The U.S. Copyright Office and Librarian of Congress announced six new exemptions to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Digital Rights Management (DRM)  measures stating, “Persons making noninfringing uses of the following [...] classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) until the conclusion of the [...]

In spring 2009, Shepard Fairey, Steven Johnson, and Lawrence Lessig sat down at the New York Public Library to discuss balancing artistic freedom and copyright law. Lessig mentions Viacom’s policy toward remixing, noting that the media giant will not remove videos with transformative elements in order to encourage creativity. In light of the recent Viacom [...]

In 2007, Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit alleging Google is liable for the intentional infringement of thousands of copyrighted works on YouTube. On Wednesday, U.S. District Court (SDNY) Judge Louis Stanton granted summary judgment in favor of Google. Viacom argued the search company had actual knowledge of infringing activity on YouTube or was generally [...]

At TEDxNYED, Lawrence Lessig gave a talk on the importance of balancing commercial and sharing culture through copyright. “Freedom,” he states, “is [the] opportunity to both have the commercial success of the [] works and the opportunity to build this different kind of culture — and for that to happen, you need ideas like fair [...]

I was just having a conversation about the joy of vintage NES clones and now this. The Tetris Company, LLC, licensee of various Tetris copyrights and Tetris trademark, sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice Tuesday demanding the removal of 35 games from the Android Market: Google’s facilitation of the distribution, without permission, [...]

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). [...]

The Burning Man Organization (BMO) is calling for community feedback on its camera policy, including its approach to image rights. The section reads as follows: “Use of Images” I UNDERSTAND AND ACCEPT THAT NO USE OF IMAGES, FILM, OR VIDEO OBTAINED AT THE EVENT MAY BE MADE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM BURNING MAN, OTHER [...]

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, [...]