Showing posts with label copyrights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label copyrights. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

What 70% of Americans Don’t Understand About Intellectual Property; Stites & Harbison, October 26, 2023

Mandy Wilson Decker, Stites & Harbison; What 70% of Americans Don’t Understand About Intellectual Property

"The United States Intellectual Property Alliance (USIPA) recently published the results of its US Intellectual Property Awareness & Attitudes Survey. Among its findings, the survey results revealed that 70% of Americans are unable to distinguish between mechanisms – patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets – for protecting Intellectual Property (IP).

Given these results, it's worth exploring the principal mechanisms for protecting IP, which each possess some distinctive features."

Thursday, April 13, 2023

To Ingrain AI Ethics, We Should Get Creative About Copyrights; Undark Magazine, April 13, 2023

CASON SCHMIT & JENNIFER WAGNER, Undark Magazine; To Ingrain AI Ethics, We Should Get Creative About Copyrights

"What’s clear, however, is that the risk of doing nothing is tremendous. AI is rapidly evolving and disrupting existing systems and structures in unpredictable ways. We need disruptive innovation in AI policy perhaps even more than we need disruption in the technology itself — and AI creators and users must be willing participants in this endeavor. Efforts to grapple with the ethical, legal, social, and policy issues around AI must be viewed not as a luxury but as a necessity, and as an integral part of AI design. Otherwise, we run the risk of letting industry set the terms of AI’s future, and we leave individuals, groups, and even our very democracy vulnerable to its whims." 

Monday, January 2, 2023

Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day; The Guardian, January 1, 2023

, The Guardian; Something is afoot with copyright this Public Domain Day

"The issue highlighted by Public Domain Day is not that intellectual property is evil but that aspects of it – especially copyright – have been monopolised and weaponised by corporate interests and that legislators have been supine in the face of their lobbying. Authors and inventors need protection against being ripped off. It’s obviously important that clever people are rewarded for their creativity and the patent system does that quite well. But if a patent only lasts for 20 years, why on earth should copyright last for life plus 70 years for a novel? You only have to ask the question to realise that the founders of the American republic at least got that one right. Happy new year."

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Trademark and copyright considerations for NFTs; Reuters, May 2, 2022

 Sharon Urias, Reuters ; Trademark and copyright considerations for NFTs

"NFTs are mostly used to verify ownership of digital goods. An easy way to understand NFTs is to think of them as unalterable certificates of authenticity for digital goods. For example, if someone purchases a piece of digital art, the NFT acts to validate and verify ownership and authenticity of the artwork. In the "real world," the closest analogy is an autographed original painting that is authenticated by the artist's signature or a certificate of authenticity issued by a reputable source...

One common question asked by clients is whether, when they purchase NFTs, they also obtain the copyright associated with it. The answer is: Not necessarily. It is important to understand what is included in the smart contract that confers the purchaser's rights to the digital asset. Similar to the purchase of a physical painting in our analogy above, although the purchaser has acquired the right to display the work, and to resell it, ownership of the copyright is not automatically conveyed.

The artist owns the copyright unless the author assigns it to the purchaser...

NFTs present interesting and novel questions for trademarks as well...

One of the questions to be resolved is whether traditional trademark legal doctrines, such as the first-sale doctrine, protects a seller, such as StockX, or whether the NFTs are new, distinct products that seek to capitalize on the trademark owners' marks...

It is always challenging for the law to keep pace with the expansion and development of new technologies and innovations. It is no different with NFTs. With the increased growth of NFTs, the need for protection also grows. Although NFTs present many opportunities for businesses, it is essential that NFT sellers clearly delineate in the smart contract what is and is not permitted with respect to intellectual property rights. In that way, both NFT sellers and buyers will be able to protect themselves and best monetize these assets."

Monday, February 8, 2021

Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.; The Nation, February 8, 2021

Dean Baker, February 8, 2021; Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.

Changes in IP have done far more than tax cuts to increase inequality—and US protection of IP could lead to a cold war with China.

"While the Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump tax cuts all gave more money to the rich, policy changes in other areas, especially intellectual property have done far more to redistribute income upward. In the past four decades, a wide array of changes—under both Democratic and Republican presidents—made patent and copyright protection both longer and stronger."

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Why Patents and Copyrights Matter; Ayn Rand Institute, Janaury 15, 2020

[47 min. Video] Elan Journo, Ayn Rand Institute; Why Patents and Copyrights Matter

"Why do patents and copyrights matter? What do they protect? What to make of the objections against them? For instance: that no one is really hurt by violations of copyrights or patents; or that these rights are obstacles to progress and innovation; or that they’re an unfair, government-granted privilege or favor?   

To explore these issues, I talked to Professor Adam Mossoff, who teaches law at George Mason University. Mossoff is an expert on intellectual property law and policy, who has published extensively in academic journals and popular outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Politico, among many others. He has testified several times before the Senate and the House of Representatives."

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Copyright vs. Conscience: Lawyering Up Isn’t Always the Right Move; PetaPixel, August 21, 2018

Blair Bunting, PetaPixel; Copyright vs. Conscience: Lawyering Up Isn’t Always the Right Move

"You read stories about photographers going after copyright abuse all the time, and it’s nearly always justified. In this case, I hope you can agree with me that seeking monetary compensation through legal recourse was not the right move. Sometimes you have to step back and remember that this may be a business, but it’s a business that relies on people. Once in a while, you have to remember that everyone featured in a photograph is a human, and as such all deserve compassion.

Rest in peace, Old Man."

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle; Ars Technica, 2/11/17

David Kravets, Ars Technica; 

Oracle refuses to accept pro-Google “fair use” verdict in API battle


"Google successfully made its case to a jury last year that its use of Java APIs in Android was "fair use." A San Francisco federal jury rejected Oracle's claim that the mobile system infringed Oracle's copyrights.
But Oracle isn't backing down. Late Friday, the company appealed the high-profile verdict to a federal appeals court."

Thursday, January 28, 2016

With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company; New York Times, 1/27/16

Mike McPhate, New York Times; With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company:
"Corbis, the photography archive owned by Bill Gates that includes some of the most famous pictures ever made, has sold its image and licensing division to a Chinese company.
The sale gives the new owner, Visual China Group, control over photographs of immense cultural and commercial value — Marilyn Monroe on a subway grate, Rosa Parks on a bus, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock and Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.
But it has been the transfer of images from the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, an event that China’s Communist Party has aggressively blotted out of public view ever since, that has perhaps raised the most alarm."