Friday’s Endnotes – 09/13/24

The Geography of Copyright Registrations — “The U.S. Copyright Office has released a report, The Geography of Copyright Registrations. The study examines the geographic distribution of copyright claims registered by individuals and organizations within the United States. The purpose of the report is to better understand where the copyright system is used and how patterns of registrations differ across areas within the country.”

Copyright versus privacy: the CJEU rules that access by a public authority to data associated with an IP address can be justified — “As a result of this judgment, ARCOM, the French regulatory authority that fights online copyright infringement, can continue to fight unlawful downloading. More generally, this decision was very well received in France.”

Copyright and Piracy in France: A Court Blocks Z-Library — “The French publishers’ association—the Syndicat national de l’édition—is messaging the news media that the Paris Judicial Court has today (September 12) ordered Internet service providers to block the ‘Z-Library’ site. The order renders a total 98 domain names and their possible extensions on mirror sites inaccessible.”

House Judiciary Committee Asks Copyright Office to Examine PROs, Citing ‘Difficult to Assess’ Royalty Distributions — “The ‘proliferation’ of PROs is a newer concern. Around the world, most countries typically have one PRO for local writers and publishers to join. In the U.S., it works differently. For over a hundred years, ASCAP and BMI have been the primary choices for a songwriter or publisher looking to collect performance royalties in the United States, but there is also the option to go with SESAC instead, a smaller but still important player in the U.S. PRO landscape, which has been around for almost as long.”

Supreme Court review sought over entitlement to attorney fees in copyright cases — “The petition argues that circuits are split on whether a defendant is a is a ‘prevailing party’ when an action is dismissed without prejudice. Both the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits have recognized the existence of a circuit split. The majority rule is that defendants cannot be prevailing parties when a plaintiff voluntarily dismisses the action without prejudice. The minority view is that if a lawsuit ends without the plaintiff altering its legal relationship with the defendant, the defendant has prevailed in the action.”