Thanks for reading The Copyright Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
Events
Webinar 69 – Becoming a Copyright Specialist Part IV: A NewHope (Copyright Literacy)
11:00 (UK time), April 19th
“All of us have experienced that feeling that we’re doomed when we first start learning about copyright. And if you asked us about it in March 2020, you’d get a response as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror. Sometimes it seems like the support of our colleagues is our only hope. And across the years, a range of colleagues have shared their stories of becoming more powerful than you can possibly imagine in the realm of copyright.
Megan Kilvington [York St John University], Liesl Rowe [Leeds Beckett University] and Eugen Stoica [University of Edinburgh] will be sharing their stories in our next webinar.”
Law
EU copyright law roundup – first trimester of 2024 (Kluwer Copyright Blog, 10 April)
“Welcome to the first trimester of the 2024 roundup of EU copyright law (though with a slight delay)! In this edition, we update you on what has happened between January and March 2024 in EU copyright law. Interestingly enough, in this issue you will find quite a bit of UK policy reports… You can read the previous roundups here.”
SCCR/45
Schedule and Information (April 15 - 19)
SCCR 45 Blog Day 2: Broadcast treaty now? (IPA, 16 April)
“SCCR 45 Chair, Adriana Moscoso, then opened the agenda items on Exceptions and Limitations.
The first item was a presentation by the secretariat of the Virtual Panel on Cross Border uses in the Educational and Research Sectors which took place on Friday 15 March.”
Research
Is ChatGPT corrupting peer review? Telltale words hint at AI use (Nature, 10 April)
“The authors of the study1… [suggest] that up to 17% of the peer-review reports have been substantially modified by chatbots — although it’s unclear whether researchers used the tools to construct reviews from scratch or just to edit and improve written drafts…
the analysis found that the frequency of certain positive adjectives, such as ‘commendable’, ‘innovative’, ‘meticulous’, ‘intricate’, ‘notable’ and ‘versatile’, had increased significantly since the chatbot’s use became mainstream. The study flagged the 100 most disproportionately used adjectives.”
New policy paper on access to publicly funded research (Communia, 11 April)
“Today, COMMUNIA is releasing Policy Paper #17 on access to publicly funded research (also available as a PDF file), in which we propose a targeted intervention in European copyright law to improve access to publicly funded research:
We recommend a three-tiered approach to open publicly funded research outputs to the public, immediately upon publication, where a secondary publication obligation co-exists with a secondary publication right. We consider that an obligation by the funding recipients to republish is a more consequential approach to protect the public interest, as it makes Open Access (OA) mandatory, ultimately ensuring that publicly funded research outputs are republished in OA repositories. A right is, however, necessary to ensure that the authors, and subsequently the funding recipients, retain the rights necessary to comply with the obligation. A right also provides a legal framework for the dissemination in OA repositories of publicly funded research outputs published before the entry into force of a secondary publication obligation.”
The dean who came to visit – and added dozens of authors without their knowledge (Retraction Watch, 10 April)
“At least 24 staff at the university have been unwittingly added to the list of authors on the dean’s papers, Nor said, citing an internal survey documenting the extent of the issue that faculty have not made available despite several requests.”
Harvard's Non-Tenured Academic Workers Form Union To Improve Pay, Job Security, and Parental Rights (University Herald, 9 April)
“In a historic move, nontenure track employees at Harvard University have voted to unionize, marking a significant milestone in the university's labor history. This newly formed collective bargaining unit represents a diverse group of workers, including lecturers, researchers, engineers, postdoctoral research fellows, and teaching assistants.”
