Citing law back to Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591 (1834), “Fastcase maintains that public law cannot be copyrighted ….” [Quoted from Ambrogi, Feb. 6, 2016, article.]
Wheaton v. Peters (read the case at Justia, via Wikipedia, or search the case name for other caselaw sources, e.g. Google Scholar or Cornell LII)
Track Fastcase v. Casemaker news developments at Law Sites Blog and other legal news sources:
Do writers need their own “Taylor Swift” to protect their right to be paid for their labor? (See NPR’s story about Swift, Apple, and right to be paid.)
The latest Amazon plan to pay authors based on pages turned (and presumably read?), makes me wonder if all readers shouldn’t just start turning those pages, whether you read them or not. We can only hope that the Amazon eyes “watching” you turn pages aren’t also able to tell if you have actually read the words. (No, maybe we don’t want to know that.)
“What If Authors Were Paid Every Time Someone Turned a Page?” by Peter Wayner, The Atlantic, June 20, 2015
Link to case and commentary from LLB2: “Court Holds West, Lexis Legal Briefs Offering Is Fair Use”
Re: White v. West Publishing Company and Reed Elsevier (USDC Southern District NY) (12 Civ. 1340 (JSR)), decided 7/3/14.
Excerpt from blog post: “One of the running issues I had been following is the attempt to copyright legal briefs with the intention to gain royalties or prevent others from using them. The particular case that litigates the issue is White v. West Publishing Company and Reed Elsevier (USDC Southern District NY). District Judge Rakoff ruled that the use by West and Lexis is fair use….” [Link to full post and case.]
iLibrarian post: A Guide to Little-Known Image Collections with Millions of Free, Hi-Res Images
“…. There have been several new image collections that have opened up to the public just within the past year that not many people are aware of yet, but they offer access to thousands, or in some cases millions of outstanding photographs that can be downloaded for free….” [Link to full post.]
This is quite a treasure trove. Use of images will vary. For example:
From UC Berkeley Law, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic:
Creative Commons: May 27, 2014, by Menesha A. Mannapperuma, Brianna L. Schofield, Andrea K. Yankovsky, Lila Bailey, and Jennifer M. Urban
When you rely on a judicial opinion to support your cause, which version of the case do you carry into court? This is the 21st century law librarian and bench-bar dilemma.
Even if you solve the authenticity and and copyright problems (and we’re nowhere near doing that), what are we going to do about the Supreme Court?
See, “Final Word on U.S. Law Isn’t: Supreme Court Keeps Editing,” by Adam Liptak, May 24, 2014 (re the upcoming article, “The (Non)Finality of Supreme Court Opinions,” by Richard J. Lazarus, 128 HARV. L. REV. ___ (forthcoming 2014)).
The Lessig blog alerts us to the Bing images search feature – and a Commenter compares the ease of the Bing feature with the difficulty of doing a similar search on Google:
From Now On I’m Binging It (Lessig Blog, on Tumbler)
Do you have something to say about the Doctrine of Digital First Sale?
“…. request for public comments on five issues critical to economic growth, job creation, and cultural development that were identified in the Department’s Green Paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy (Green Paper)....” (Link to FR public notice.)
From No Shelf Required: Department of Commerce needs input on digital first sale by November 13
Lawyers at Adler Vermillion & Skocilich, LLP have made this remarkable copyright resource publicly available – and free.
Copyright Codex (Beta): A Free Treatise for Lawyers and Artists
Many thanks for the tip from Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites blog, where you will find information about the Copyright Codex and much more, including a link to the Trial of Whitey Bulger website.
Oregon Legal Research Blog