Michael Geist's latest column on copyright law in Canada contains yet another argument for the necessity of Creative Commons licenses: Toronto-area MP Sarmite Bulte is pushing for an interpretation of the law that embraces and codifies permission culture:

Although [Bulte's committee] acknowledges that some work on the...

A group of influential Republican senators have introduced a bill to make permanent the civil liberties-corroding provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that were sold to the public -- and to Congress -- as temporary measures. These provisions are among the most controversial in the Act, and for...

This just in: the California Institute of Technology and Loyola Law School are presenting a mock trial this Friday, May 21st, to play out a scenario in which a student creates a distributed computing application to crack DRM systems, leading to the criminal prosecution of everyone involved...

A trio of responses to the DMCRA hearing on Wednesday:
Seth Finkelstein:

It would great if everyone could just take a loyalty oath at the start and thus get beyond the endless querying about whether they believe in some sort of heretical radicalism. Something like:
...

As of today, DMCA reform has a very real chance of passing the U.S. Congress. The biggest ray of hope for those of us who care about fair use came not from what happened at the hearing itself, but rather, at a lunch session that took place during a recess...

In cyber-literate circles, it's common knowledge that the DMCA has been a dismal legislative failure. For years now, every new DMCA lawsuit trumps the last for absurdity. And it sure hasn't made any perceptible dent on "digital piracy." As detailed in our "Unintended Consequences" report, it's been consumers, researchers...

Fordham law professor Sonia Katyal has an article up @ the SSRN Electronic Library that brings to mind a question I asked some months ago over @ Copyfight: Why do we tolerate in the name of copyright protection what we only unwillingly tolerate in the name of...