I’m a little late on this one, but if you are interested in the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) effort to thwart peer-to-peer file sharing, Steal This Film is well worth 51 minutes of your time. The documentary chronicles Swedish (and international) piracy culture with a focus on members of The Pirate Bay (TPB). [...]

NPR recently featured the band Pomplamoose on its weekend edition of All Things Considered. The San Francisco duo, comprised of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn, has become a YouTube phenomenon for its vibrant cover songs. One such example is the Pomplamoose cover of Lady Gaga’s Telephone: Apart from garnering millions of views since launching PomplamooseMusic, [...]

La Quadrature du Net, an advocacy group that promotes the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet, has started a petition to block the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Widely regarded as a threat to internet neutrality, ACTA proposes sweeping multilateral copyright reform along the lines of  a global DMCA. Stating that the treaty would, [...]

RiP! Explores the relationship of Copyright and Fair Use to popular culture mashups/remixes. The film features Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis), Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Dan O’Neil and more. Also here.

In an effort to update copyright law for the digital age, Public Knowledge, in conjunction with the Stanford Cyberlaw Clinic and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic, has proposed three reforms to the statutory Fair Use analysis. Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group working to defend citizens’ rights in the emerging [...]

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.

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 [...]

Set to premiere on PBS in January 2010, Copyright Criminals explores the relationship between hip-hop and copyright law and the complicated legal issues brought on by music sampling. From the website, Years before people started downloading and remixing music, hip-hop sampling sparked a debate about copyright, creativity and technological change that still rages today. Independent [...]