo alongside a news story about his arrest and eventual [...]