Fair Use Decision Clarifies Transformative Use Analysis — The Second Circuit this week published a significant fair use decision in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith. As Copyright Alliance’s Kevin Madigan explains here, “the court seeks to mitigate an overreliance on broad notions of transformativeness in fair use jurisprudence by proposing a more rational dividing line when evaluating whether a work is sufficiently transformative or simply derivative.”
Pirate Streaming Site Revenue Down, Despite Audience Growth & Innovation — Andy Maxwell at Torrentfreak reports on an interesting new report from Singapore cybersecurity firm Group-IB which has found that in recent years, audiences and revenues for legal streaming services have grown (spurred perhaps by the frequent entrance of new services) while piracy streaming sites have seen revenues fall, a result of coordinated enforcement efforts.
Judge Denies ROSS’s Motion to Dismiss Thomson Reuters’ Copyright Lawsuit — Thomson Reuters, which operates legal research platform Westlaw, alleges that ROSS’s AI-powered legal search product infringed on its copyrights when it engaged in bulk download of Westlaw materials to develop its product. This week, a judge found the pleadings sufficient for the lawsuit to proceed.
Mountain Project Replies to Open Beta Copyright Issues — Climbing magazine Gripped reports on the latest development in an interesting dispute between user-generated content climbing database Mountain Project and an app developer using Mountain Project data to create public APIs for others to use. Among questions raised by the dispute is when, as Mountain Project is doing here, the operator of a UGC site can enforce the rights of its users as a licensee.
Obituary: Beverly Cleary — “Beloved, award-winning children’s author Beverly Cleary, the self-described ‘Girl from Yamhill,’ whose stories featuring such endearing and enduring characters as Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins facing real-life issues with humor and aplomb elevated her to iconic status, died March 25 in Carmel, Calif. She was 104.”