The CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2011

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-08-20

Summary:

Use the link above to access the report produced by the Committee on Intellectual Property under the umbrella of the Conference of College Composition and Communication (CCCC). CCCC is a constituent group of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE): A Professional Association of Educators in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts. The CCCC began in 1949 and according to the website is the “world's largest professional organization for researching and teaching composition, from writing to new media.” The Committee on Intellectual Property is responsible for “keep[ing] the CCCC and NCTE memberships informed about intellectual property developments, through reports in the CCCC newsletter and in other NCTE and CCCC forums.  To this end, the Intellectual Property Committee has begun to publish annual, online reports on major developments in intellectual property law, policy, and research.  In addition, the IP Committee regularly proposes IP policy statements for the CCCC/NCTE memberships to consider.  The IP Committee works closely with the Caucus on Intellectual Property and Composition Studies on all IP issues.” The editor of the current report notes that “this is the seventh year of publication for the Conference of College Composition and Communication Intellectual Property Annual [CCCC-IP Annual].” The full text of the current and all prior reports is available from the website. The articles in CCCC-IP Annual: Top Intellectual Property Developments of 2011 are “‘[1] The Defeat of the Research Works Act and Its Implications...’ tracing the introduction and short career of the Research Works Act (RWA)... [2] ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: What Golan v. Holder means for the Future of the Public Domain...’ For a time, one surety in the complex world of copyright law and IP regulations was this: that once information passes into the public domain, it is free for all to use. But a recent decision by the Supreme Court casts even this knowledge into the realm of uncertainty. At issue in the case of Golan v. Holder was whether Congress has the right to retroactively restore copyright to foreign works in the public domain, works that may have ‘slipped into’ the public domain while still copyrighted abroad... [3] ‘Sentence First—Verdict Afterwards’: The Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Acts...’ describes two bills that were introduced into Congress that had the potential to restrict the growth and development of web services. The intent of each was to prevent the use of the web to link to or transmit copyrighted material without permission or compensation of copyright holders. Both bills in particular targeted foreign ‘rogue websites,’ but the web's nature is such that numerous companies and organizations based in the United States would have been affected by the bills—including many that were not themselves copyright infringers. Less than a year after the introduction of the first bill, both had been withdrawn... [4] ‘A Dark Day on the Internet Leads to a Sea Change in Copyright Policy.’ The ‘Dark Day’ of the title refers to January 18, 2012, when Wikipedia went black and a black bar replaced the Google logo. In addition, many other Internet sites, including Reddit, Boingboing.net, and Wired.com, also went dark, all in order to protest consideration of the two bills. As the protest included sites commonly used by students for online research, teachers and students were made aware of copyright and intellectual property issues in a new and startling way. Students often serve as producers of content for such sites and so are also affected by copyright legislation that seeks to restrict user-created content that incorporates copyrighted material, such as videos that include copyrighted music or images. In leading a challenge to these bills, the Internet companies changed the discourse around copyright and intellectual property law in the 21st century... [5] The last article in this year's Annual, ‘Occupy Trademark: Branding a Political Movement This Intellectual Property,’ examines the emergence of trademark applications and disputes associated with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The article provides a detailed overview of the ongoing trademark disputes associated with the political movement by tracing the initial applications to register OWS as a trademark and documenting the competing claims by different parties that are attempting to assert ownership of terms, slogans, and branding associated with OWS...”

Link:

http://www.ncte.org/cccc/committees/ip

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.ssh oa.usa oa.legislation oa.rwa oa.nih oa.advocacy oa.societies oa.google oa.social_media oa.pd oa.litigation oa.education oa.reports oa.wikipedia oa.sopa oa.pipa oa.ip oa.reddit oa.ows oa.trademarks oa.cccc oa.ncte oa.announcements oa.copyright

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

08/20/2012, 18:43

Date published:

03/27/2012, 14:23