Court Confirms the Obvious: Aiding and Abetting Criminal Copyright Infringement Is a Crime — Devlin Hartline has a great analysis of the recent decision to not dismiss criminal charges against the owner and operator of alleged pirate site Kickass Torrents, Artem Vaulin. Among other things, Vaulin argued that the Copyright Act contains no criminal provisions for secondary liability. Hartline explains why the court rejected that argument.
Don’t be bound by Binded.com — Carolyn Wright has some important words of caution about a new service from Binded that promises a fast and easy way to register copyrights in images.
The Invisible Artists Behind Your Favorite Comics — Asher Elbein of the Atlantic takes a look at some of the “behind the scenes” artists involved in creating comic books: colorists and letterers. Elbein writes, “Colorists are the cinematographers of graphic narrative, laying hues over art to control mood and style; letterers are the sound designers, crafting fonts, effects, and speech balloons to bring noise to a silent medium.”
Discogs Curbing Sale Of Unofficial Releases — Besides operating an impressively thorough database of music albums and releases, Discogs also runs an online marketplace to buy and sell records. So it’s great to see it continue to focus efforts and resources on ensuring that marketplace is operated responsibly and doesn’t facilitate the trade of infringing and bootleg recordings.
Some content about content — “Soon, everybody began calling things content. Copywriters became known as ‘content specialists,’ news websites became known as ‘content providers,’ and libraries became known as ‘shrines to content.’ It was the greatest societal shift since Johannes Gutenberg invented the content machine in 1440.”