The Digital Piracy Dilemma — Researchers Michael D. Smith and Brett Danaher discuss two recent papers on digital piracy. “Piracy, the papers suggest, can actually boost sales of some digital products by increasing word-of-mouth and overall market awareness. This has led some industry observers to argue that efforts by firms and governments to combat digital piracy may be wasted. We disagree with that assessment.”
Counting Copyright Registrations Before 1870 — IP scholar and copyright historian Zvi Rosen takes a closer look at research on copyright registrations that he has undertaken over the past several years and what it might tell us about creativity in the United States and the effect of changes in copyright law.
MLC Week October 26 – 30: Everything You Need to Know about The MLC — Next week, The Mechanical Licensing Collective is holding a series of virtual events to talk about changes to how digital music services license music and what musicians need to know in order to get the royalties their work generates.
U.S. Copyright Office Issues Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Eighth Triennial Proceeding Under Section 1201 — Every three years, the US Copyright Office recommends temporary exemptions to allow circumvention of technological protection measures for noninfringing uses, which includes things like cellphone unlocking, repair of software-embedded devices, and using movie clips in classrooms. The latest rulemaking round kicked off this month. For more on section 1201 and the rulemaking process in general, see the US Copyright Office’s dedicated section 1201 page.