New CREATe Copyright History Resources: Two Working Papers and Further Vatican Sources by Jane Ginsburg for ‘Primary Sources on Copyright 1450-1900’ — Some fantastic new resources for copyright history buffs.
Ninth Circuit Reverses Opinion on Picasso Copyright Case That Said French Law Was Not Enforceable in U.S. Under ‘Fair Use’ — Interesting decision involving enforcement of foreign judgments arising out of copyright law. Here, the Ninth Circuit held that enforcement of a French judgment would not be repugnant to US law, reversing the district court’s holding that the infringement at issue would be permitted by fair use in the US. The Ninth Circuit instead found the use commercial and non-transformative.
Standing Up for Copyright — “Publishers deeply value libraries and recognize the important role they play in promoting both literacy and authors. Importantly, libraries pay authors and publishers when they purchase e-books for digital lending. So Internet Archive is not filling some void in the library system; it is directly competing with the library system to the detriment of the publishers and authors who created the very content that is so critical for the public to access.”
New Copyright Office Report Correctly Concludes News Publishers Enjoy Copyright Protections Similar to the EU, Acknowledges Bargaining Power Disparities as Major Obstacle for Publishers in Protecting News Content Online — From the News Media Alliance: “While the report recognizes that problems in the digital marketplace are largely competition-based, and therefore outside the Copyright Office’s remit, it highlights the [Journalism Competition & Preservation Act] as a potential non-copyright solution to the problem. The report also includes an extended fair use discussion, balancing both sides of the argument, and acknowledging that not all uses of news content by aggregators are likely to be fair use.”
Looking for Copyright Records in Old Florida — If you thought, like Zvi Rosen, that there were zero copyrights registered in Florida prior to 1870, then this post from Zvi about his search to corroborate that suspicion will delight and surprise you.