Publishing
Bargaining in the shadow of the press publishers’ right: A new working paper (CREATe, 10 April)
“The CDSM Directive provides little to no guidance on how the licensing negotiations between press publishers and platforms should proceed…
The paper we are publishing today, analyses those negotiation frameworks through the lens of the literature on ‘bargaining in the shadow of the law’ to draw wider lessons on the relationship between statutory law and private bargaining. It identifies four main approaches to the operationalisation of the press publishers’ right in the EU: 1) competition law commitments offered by Google and approved by the French Competition Authority (AdLC); 2) collective management and licensing with extended effect in Denmark; 3) final offer arbitration and the key role played by a regulator in Italy; 4) Extended News Previews (ENP) program established by Google; and constructs those frameworks alongside the Australian News Media Bargaining Code, a mandatory bargaining scheme not grounded in an IP right.”
clarkesworld @clarkesworld 1:13 AM · Apr 11, 2024
“I've been monitoring the rebuilding subscriptions post-Amazon for the magazines that have been impacted. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that survival depends on us being more shameless. So... If you like what we do, maybe it's time to subscribe: [Subscribe to Clarkesworld Magazine]
The unexpected upside of global monopoly capitalism (Cory Doctorow, 11 April)
“Here’s a silver lining to global monopoly capitalism: it means we’re all fighting the same enemy, who is using the same tactics everywhere. The same coordination tools that allow corporations to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.”
Why I Went on Rogan With Pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hanco*ck (Sapiens, 16 April)
“Still, I’m appearing because Rogan’s podcast draws an audience in the tens of millions. If scholars want to curb the spread of misinformation, we need to stop just talking among ourselves or to audiences of like-minded people.
But reaching those outside my echo chamber demands more than my archaeological expertise. To approach engagements like the Joe Rogan Experience, I and other scholars must arm ourselves with science communication strategies, which research has shown can debunk misinformation in the current fake news environment. How I present evidence matters as much as what I present.”
100 Years of Simon & Schuster (NY Times podcast, 12 April)
““It was a startup 100 years ago,” Karp says. “It was two guys in their 20s. Richard Simon and Max Schuster. They were just a couple of guys who loved books. And they made a decision that they wanted to read every book they published. … The first book was a crossword puzzle book. It was a monster success. They’d actually raised $50,000 from their friends and family. They didn’t need it. They returned the money. And the company was up and running.””
Simon & Schuster Turns 100 With a New Owner and a Sense of Optimism (NY Times, 10 April)
“Last fall, the publisher was acquired by KKR, a private equity firm, for $1.62 billion. The deal marked the company’s seventh change in ownership in a century, and some in the industry were wary of a private equity firm taking the reins of one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious publishing houses. But KKR has invested in the company, starting new imprints and hiring editors, which has boosted morale and set Simon & Schuster apart at a moment when most publishers are looking for ways to cut costs.”
Simon & Schuster turns 100. Will it stick around for the next 100? (NPR, 10 April)
“Here are some books that would not seem to have much in common - "The Great Gatsby," "How To Win Friends And Influence People," "It Ends With Us." One thing they do have in common is that all were published by Simon & Schuster, which released its first book 100 years ago today.”
More children shun reading in their free time as libraries also fall out of favour, study shows (The Age [Australia], 4 April)
“One-third of secondary school students do not read at all during their free time, while 13 per cent of students in year 4 “never or almost never” borrow books from a library.”
Public Domain
Da Vinci’s Been Dead for 500 Years. Who Gets to Profit from His Work? (NY Times, 10 April)
“At the center of the dispute is Italy’s cultural heritage and landscape code, which was adopted in 2004 and allows cultural institutions, like museums, to request concession fees and payments for the commercial reproduction of cultural properties, like “Vitruvian Man.”…
But last month, the legal battle took a turn when a court in Germany sided with Ravensburger, ruling that the company did not have to pay up and that Italy’s cultural heritage code did not apply beyond its borders. The court said the Italian code broke with European law, which standardizes copyright protections for 70 years after the death of the artist. (Da Vinci has been dead for 505 years.)”
Public domain, where there is life after copyright (CBS, 14 April)
“Which means, when the copyright expires, anyone is free to use and build upon that work. "No fees, no licenses, no tracking down the person who owns it, no permission," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University Law School.”
