Monthly Archives: September 2010

Supreme Court Watches Watches

Terry Hart • September 29, 2010 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in Costco v. Omega on November 8, 2010.1 The issue before the court is a rather narrow one – and probably boring to a good deal of the public – but the stakes are high, and a wide variety of interests are keeping a close eye [...]

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Can’t Believe It’s Already Autumn

Terry Hart • September 26, 2010 • Posted in Site • Comments closed

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been nearly two months since I began this blog! Today’s post will be brief. I want to welcome all the new readers and subscribers who have found this site over the last few weeks. I hope to continue to provide the same quality of content that brought you here in [...]

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Artistic Expression, the First Amendment, and Copyright

Terry Hart • September 24, 2010 • Posted in General • Comments closed

The First Amendment is perhaps the most famous part of the Constitution. Defending People’s blogger Mark Bennett ran a tally of how many times each article and amendment (of the ten included in the Bill of Rights) in the Constitution was specifically mentioned in the week leading up to Constitution Day; the First Amendment was [...]

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Creative vs. Consumptive Infringement

Terry Hart • September 22, 2010 • Posted in General • Comments closed

I’d like to take a step back from discussions about copyright specifics to make a general observation. We can distinguish between two types of copyright infringement – let’s call them “consumptive” infringement and “creative” infringement. “Consumptive” infringement includes what is generally called “piracy.”1 This is the type of file-sharing that has flourished on the internet, whether [...]

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ACTA: Thought for FUD, wrap up

Terry Hart • September 20, 2010 • Posted in International copyright • Comments closed

Four weeks ago, I began a walk through the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a plurilateral trade agreement currently in negotiations that has sparked a great deal of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) online. Using the official draft text of the agreement released last April, I laid out each provision of the ACTA and compared it [...]

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Copyright and the Constitution

Terry Hart • September 17, 2010 • Posted in Copyright history • Comments closed

Happy Constitution Day! Today marks the very date – 223 years ago – the US Constitution was ratified. Since 2004, this date has officially been known as Constitution Day, and has been set aside to encourage education about the framework of law that serves as the foundation for US government.1 US copyright (and patent) law [...]

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Marybeth Peters to Retire as Register of Copyrights

Terry Hart • September 15, 2010 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

On September 13, 2010, the Library of Congress released the following: Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters has announced her intention to retire effective December 31, 2010. Ms. Peters has served as Register of Copyrights since August 7, 1994, a tenure longer than any other Register with the exception of Thorvald Solberg, the first Register. Her [...]

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Righthaven, Wronghaven

Terry Hart • September 13, 2010 • Posted in General • Comments closed

H/T to Eric E. Johnson at Blog Law Blog for providing in-depth coverage of the Righthaven lawsuits and Jonathan Bailey at PlagiarismToday for his thoughts on this subject. Righthaven continues to file new lawsuits, seemingly unabated, adding seven new complaints to the dockets last week. That brings the total number of lawsuits up to 124 [...]

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ACTA: Thought for FUD, Part 4

Terry Hart • September 9, 2010 • Posted in International copyright • Comments closed

The general consensus is that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)1 is on track to be completed by the end of this year. Once completed, the treaty would still need to be implemented by each party through its own legislative process – a process that could easily take several years. If the past is any indication, [...]

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Is Copyright Infringement Theft?

Terry Hart • September 7, 2010 • Posted in Copyright Criticism • Comments closed

Is copyright infringement theft? This question pops up often in online discussions, and nearly always sparks heated debate. You can see a recent example in the comments section of Obama administration: ‘Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft’ on Ars Technica. Many, many other examples abound online. But I’m not going to answer that question today. The [...]

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