Category «Intellectual Property»

Deans of Virginia University Libraries to Chairman Goodlatte: First Do No Harm in Copyright Revision

UVA Director of Information Policy Brandon Butler explains the implications of the Copyright Office plan to to issue a total rewrite of Section 108 of the Copyright Act and provides context on such a decision, which protects library and archives’ copying for preservation and research. Libraries and archives have said they do not want this, but the Office seems to be determined to do it. So, a group of Deans and Directors of Virginia university libraries has sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) to ensure he realizes the controversy and context that surrounds the Office’s proposed changes. If you are a concerned library or librarian, consider writing your representative, especially if they sit on the Judiciary Committee.

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Subjects: Congress, Copyright, Intellectual Property, Law Librarians, Legislative

Does 3D Printing Pose a Challenge to the Patent System?

3D printing is a growth market – for vendors, consumers, and for public libraries (providing them in combination with maker spaces – “a shared work area where people build things collaboratively.”) Within the sphere of this innovative technology there is growing recognition that 3D printing can produce objects covered by specific particular patents. This new area of copyright infringement is the focus of Alan Rothman’s article.

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Subjects: Copyright, Intellectual Property

Vermonts Legislature is Considering Support for Blockchain Technology and Smart Contracts

Bitcoin is a significant disruptive technology with a growing impact on the financial sector and legal sectors, around the world. Alan Rothman expertly educates us on new legislation from Vermont that is intended to move the state towards using blockchain technology for “records, smart contracts and other applications”. One of the key distinctions Rothman highlights is that Vermont is not in any manner approving or adopting Bitcoin, but rather, the state is diversifying and adapting the underlying blockchain technology that supports it.

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Subjects: Business Research, Intellectual Property, Internet Trends, Legal Education, Legal Technology, Legislative, Technology Trends

A User Guide to the Marrakesh Treaty

Jonathan Band provides a comprehensive guide to the recent international adoption of the “Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled.” The Treaty is intended to promote the making and distribution of copies of books and other published materials in formats accessible to people with print disabilities. The Treaty would achieve this objective by obligating signatory countries (referred to as Contracting Parties) to adopt exceptions in their copyright laws that permit the making of copies in accessible formats as well as the distribution of those copies both domestically and internationally. This memorandum explains the Treaty’s provisions. The memorandum concludes that Title 17 of the United States Code complies with the Treaty’s requirements, and thus that the United States could sign and ratify the Treaty without making any changes to domestic law.

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Subjects: Copyright, Features, Government Resources, Intellectual Property, International Legal Research, Law Librarians, Libraries & Librarians, United States Law

Copyrights, Fundamental Rights, and the Constitution

The recent Supreme Court decision, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, addresses fair use and the “first sale” doctrine, upon whose protection libraries, used-book dealers, technology companies, consumer-goods retailers, and museums have long relied. Professor Annmarie Bridy’s commentary focuses on the position that intellectual property rights in general and copyrights in particular are important, and when their scope is circumscribed to ensure the existence of a robust public domain, they benefit society. However important IP rights are, though – and reasonable people disagree pretty vigorously about that – they are not fundamental in the Constitutional sense.

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Subjects: Copyright, Intellectual Property, Legal Research

SOPAs Evil Twin Sister CISPA

Well known graphic artists Jake O’Neil and Spencer Belkofer created this infographic out of a sense of urgency to visualize the salient information with as many communities as possible. This bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011, has not garnered the media coverage of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), but its high impact implications target key legal issues involving privacy and intellectual property.

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Subjects: Congress, Cyberlaw, Cyberlaw Legislation, Features, Intellectual Property, Privacy

The Digital Death of Copyright’s First Sale Doctrine

An important copyright case won’t be argued in the Supreme Court, which on October 3, 2011 declined to review Vernor v. Autodesk, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision involving the applicability of copyright’s first sale doctrine to transactions involving software and other digital information goods. Law professor Annmarie Bridy discusses the wide reaching impact of the first sale doctrine, without which there would be no free market for used books, CDs, or DVDs, because the copyright owner’s right of distribution would reach beyond the first sale, all the way down the stream of commerce.

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Subjects: Copyright, Features, Intellectual Property, Legal Research

Social media, geolocation and privacy, oh my!

Nicole L. Black highlights how our net activities are carefully monitored and meticulously tracked by some of the biggest players, including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. Our individual online footprints, from the Web sites we visit, the items we purchase, the people with whom we communicate, to the locations where we access the Internet, are extremely valuable commodities that are increasingly sought after.

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Subjects: E-Commerce, Email, Features, Intellectual Property, Privacy
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