United States Copyright Office Annual Report 2020 [PDF] — The Office published its annual report this week, covering a year marked by a global pandemic and leadership changes within the Office itself. Despite these significant challenges, the Office managed to continue its registration, recordation, and statutory licensing operations apace while also marking substantial accomplishments in its legal and policy work.
The One Saving Grace of Google v. Oracle Might be Its Limited Applicability — More analysis of last week’s Supreme Court decision addressing fair use and programming code. Kevin Madigan writes, “The decision presents a troubling misapplication of the fair use factors and a greater misunderstanding of the goals of the copyright system, but some relief comes in the Court’s explanation that its determination is limited in scope to the specific code at issue in the case and does not ‘overturn or modify its earlier cases involving fair use.'”
The Dawn of a New Era for Copyright Online — Abigail Slater and Brad Watts discuss the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020, passed at the end of 2020. The law aligns the criminal penalties for unauthorized commercial scale streaming of copyrighted with those of unlawful reproduction and addresses the shift away from downloads toward streaming for enjoying music, movies, and other copyrighted works.
Salt Bae Faces Allegations of Copyright Infringement in Latest Legal Battle — An artist alleges the meme-ified celebrity restaurateur commissioned artwork for murals in his restaurants but then, without permission, reproduced the artwork further on branding and merchandise. Kudos to the Eater for including a copy of the complaint with this article.