Publishers Win Preliminary Injunction Against Maryland Law that Requires Licensing Digital Works to Libraries — “While the State argued that leaving the law in place would serve the public interest by expanding access to e-books, AAP claimed, and the court ultimately agreed, that ‘digital lending in public libraries, including Maryland public libraries, was alive and well before the Maryland Act took effect,’ with a reported 31% increase in customer access to digital materials in FY 2020. AAP also argued that it is only through the protection of copyright that such works can be created and distributed at all, and that the law would undermine the Copyright Act’s incentive in this regard.”
US Copyright Office refuses to register AI-generated work, finding that “human authorship is a prerequisite to copyright protection” — Eleonara Rosati discusses a recent decision from the US Copyright Review Board denying copyright registration of a work claimed to be “autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine.†On a second request for reconsideration of the refusal, the Review Board reiterated that “human authorship is a prerequisite to copyright protection in the United States and that the Work therefore cannot be registered.â€
US Govt Identifies Top Pirate Sites and Other ‘Notorious Markets’ — “The US Government has published its annual list of problematic piracy websites and other ‘notorious markets.’ This year’s overview includes usual suspects such as The Pirate Bay, FMovies, and Rapidgator, but hosting companies and an advertising service are mentioned as well. The USTR hopes that by highlighting the threats, platform operators or foreign authorities will take action.”
Apple defeats copyright lawsuit over racially diverse emoji — Reuters’ Blake Brittain reports, “Cub Club said Parrott discussed a potential partnership with Apple representatives in 2014, and that Apple created its own set of multiracial emoji after declining to work with her. It said Apple’s emoji infringed its copyrights and trademark rights, arguing they copied iDiversicons’ five skin tones and other features.”
The Great Gapsby? How modern editions of classics lost the plot — “Experts are warning that the freedom for anyone to reproduce or reimagine books once they are out of copyright is corrupting classic texts – all for the sake of making a quick buck. The Great Gatsby of 1925 is the quintessential novel of the hedonistic jazz age, the story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. It entered the public domain on 1 January 2021, after 95 years of copyright protection.”