By , January 25, 2019.

Copyright Office Modernization Webinar Series Kicks Off — If you register copyrights and are interested in the US Copyright Office’s efforts to modernize its systems, you’ll want to check out the first in a series of webinars that the Office is planning on holding to provide updates on its ongoing efforts. The fun begins next Thursday, January 31, at 12pmET.

Digital Media is a Wasteland — Writer John DeVore pens this series of eminently quotable observations on the last two decades of online media. Example: “Opinion is easy to produce and goes stale quick, like a donut… There is nothing wrong with the opinion business, but I just don’t think its wise for America to transform into an opinion-based economy. Facts are fussy. It takes work to dig them up and crack them open. Skill. Journalism isn’t cheap. But a fact is valuable. For instance: ‘a hurricane is coming’ is an important fact to know. ‘There is tainted lettuce at the grocery store’ is another.”

TVEyes Will No Longer Carry Fox News in Negotiated End to Big Copyright Fight — At one time, there was concern that the news clipping service would prevail on its fair use defense, broadening the doctrine even further beyond its original purpose of complementing the goals of copyright, but last year the Second Circuit decisively concluded the 24/7 copying and commercial redistribution of Fox News’ copyrighted content was not fair use, and after an unsuccessful attempt at Supreme Court review, the two parties have reached a settlement.

Writer Associations Condemn Unauthorized Digital Scanning and Lending — The Writers’ Union of Canada has joined its counterparts in the US and UK in a campaign against the Internet Archive’s efforts to lend digital copies of books it has scanned regardless of copyright status. The legal basis for such controlled digital lending suffered a significant blow after last month’s Second Circuit decision in Capitol Records v ReDigi rejected applying fair use to permit the transfer of digital files of copyrighted works.

Netflix Joins the Motion Picture Association of America — It was announced this week that the streaming service will become a part of the 97-year-old trade association for film studios. As Variety reports here, the service also recently dropped ties with the Internet Association, a trade association “which represents many tech giants like Google, Amazon, Snap and Facebook.”