BMI & ASCAP Announce Creation of New Musical Works Database — “A cross-functional team of copyright, technical and data experts from BMI and ASCAP began working on the project over one year ago, in anticipation of the demand from licensees and the industry for more clarity around ownership shares. The database, which will be publicly available initially via ASCAP’s and BMI’s websites, will feature aggregated information from BMI’s and ASCAP’s repertories and will indicate where other performing rights organizations may have an interest in a musical work.”
Canada’s lax copyright reputation puts artists’ livelihoods at risk — The Globe and Mail‘s Kate Taylor weighs in on the recent Canadian court decision in litigation between Access Canada, the agency that collects educational copying royalties for writers and publishers, and York University, which implemented a policy five years ago allowing far more copying under Canada’s fair dealing provisions. Writes Taylor, “The educational loophole has left Canada with the reputation of being lax on copyright; publishers as venerable as Oxford University Press have simply stopped publishing Canadian schoolbooks because they view this market as too risky.”
State Attorneys General Appear in Anti-Piracy PSA Campaign — On the heels of a new study finding that one-third of all piracy sites expose users to malware, a group of fifteen State Attorneys General have launced a PSA campaign to inform consumers of those risks.
Photographer’s Copyright Suit Against Richard Prince’s ‘Instagram Art’ To Go Ahead — PetaPixel reports on the recent decision by a district court judge in the Southern District of New York to deny a motion to dismiss a copyright infringement claim against the infamous appropriation artist Prince, alleged here to have copied a photographer’s image off of Instagram for his most recent exhibition. Prince raised a fair use defense, relying heavily on his successful 2nd Circuit Cariou v Prince opinion, but the judge here held that the issue of fair use was not one that could be decided as a matter of law.
Google Takes the Global Delisting Debate to a U.S. Court — Equustek has, for several years, been involved in efforts to halt a rival from selling products that infringed on its own products and were made using confidential information. The rival has proven difficult to shut down, dodging court orders and moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction to avoid liability and continue operating. In 2012, Equustek sought a court order requiring search engine Google, as a third party, to de-list the rival’s sites from its search engine not just in Canada, but worldwide. Several weeks ago, a Canadian appellate court upheld the worldwide injunction. Google is now challenging the order in a U.S. court, arguing that it violates the First Amendment, the CDA, and the principle of comity. Andrew Keane Woods of Lawfare analyzes Google’s legal arguments.
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