By , December 07, 2018.

U.S. Instrument of Accession to the Berne Convention – An Untold Story — In one sense, the U.S. joins a treaty when the President signs it and the Senate concurs. But in a strictly formal sense, joining a treaty requires depositing the accession instrument with the treaty body—in the case of the Berne Convention, the oldest and most widely adopted copyright treaty, that meant physically taking a signed document on a plane to Switzerland. Michael Remington, who carried the actual document, recounts the previously untold story.

Four Executives of the Year Will Be Honored at Billboard’s Women in Music Event — Billboard honored Danielle Aguirre, executive vp/general counsel for the National Music Publishers Association; Dina LaPolt, founder/owner of LaPolt Law, who serves as legal counsel to the Songwriters of North America; Jacqueline Charlesworth, of counsel, Covington & Burling; and Susan Genco, co-president, Azoff MSG Entertainment. All four were instrumental in creating and passing the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act.

Quality digital content can’t break through sea of online garbage — Axios‘ Sara Fischer reports on how “Tech platforms have littered the media universe with crap — stolen ideas, pirated video, plagiarized text, manipulated content, and fake news.” Who knew there was a downside to watering down copyright protections?

The fight to save music online — UK Music, a music industry association, has published a handy guide to understanding Article 13 of the proposed EU Copyright Directive. Article 13 clarifies the copyright liability of user-uploaded content platforms, like YouTube, and it has attracted significant attention.

New Documents Show that Facebook has Never Deserved Your Trust — The EFF examines the documents, which allege troubling instances of the social media platform undermining user privacy and playing hardball with competitors. According to CNN, the documents were obtained and published by a UK parliamentary committee, one of those pesky “Governments of the Industrial World.”