Rogue Website Seizure By Department of Justice and a Bumpy Week in Copyright Law

Courtesy Techdirt, a copy of the Megaupload indictment is embedded below. The indictment is against an alleged "rogue website" that allegedly facilitates copyright infringement.

Recently Congress has initiated legislation, the Protect-IP Act ("PIPA") and the Stop Online Piracy Act ("SOPA"). These efforts were purportedly aimed at rogue websites. Critics charged that the laws would permit copyright owners to shut down legitimate websites without due process of law, contained problematic security measures (DNS masking) and would have an overall severe chilling effect on the exercise of First Amendment rights relating to copyright's fair use doctrine, which permits use of copyrighted works for certain purposes. The legislation seems to have stalled in the wake of an internet/tech community uproar, culminating in blackouts by popular websites such as Wikipedia.

Right as all of this was happening, the Justice Department's seized of Megaupload basically doing what SOPA and PIPA proponets claimed they could not do, more from Techdirt on the details here. Breaking news here.

Perhaps most significant was the US Supreme Court's decision in Golan v. Holder (see my last post for a copy). The Supreme Court stated really for the first time that Congress could use the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution to take materials from the public domain.

This is a dramatic and sweeping statement and it will change the battleground in the copyright wars for the decades to come.  I was fortunate enough to attend a luncheon with Maria Pallante, Register of Copyrights, last Thursday in Washington, DC and to discuss the Golan decision with her.  The luncheon was sponsored by the Capitol Hill Chapter of the Federal Bar Association.

78786408-Mega-Indictment




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Copyright Law: Interview With Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante

 "If you're looking for certainty, fair use is not going to help you sleep at night."

- Maria Pallante, Register of Copyrights, on copyright law's fair use doctrine

Ars Technica has published an excellent interview with Maria Pallante, the new Register of Copyrights here.

If you want to know where copyright law is going, it is important to follow the activities of the Register of Copyrights whose activities and views carry extraordinary weight in shaping U.S. copyright policy.   More on the office of the Register of Copyrights here.

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 Purchase Copyright Litigation Handbook 2010 by Raymond J. Dowd from West here  

Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA

Not too long ago, I received my Fall 2007 issue of the Journal of the Copyright Society of the USA. This is a benefit of paying the Copyright Society's membership fee. The Journal issue contained a nicely printed copy of "Recent Developments in Copyright - Selected Annotated Cases" by Bob Clarida and Tom Kjellberg of Cowan Liebowitz & Latman. It reminded me of Bob and Tom's presentation at each Annual Meeting of the Copyright Society of the USA. In a lively style, using pictures and music, they go over important, interesting or outrageous copyright cases of the preceding year. It is a good way to keep up on developments in a rapidly-changing field, and they really make an effort to obtain the materials that the judges were looking at or listening to so that you can understand what was decided.

The meeting is held each June and has traditionally been situated at the Sagamore Hotel on Lake George in upstate New York. This year, for the first time, the meeting will take place June 8-10 in Newport, Rhode Island. Annual meetings kick off with a special cocktail reception for new attendees, and the organization's officers make a real effort to make newcomers feel at home. The programming is diverse and entertaining, and speakers are really top-shelf.

Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, always attends, along with the top people from her office, and all major content industries are well-represented.

The field of copyright is full of oddball specialties. Attendees come from all over the US, with some foreign participation (unlike the trademark world, the foreign contingent is not particularly large). Copyright lawyers tend to have backgrounds in music, art, film, literature - and thus this gathering is usually more entertaining than most legal conferences.

The Copyright Society also has chapters. Last year I gave presentations to the San Francisco and Philadelphia Chapters. The New York Chapter has monthly luncheons (1 hour CLE credit) that are usually sold out.

If you need a painless way to pick up CLE credits this year, think about the Copright Society. I won't make it to the mid-winter meeting in Dana Point, California (Feb 7-9), but I will be in Newport in June.