Friday’s Endnotes – 07/22/16

Jane Ginsburg, Overview of Copyright Law — Ginsburg has posted her chapter from the forthcoming Oxford of Intellectual Property. A great look at copyright’s history, philosophy, and doctrine. This passage from her conclusion is worth quoting here:

Copyright law secures human creativity in works of authorship. Enforceable authorial property rights advance the public interest by promoting an ecosystem of authorship: a robust copyright environment encourages authors to create works that inform and enrich the polity, and from which other authors may draw ideas, information and reasonable amounts of protected expression in their own authorial endeavors. Copyright promotes artistic freedom and free speech by enabling authors to earn a living from their creativity.

What Does Madonna’s Court Victory Mean For Sampling? — Future of Music Coalition takes a closer look at last month’s Ninth Circuit decision in VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone, which concerned the alleged use of a digital sample by Madonna in her 1990 track Vogue.

Owner of Most-Visited Illegal File-Sharing Website Charged with Criminal Copyright Infringement — The DOJ announced this week that it has charged the alleged owner Kickass Torrents with four counts related to his operation of the site, which allegedly enabled illegal reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works on a massive scale. This represents the most significant criminal copyright effort in the US since the 2012 indictment of Kim Dotcom and other operators of Megaupload.

Indie designer accuses Zara of stealing work, Zara says artist’s work isn’t ‘distinctive’ — “Tuesday Bassen is a Los Angeles-based clothing and accessories designer whose work refers heavily to comic book illustrations and a 1950s girl gang aesthetic. Her popular logo ‘mixed emotions club,’ emblazoned across the back of a satin baseball jacket, as well as pins and patches, has become a sort of coveted alt-girl version of the Birkin bag. It’s not as if Bassen is entirely unknown (she told the Daily Dot her website gets about 8,000 visitors per day), which is why she was taken aback by Zara’s response to a cease-and-desist notice her attorney sent the giant corporate fashion house after it appeared to have completely ripped off Bassen’s work.”

CISAC: 90 Years In The Service Of Authors And Composers — “Founded in June 1926 by a small group of authors’ societies, with its headquarters in France and four regional offices, CISAC now represents the interests of more than 4 million creators across the world, from all artistic and literary fields. Now leading CISAC is electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre in cooperation with a highly multicultural and interdisciplinary group.”