Profit, Not Ideology, Motivates Cyberlockers that Facilitate Copyright Infringement — “A vigorous debate has developed in recent years over numerous aspects of copyright protection. There can be little doubt, however, that cyberlockers are profitably inducing copyright infringement on a massive scale. The discussion should thus not be over whether infringement is occurring, but what measures legitimate businesses can take to deter and stop it.”
Creation is Not Its Own Reward: Making Copyright Work for Authors and Performers — Just a few days left to register for this symposium at Columbia Law School in NYC on October 10. The all day event features an impressive lineup of panelists, ending with a discussion featuring US Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante and the USPTO’s Shira Perlmutter.
Music consumption helps drive UK technology sales by £11bn — “A report published by the music industry body BPI suggests music has been a key influence in the demand for smartphones and tablets. The independent study calculates that every 1% increase in demand for music in the UK translates to a 1.4% lift in sales of smartphones, while for tablets the rise is 2.2%.”
Happy Together: Infringement as Conversion — Devlin Hartline takes a closer look at the conversion claim in the recent court opinion finding that owners of sound recordings made before 1972 (the year federal copyright law began securing copyright in sound recordings) have the exclusive right to publicly perform works. Be sure to catch the follow up, Further Thoughts on Infringement as Conversion, for a discussion about the impact (or lack thereof) of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dowling v United States on the analysis.
Veteran Location Manager S. Todd Christensen — Fascinating article on a key but not very well-known role in the making of a film. “First, Christensen reads and breaks down the script, looking at every single location and what it might require. His political skills are necessary as the location manager acts as a go-between, translator and mediator to get things done. They must secure permits and permissions, staff based upon the location’s particulars (this can be hiring anyone from a snake wrangler to a structural engineer), and then manage that location throughout production, making sure it’s left the way it was found.”
Meet Washington Times’ Andrew Harnik, the man behind the camera and photos on your front page — The political and sports photographer talks about his career in this video interview. “It takes years of dedication to perfect this craft.”
When Russians thought the Internet would make them free — “Two decades later and it’s hard to find the traces of our belief in the Russian Internet. The only thing we inherited from the nineties and the Samizdat are the torrents and e-libraries. Copyright is dead: almost any film and any book can be downloaded for free after a five minute search. The film distributors have to make arrangements with pirates about ‘two week vacancies’ after theatre premieres, but the small publishers are just bankrupt. I’m not sure it’s the great result we dreamt in early years of the Internet.”