Cross-posted from apnews.com [by Kelvin Chan] LONDON (AP) — The European Union has approved a copyright overhaul that aims to give more protection to artists and news organizations but which critics say will stifle freedom of speech and online creativity and punish smaller web companies. Artists, celebrities and tech experts have spoken out both in favor and against the EU directive, which the 28 member states are required to adopt as law and got…
The Copyright Office (USCO) has recently announced a small change to the way that registration of published and unpublished photographs are submitted. Now, you are able to use hyphens, underscores, and other punctuation in the filenames of submitted images. This small change will help photographers more efficiently access the copyright.gov system, and successfully copyright their works. See below the details of the recent changes. The U.S. Copyright Office has issued a technical amendment to the…
Cross-posted from maddreypllc.com If you have read my previous blog posts on the recent US Supreme Court Decision in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC (see here and here), you know that I have been concerned with how that decision would affect copyright applications and the impact on claimants ability to take legal action. While my immediate response remains negative, a recent letter to the Acting Registrar of Copyrights Karyn Temple, signed by…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Eileen Bramlet ebramlet@copyrightalliance.org 571-228-1906 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Copyright Alliance sent an Open Letter to elected congressional representatives, senators, and state governors, stressing the importance of copyright protection and urging them to support the creative community. Signed by more than 100K creators, audience members, fans, and consumers, the letter states that “There is no ‘left’ or ‘right’ when it comes to respecting copyright. Instead, the creative community stands united in…
Editor’s Note: ASMP is a member organization of the Copyright Alliance. Cross-posted from copyrightalliance.org [by Terry Hart] Today, the Supreme Court released its decision in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, holding that a copyright owner of a U.S. work must wait for the Register of Copyrights to either issue a registration certificate or refuse a registration before being able to protect her rights in court (this has been referred to as the “registration…
Editor’s Note: ASMP Executive Director Tom Kennedy and NPPA attorney Mickey Osterreicher are quoted in this article stating their concerns about the terms and conditions of #NatGeo100 Instagram contest, specifically the usage of participants’ images by National Geographic. Cross-posted from pdnpulse.pdnonline.com [by David Walker] National Geographic has reached 100 million Instagram followers—and it tried to celebrate with a one-day photo contest that amounted to a massive rights grab. Within hours, however, the media company changed…
Today ASMP is joining a coalition of 37 national and international organizations representing authors, photographers, graphic artists, and translators, in making an “Appeal to readers and librarians from the victims of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL).” We have joined this effort believing it is facilitating electronic distribution of books in a way that constitutes copyright infringement. As described in the Appeal, CDL is the flawed legal theory under which “printed books are being scanned and distributed online to…
Over the past week, our Copyright Counsel Mike Klipper and I have been busy in Washington D.C. laying the groundwork for our federal legislative agenda in 2019. This week’s activities followed closely on the heels of a very successful hearing on September 27, 2018, on the CASE Act before the House Judiciary Committee; the hearing described in Jenna Close’s recent article, Advocacy is a Verb: My Testimony on the Hill. At the hearing, Jenna joined…