Friday’s Endnotes – 06/24/16

Responding to Piracy: What the evidence shows — In previous installments, the authors of this post looked at “available academic evidence on whether piracy harms media sales, and whether this harm leads to reductions in the supply of creative works,” finding that “most all the studies on the first question conclude that piracy does have an adverse effect on sales, and there is also evidence of an adverse effect on the supply of new works.” Here, they look at research that considers what can be done to shift consumers from illegal content to legal content, focusing on two strategies: making legal content easier to access, and making pirated content harder and more costly to access.

Facebook Signs Deals With Media Companies, Celebrities for Facebook Live — One does not live on user-generated content alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook has entered into over 100 contracts with media companies and individuals totaling over $50m to provide video content for their Facebook Live platform. See also YouTube Red buys its first big TV series.

To Fee or Not to Fee: Kirtsaeng v John Wiley & Sons — I have a post at CaseText discussing last week’s Supreme Court decision in Kirtsaeng II, which held that courts should focus on the objective reasonableness of parties’ litigation positions but consider all other relevant factors when determining whether to award attorney’s fees.

Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney Among 180 Artists Signing Petition For Digital Copyright Reform — Rob Levine reports on a letter published this week, signed by 180 recording artists and others, including Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, and Little Big Town. The letter calls for reform of the DMCA safe harbors.

Who owns the news consumer: Social media platforms or publishers? — The Columbia Journalism Review presents research it has undertaken to see how newsrooms are using social media and online publishing platforms to disseminate news stories. A thorough look at a very dynamic area.

Turow: “The Protection of Copyright Is Deeply Related to the Protection of Creativity” —  Scott Turow: “I suspect that creativity tends to be inspired by the artist’s fantasy that her or his work is destined to find an audience that places value on it. That doesn’t presuppose earning vast riches. The effort a reader makes by going to the library is enough to make most authors feel valued. But the notion that work will be stolen and tossed into the wind defeats the artistic enterprise.”