Rep. Hakeem Jeffries Fights for Creators Rights, Brooklyn Hip-Hop and Recognition for Female Rappers — A great profile from Rob Levine. Among other things, the New York Representative introduced the CASE Act, which create a streamlined “small claims” process for copyright owners to pursue infringement claims.
Online Piracy Is More Popular Than Ever, Research Suggests — “According to MUSO co-founder and CEO Andy Chatterley, these data show that piracy remains a sizable threat, something we also hinted at in the recent past. ‘There is a belief that the rise in popularity of on-demand services – such as Netflix and Spotify – have solved piracy, but that theory simply doesn’t stack up. Our data suggest that piracy is more popular than ever,’ Chatterley says.”
Blurred Lines Verdict Affirmed – How Bad is It? — This week, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a jury verdict against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, finding they infringed Marvin Gaye’s classic “Got to Give it Up” when they created their 2013 hit “Blurred Lines.” Law professor Michael Risch takes a look at the decision.
French Cour de cassation Confirms Broad Interpretation of Making Available/Communicating to the Public as applied to P2P Software — “While peer-to-peer cases of copyright infringement tend to focus on the infringement of the protected works and the rights that are implicated therein (reproduction, making available) as well as assigning legal liability for such acts, there is, at times, another aspect of such cases, namely that which relates to the software that is used for such purposes. French law provides for a distinct offense in this regard under Section L.335-2-1 of the Intellectual Property Code.”
Can One Company Catalog Every Record Ever Made? — “Launched in 2000 by Portland, Oregon-based programmer and DJ Kevin Lewandowski, the site’s original intent was to help folks track and share information about their record collections. But as word spread among music lovers and the site’s user base grew, Discogs evolved into a crowd-sourced hub to find information about the discographies of artists from around the world. It may not get deep into the historical details of the recording sessions, but there’s no better place to track, for example, the 674 different versions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or the 280 pressings of the first Velvet Underground album that are known to exist.”