The National Governors Association (NGA) today sent a letter to Congress supporting legislation that would combat rogue websites and protect US intellectual property. In the letter, Governors Sam Brownback and Jeremiah Nixon (Chair and Vice Chair of the NGA Economic Development and Commerce Committee) write: “On behalf of the nation’s governors, we urge Congress to [...]

An online activist has been indicted in Boston on charges that he used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer networks to steal more than four million documents from JSTOR, a non-profit that provides online access to academic journals for a subscriber or individual user fee, with the intention of distributing the documents to one or [...]

Richard E. Wagner, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, writes a memorable and meaningful introduction to the Property Rights Alliance’s annual report released today analyzing intellectual and physical property rights in 129 countries. “If you go to Google Images and type in ‘Korean Peninsula at night,’ you will see a variety of satellite [...]

The IPEC’s White Paper on Legislative Recommendations to Congress has just been released.  See the report here.  Among other recommendations, the IPEC notes that online piracy and counterfeiting are significant concerns for the Administration, and welcomes Congress’ attention to the issue of combating foreign rogue websites. Specific recommendations in areas not already under consideration by Congress include: [...]

The Obama Administration yesterday issued an Executive Order establishing two Advisory Committees on Intellectual Property Enforcement. The new committees will assist the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in implementing the Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property Enforcement, and will ensure that all of the Administration Agencies and Departments affected by intellectual property infringement are represented and [...]

The U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel this afternoon released her office’s first annual Report on Intellectual Property Enforcement. The document provides an update on the six categories of action items laid out in the IPEC’s strategic plan, which was unveiled in June, as well as IP-related actions in 2010 by the various departments [...]

Attention songwriters and musicians — there’s a college student out there who actually respects your rights. Thanks to Dean Kay, I’ve come across an editorial written by a University of Illinois student named Charles Tabb. The title of his piece is “Respect musicians’ work: Put an end to illegal file sharing.” The title really says [...]

The United States economy in the 21st Century will be driven by creatives both native and immigrant, as a rich social and economic network fostering creativity draws creators and fuels further creativity. So argues David Brooks today in The New York Times. America will be a “crossroads nation,” he said, due to several factors, including [...]

It goes without saying that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is a true friend of copyright owners and creatives, but I’ll say it anyway, and you can hear him say it. Thanks to one of our board members and exhibitors for filming a bit of Senator Leahy’s remarks at our Copyright Alliance 4th [...]

Is it any surprise to read in The New York Times that today’s students don’t understand that cutting-and-pasting another’s work into your own isn’t research or scholarship, or that a new study from Northwestern University found that today’s youth don’t comprehend that the top search engine result may not be the most reliable? As a [...]