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June 11, 2013

Highlights of the 2013 Copyright Society Annual Meeting II

Here of some highlights from today’s sessions at the annual meeting of the Copyright Society of the USA, Bolton Landing, NY June 11, 2013

Panel on Future of TV and Radio Copyright Litigation: Elenor Lackman, Bruce Joseph, Kelly Klaus, David Leichtman, Fritz Attaway

• David Leichtman gave overview stating with Sony
• Bruce Joseph suggest courts get deep in the weeds to understand he nature of technology and suggest that it really matters, is this a good thing? Every defendant raises fair use, courts ask what is the nature of the harm
• Kelly Klaus suggest services are being designed around judicial system, good guy bad guy matters in these cases, is this critical innovation or attempt to skirt copyright law
• Fritz Attaway suggests judges are often unfamiliar with new technologies and cases have been mostly correctly decided except Aereo
• Discussion of rights and wrongs of Cablevision and Aereo cases
• David Leichtman points out none of these cases have been tried
• Existing copyright remedy structure may not fit these cases, maybe we should be looking at those
• Fritz Attaway suggests man of the services at issues never got traction with consumers, consumers are mostly using services where copyright owners are getting paid and service providers are making money, that’s really what we want

Criminal Copyright Enforcement: Joe Demarco, Paul Doda, (Elsevier) Ed McCoyd (AAP), David Szuchman (NY County D.A.)

• Manhattan DA has cybercrime and identity theft bureau, work extensively with federal investigative agencies
• NY Failure to disclose origin of recording statute can apply, affects CDs and DVDs, associated laws make criminal manufacture, sale and operation of device
• NY statute prohibits unlawful use of secret scientific material, unlawful duplication od computer related material
• Advantages of criminal: deterrence, expanded resources, discovery advantages, additional charges
• Call DA sooner rather than later
• Pros: faster, cheaper, gov’t evidence gathering advantage, deterrence
• Cons: loss of control, no damages, fickle nature of gov’t priorities, inability to pursue civil actions or use criminal to coerce settlement

Panel Regarding Library Digitization of Books: Marybeth Peters, Jan Constantine (Authors Guild); Jack Bernard (U Michigan), Joseph Petersen, Ed Rosenthal

• Demo of HathiTrust website www.hathitrust.org
• Orphan works project has been abandoned for now because expensive and poorly implemented
• Discussion of advantages of digitization for the disabled and for preservation
• Debate concerning whether new legislation is needed or proper to analyze under existing structure as Supreme Court did in Sony
• HathiTrust is adamant that digitization project is fair use