Preservation
Why are younger generations embracing the retro game revival? (Guardian, 2 April)
“On TikTok, #retrogaming videos have amassed over 6bn views. On YouTube, uploads have increased 1,000-fold. Spotify users are creating 50% more retro-gaming-themed playlists than they were at this time last year, and live streamers are cashing in on the repetitive catchphrases and mechanical movements of NPCs (non-player characters).”
5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030 (Ars Technica, 10 April)
“"The system is currently working just fine, but we know that with each increasing year, risk of data degradation on the floppy disks increases and that at some point there will be a catastrophic failure," Tumlin told ABC7.
Previously, the transportation agency claimed that the ATCS had become harder and more expensive to maintain over time. It has also discussed the challenges in finding workers who know how to use the dated system.”
Media
Corporate Greed Broke Hollywood (Wisecrack [YouTube], 12 April)
“Are Wall Street Bros Ruining Culture? There’s no way to sugar coat it: The world of media and entertainment has been bleak lately. And while it’s easy to blame studios for putting out half-baked superhero movies, we think something way more complicated may be going on and it probably involves the wealthiest people in our society. We’ll explain in this video on How Wall Street Greed Killed Media.”
There’s a lot of good info in the video here on how ‘private equity logic’ has destroyed sustainable media enterprises, seeking the quickest route to massive profits in a way that breaks the system. The capitalist impulse isn’t more diverse media. It’s to corner the market and then sell you the same cheese pizza, forever.
The video also references Megan Greewell’s article ‘The Adults in the Room’ written after Gawker acquired Deadpin, the AV Club and other properties and proceeded to drive away the writers and the readers as it chased higher numbers of casual clicks, then proceeds to more worrying situations with incentives to cut corners, such as hospital take-overs.
My own read, at least for cinema, is that things aren’t so dire though: last year’s Oscar slate is among the strongest in 25 years or so I’ve followed the awards season. The era of superhero dominance seems to be ending, perhaps leaving an opportunity for hungry audiences to seek more diverse films. - Matt
The MPA has big plans to crack down on movie piracy again (Verge, 9 April)
“A report from piracy data analytics company Muso revealed that video piracy websites around the globe received 141 billion visits in 2023, making for a 12 percent increase when compared to 2019. The US and India made up most of these visits. But at the same time, the price to subscribe to a streaming service is higher than ever, and so is the cost of a movie ticket.
The solution to stopping piracy, at least in Rivkin’s eyes, is to prevent users from accessing piracy websites altogether…
If the MPA’s plan sounds familiar, it’s because it has tried this before. It helped hatch the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2012, which would’ve restricted access to websites containing pirated content. However, the bill was dropped after facing heavy criticism over concerns it would violate free speech.”
Anime is bigger for Gen Z than the NFL, says new report (Polygon, 23 Jan)
“Surveying an audience sample of 4,275 Americans ages 18 and up, Polygon found that 42% of interviewees who identified as Gen Z say they watch anime weekly. It’s quite a margin compared to a recent study that found that only 25% of Gen Z participants followed the NFL. The demographic breakdowns are significant, with 25% of millennials, 12% of Gen X, and 3% of boomer participants saying they watch anime weekly.”
O.J. and me: Growing up with the Bills, the murders, and Norm (AVClub, 15 April)
“There was a framed, signed photo of O.J., running roughshod over some New York Jets, with gentle whirls of Sharpie-ed cursive, likely formed by the proud hands of a sociopathic double murderer. Macabre, twisted, its existence in my home was an affront to society and all good taste. What I found touching though was my friend’s sick understanding, of my existence, of the city of Buffalo, of our precarious position in the world of close watchers, of impassioned fans, who care so much, who tie their hopes and identity to the on-field performance of unworldly athletes who we will never know, whose inner lives we couldn’t begin to comprehend.”
Calladita (Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival)
“The Quiet Maid” is also the first European feature film to finance itself by selling NFTs and subsequently win the Steven Soderbergh Foundation Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.”
