Creative community mourns the passing of entertainment lawyer Jay Rosenthal — Rosenthal was most recently a partner at the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp and previously served as general counsel at the National Music Publishers Association. More remembrances here.
Argument analysis: Justices pillage state arguments for sovereign immunity for copyright infringement — This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Allen v. Cooper, to determine whether Congress validly allowed states to be sued for copyright infringement. SCOTUSBlog takes a look at how they went. And check out Adam Mossoff’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the case, Stop the States’ Copyright Plunder.
Purged: How a failed economic theory still rules the digital music marketplace — Remember “the long tail”? It didn’t hold up. “There wasn’t any volume in the ‘Long Tail’ and nothing had really changed – except for the worst. The actual sales data showed an even greater concentration of sales in the ‘Fat Head.'”
‘Appropriation Art’ or ‘Revenge Porn’? The Subject of a Richard Prince Instagram Portrait Slams the Artist’s Use of Her Image — Perennial copyright defendant Prince is back in the news. Naomi Rea of Artnet News reports, “An exhibition of Richard Prince’s portraits at Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art has renewed controversy over the artist’s use of appropriation after the subject of one of his latest Instagram works spoke out against the appearance of her image in the show without her consent.”
House Judiciary Committee Report on H.R. 2426, the Copyright Alternatives in Small Claims Enforcement Act of 2019 — The Committee report for the CASE Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House last month 410-6, is a great resource for understanding the bill. Along with a summary and section-by-section analysis of the bill, it provides general background, constitutional considerations (including the Copyright Clause, the Appointments Clause, Article III and Seventh Amendment rights, and procedural due process), and intended operation of the Act.