Stolen Artwork Is All Over Amazon — And Creators Want The Company To Do Something About It — BuzzFeedNews reports, quoting one creator as saying, “The laws are there. They should be benefiting people exactly like me — people who make their own work. … But instead, these companies don’t value what they’re selling and are making it impossible for small businesses, like mine, to stay in our lane.â€
Music Modernization Act: Labels and Publishers Back NMPA’s Bid to Run New Mechanical Rights Society — “The NMPA, in tandem with the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) and the Songwriters of North America (SONA) says it is being supported in its bid by the ‘overwhelming majority of copyright holders who together represent the majority of musical works in the US’.”
Minot on the Role of Blackstone in the 18th Century — This well-researched student note suggests that the conventional wisdom about Blackstone’s role as “oracle of the law” during the Founding Era is not quite accurate.
GTA V Cheat Maker Has to Pay $150,000 in Copyright Damages — According to the complaint, the defendant infringed Take-Two’s copyright in two ways: by continuing to play the game after breaching a condition of the license requiring licensees not to cheat (among other conditions), and by preparing an unauthorized derivative work of the game.
Allen v. Cooper — The plaintiff in a case involving copyright and sovereign immunity has asked the Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision holding that Congress did not validly abrogate state sovereign immunity when it passed the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act in 1990. Yesterday, the petition found support from amici, including former Register of Copyrights Ralph Oman, the RIAA, and a group of authors and scholars which include David Nimmer.