It’s Time for Congress to Modernize the United States Copyright Office — Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Tillis writes that his Subcommittee “will convene a hearing later this month to provide oversight and support of the Copyright Office [and] will also announce a bipartisan, bicameral legislative effort to update the Copyright Office.” He further says, “This effort will involve stakeholders from across the copyright community and general public, and it is my hope that our work throughout the fall will produce a bill by the end of this year that provides the Copyright Office with the appropriate structural autonomy and necessary resources it needs to support the America’s creators in the 21st century.”
Do Search Engines Influence Media Piracy? Evidence from a Randomized Field Study [PDF] — “Our data show that reducing the prominence of infringing links in search results causes users who otherwise would have consumed infringing content to switch their consumption to paid legal content, and that these results hold even among users whose initial search queries express an explicit preference for infringing content. This result suggests that even small changes in the cost of discovering pirated content can have a relatively large impact on user behavior.”
Rome Court finds videosharing platform directly liable for content uploaded by users — “A few days ago, the Rome Court of First Instance (Tribunale di Roma) issued what might be one of the first, if not the first decision in Europe, which has found a hosting provider – other than piracy-focused ones like The Pirate Bay – directly liable for content uploaded by users of the platform.”
Major CASE Act Copyright Legislation Passed by Senate Judiciary Committee — “The CASE Act, a major piece of legislation that would introduce a small claims court for copyright infringement cases, has officially been passed by Senate Judiciary Committee, clearing the way for a full vote on the Senate floor.”