LibertyVoice

European Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes delivered an inspiring speech at the Forum d’Avignon this weekend. The Commissioner noted that the current path of increased enforcement as put forward by the copyright monopoly is not the right one. Copyright should protect artists instead of corporations, and technology is not something to restrict but to make use of, she argued.

Source: Copyright is Failing, Who Feeds the Artists? Asks EU Commissioner

Last night I appeared in a piece that aired on the 9 o’clock news here in Chicago, talking about the legal issues surrounding isanyoneup.com. (That site is definitely NSFW and I’m not linking to it because it doesn’t deserve the page rank help.) The site presents some interesting legal questions, like whether and to what [...]

Through new legislation the copyright industry is trying to gain unprecedented control over the Internet. Very worrying plans that need to be stopped, but there is also something to learn from. Perhaps we should be grateful that the copyright industry, in their distorted sense of entitlement to the world, are pointing out crucial weaknesses that need to be fixed.

Source: Perhaps The Copyright Industry Deserves Some Credit For Pointing Out Our Single Points Of Failure

Copyright law strikes a balance between private rights and public interests. Not everyone likes the balance the law sets. Copyright owners complain that it does not adequately protect them from infringement of their works. Critics contend that copyright law tilts too far in favor of the interests of copyright owners and does not safeguard the rights of consumers.

Source: The Privatization of Copyright Lawmaking

When Congress considered net neutrality legislation in the form of the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (H.R. 5353), representatives of corporate copyright owners weighed in to oppose government regulation of the Internet. They feared that su…

A French court last month stomped on what we in the United States consider a “basic, vital, and well-established liberty” – the right to record and publish the public activity of police.

It is the latest attempt by the country to regulate the…

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is slowly inching its way towards implementation, but obstacles still remain. Now that the signing window for ACTA has been open for a while, let’s take a quick look at which countries have actually sig…

The Citizen Media Law Project is extraordinarily pleased to announce that Andy Sellars, our Staff Attorney, was announced this past weekend to be the 2011 winner of the time-honored and prestigious Jan Jancin Award!

The Jan Jancin Award is granted …

Is it possible to create a culture for licensing news?

This is the question at the heart of a new project begun by The Associated Press, announced last April by AP CEO Tom Curley. Called The News Licensing Group, the AP, with its membership, has cre…

Technology has come a long way since 1841, but the copyright debate at the time was strikingly similar to what we’re witnessing today. 170 years ago a new copyright bill was being discussed in the United Kingdom, one that would extend the rights of book authors to sixty years after their death. While some favored the plan, some feared that this lengthy “copyright monopoly” would only succeed in increasing piracy,

Source: Piracy and Copyright Challenges in 1841 Mirror Those of Today