The news this week has been dominated by discussions of the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, that had congressional hearings this week. I really liked the following discussions of SOPA: Why I Oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/E-PARASITES Act Eric Goldman has a great summary of the bill and its problems. Well recommended [...]
Category Archives: DMCA
SOPA and other @Cyberlaw Links
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TWiL 136 and @cyberlaw Links
I was pleased to be asked back on This Week in Law, Episode 136. Denise Howell, Jay Monahan of Zynga.com, and Matt Macari of The Verge were the other panelists. It was a lot of fun! Thanks again, Denise, for having me back. Also, for those who may be interested, here is the link [...]
Also posted in Copyright, First Sale Doctrine, Musings, Speaking, Video Leave a comment
Court awards $214 Million for DMCA Circumvention
The recent decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California in the Echostar Satellite LLC v. Viewtech case, Civil Case No. 07cv1273 BEN (WVG), 2011 WL 1522409 (S.D.Cal.), is interesting mainly for the amount of statutory damages awarded. The defendants had been manufacturing receivers that circumvented the copy protection in [...]
Also posted in Cases, Copyright 2 Comments
Is Copyright law not working for the RIAA?
In the talk I gave on Monday for IICLE on the Viacom v. Google case, one question I posed was how hypothetically to counsel clients in light of the decision and before the appeal is briefed. I posed two hypotheticals: one being a service provider like YouTube, and the other being a content provider. For [...]
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Register for IICLE webcast – 8/23/2010 – Viacom v. Google
I’ll be discussing the recent Viacom v. Google decision on Monday, August 23, 2010 on a webcast for IICLE, the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education. To register for the webcast, click here. The webcast will be from 12:00 to 1:00 CST, and is accredited for one hour of CLE in Illinois. Many thanks to [...]
Also posted in Cases, Speaking 3 Comments
Slides from DMCA presentation – and Thanks!
I’ve been meaning to put these up for a while, here are the slides from the presentation I gave to the Chicago Bar Association’s seminar on website operator liability on May 15, 2009. My presentation focused on the DMCA and discussed four recent cases. thompson-presentation-2009-05-15-10-years-of-the-dmca I’d also like to thank those who submitted pictures for [...]
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10 years of the DMCA
It’s been 10 years today since President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law. Wired has put together a nice retrospective, available here. They call it a misunderstood law that created the Internet commerce as we know it today. Public Knowledge’s take on the act is here. David Robinson at Freedom To Tinker [...]
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McCain campaign finding unsympathetic ear from YouTube
The McCain campaign’s efforts to have YouTube deal with DMCA takedown notices directed to its commercials uploaded to the video sharing site differently from other content owners have been rebuffed. Recent commercials have featured clips taken from CBS News and other news sources, which the campaign argues is a fair use of the material. Rather [...]
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Guest on Lawyer 2 Lawyer Podcast: “Privacy and Piracy: Viacom v. YouTube”
I was honored to be asked to participate on the excellent Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast on the topic of the recent stipulation entered into between Viacom and YouTube (Google) over user data that the Judge in that case ordered to be turned over to Viacom. My fellow guest was Lauren Gelman, the Executive Director of [...]
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YouTomb: A Study of Copyright Infringement on YouTube
Be sure to check out YouTomb, a research project of MIT Free Culture. It monitors YouTube for videos that are taken down pursuant to DMCA takedown notices. The site shows a screenshot of the video and information about the takedown. You can sort by the entity providing the notice, for example you can see all [...]
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