As we said in our statement, it is an honor to be a signatory on today’s letter to President Obama from the broader creative IP community. It is fantastic to be associated with so many defenders of creators’ rights, and it is fantastic to be able to promote creators’ rights without lecturing, cajoling, or berating. [...]

CHICAGO – What’s my biggest takeaway from my time here at the 2009 Picture Archive Council of America’s “Best Practices” Symposium? There are a lot of good actors in the digital age. PACA is a Copyright Alliance member and I’m thrilled about that – it’s run by a great group of people strongly committed to [...]

Today’s guest blog is written by Dan Glickman, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. Today’s conviction in a Swedish court of the four individuals behind Pirate Bay is an important statement about the growing global commitment to intellectual property rights as a cornerstone of the rule of the law in a [...]

Kudos to USTR Ron Kirk (my second praise for him today) and his team for last week’s update on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. I was traveling then but I’ve had a chance to read the summary they issued on the negotiations, and I think all of us in the creative community should feel [...]

As a policy issue trade can be challenging, because we want to make sure agreements we make abroad that lead to economic growth domestically also take into account jobs and workers displaced by those agreements. But when done right, trade does raise all boats, and President Obama’s U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, clearly gets that. [...]

The Business Software Alliance has posted a must-watch video with supportive materials featuring profiles of actual software pirates who were caught and are facing serious fines and in some cases jail time. This effort by a Copyright Alliance member is welcome. It’s important for individuals engaging in this kind of activity, whether for profit or [...]

A few months back I wrote a series of blog posts compiled into a paper attacking ten common myths, or canards, about copyright. One I didn’t address, because it seemed obviously false, is “Copyright is an attempt to lock down facts.” Uh, no. Facts are not copyrightable. But expressions are. A website publisher in a [...]

What’s the difference between a creative artist and an artist? That’s the question I’ve been contemplating the past few days since I read a letter to the President that ridicules him for his administration’s appointees on intellectual property issues. The letter urges the President to create offices that support innovation and free expression, which apparently [...]

The Copyright Alliance blog will be a bit dark for the next week, as its primary author catches up with his family, all of whom he’d like to be able to continue to identify. Catch up with you soon.

Have you ever played Whack-a-Mole? Satirist Bob Ricci* has a song about a child savant Whack-a-Mole player not unlike The Who’s Pinball Wizard. I picture that young genius with an odd selection of specialty when I think about user-generated online posts that infringe on another’s work. This goes beyond the fact that the law entitles [...]