Taylor Swift’s music returns to TikTok even as label fights over artist compensation (Guardian, 12 April)
“Universal Music, the biggest music company in the world, published a blistering open letter the day before the agreement expired, accusing TikTok of bullying and intimidation, and complaining of “how little TikTok compensates artists and songwriters, despite its massive and growing user base, rapidly rising advertising revenue and increasing reliance on music-based content”.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, called this “a false narrative” and said that UMG had “chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform with well over a billion users that serves as a free promotional and discovery vehicle for their talent”.”
AI
USPTO issues guidance concerning the use of AI tools by parties and practitioners (US Patent & Trademark Office, 10 April)
“As mentioned in our February 6, 2024 guidance to ensure AI is not misused – or left unchecked – in practice before our judicial boards, we are publishing additional guidance in theFederal Register for practitioners and the public to inform them of the important issues that patent and trademark professionals, innovators, and entrepreneurs must navigate while using artificial intelligence (AI) in matters before the USPTO.”
MIT License text becomes viral “sad girl” piano ballad generated by AI (Ars Technica, 9 April)
“On Wednesday, prompt engineer Riley Goodside tweeted an AI-generated song created with the prompt "sad girl with piano performs the text of the MIT License," and it began to circulate widely in the AI community online.
The MIT License is a famous permissive software license created in the late 1980s, frequently used in open source projects. "“
Reese Witherspoon Questions if Careers Like Hers and Jennifer Aniston’s Are “Possible Ever Again” With Streaming (Hollywood Reporter, 13 April)
“Witherspoon also fielded a question about her thoughts on artificial intelligence and its risk to Hollywood, as she responded, “It’s here to stay, so just get used to it. And I think AI is not coming for your job; people who know how to use AI are coming for your job. So learn about it. It should be a tool upon which we lay our own creativity, our own humanity and our own ethics. That’s a whole conversation — for women and people of color and people who are othered sometimes in those developmental spaces really need to get in there … let’s not be scared of it, let’s dive in.””
The Lawsuits That Could Shape the Future of AI and Copyright Law (Wall Street Journal [video], 15 April)
“Artificial intelligence is quickly evolving, but copyright law is still playing catch-up. A lawyer breaks down three of the biggest cases to explain how the law is evolving with this technology.”
Human Rights
European Parliament narrowly endorses EU migration reform, moving it closer to the finish line (MSN, 11 April)
“The amended Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR) sets two possible steps for claimants: the traditional asylum procedure, which is lengthy, and a fast-tracked border procedure, meant to last a maximum of 12 weeks. The border procedure will apply to migrants who pose a risk to national security, provide misleading information or come from countries with low recognition rates, such as Morocco, Pakistan and India. These migrants will not be allowed to enter the country's territory and instead be kept at facilities on the border, creating a "legal fiction of non-entry."“
‘History made’ as EU parliament passes major migration and asylum reforms – as it happened (Guardian, 10 April)
“Eve Geddie, Amnesty International’s head of the European institutions office, said “EU institutions are now shamefully co-signing an agreement that they know will lead to greater human suffering.”:”
From my own academic expertise: the streamlined procedure will be good for some applicants, but a lot of people who meet the requirements for asylum get lost in the system. These changes may make that even worse, and include a lot of ways for countries to avoid meeting their legal obligations to earnestly consider cases on their own merit and take in people in danger. What’s needed is a streamlined procedure for EVERYONE that lets people live, work, pay taxes and be a part of society, modest basics that get lost amid all the fearmongering - Matt
…and other legal matters
Canadian police ordered to release more information about the infamous Titanic PCP chowder incident (AVClub, 13 April)
“According to CTV News, the info could be publicly available as soon as May, potentially kicking off what we imagine could be one of the funniest, weirdest true-crime investigations of all time. (It’s always nice to have a mass poisoning incident that everyone is alive to laugh about afterward, ya know?) Anyway, please enjoy maybe the coolest thing James Cameron has ever said, in an interview where he described the incident from 2009: “People are moaning and crying, wailing, collapsed on tables and gurneys. The D.P., Caleb Deschanel, is leading a number of crew down the hall in a highly vocal conga line. You can’t make this stuff up.””
Thanks for reading The Copyright Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.
