45 Years Ago Today, a New US Copyright Act Became the Law of the Land — On October 19, 1976, US President Gerald Ford signed into law a general revision of the copyright laws which remain in effect today. Catie Rowland writes, “The new Copyright Act was the fourth general revision of copyright law since the original Act of 1790. It expanded the scope of the existing statute to start to address the (then) modern age, building upon and revising the immediately preceding Copyright Act of 1909, which had been adopted after the invention of the phonograph and other 19th century developments but before the spread of radio and the accelerated invention of copyright-sensitive tools in the 20th century (including broadcast and cable television, software and the like).”
Facebook agrees to compensate French newspapers for content — “Facebook said the deal with Alliance de la presse d’Information générale, which represents papers across France, will allow users to ‘continue to freely share news within their communities, while ensuring the protections of neighboring rights of our publishing partners.’ The company said it had been working with the Alliance since October 2019, when France introduced a copyright law known as ‘neighbouring rights’ that aimed to allow publishers to be compensated for use of their content by tech giants.”
Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show — According to a new investigative report from Reuters, “A trove of internal Amazon documents reveals how the e-commerce giant ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoff goods and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India – practices it has denied engaging in. And at least two top Amazon executives reviewed the strategy.”
How the Kodak Brownie Changed Privacy Rights Forever — Writing for Petapixel, Matt Williams takes a look at the technology at the heart of a dispute which eventually led to the state of New York passing the nation’s first law recognizing a right to control the use of one’s name and likeness in 1903.
YouTube Rippers Oppose RIAA’s Worldwide ‘Blocking’ Injunction & Massive Damages — Torrentfreak’s Ernesto Van der Sal reports on the latest in a lawsuit brought by record labels against the operator of streamripping sites. Previously, the judge in the case issued a default judgment order against the operator; the operator is now challenging the remedies sought by the labels.