Markos keynotes, Public Knowledge founder suggests changes in copyright law; AP suit discussed at BU forum

 Some 120 people attended an Oct. 26 day-long seminar “New Media & the Marketplace of Ideas,” sponsored by three units of Boston University and a law firm.  The first panel was a session on intellectual property setup via a talk given by Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, in Washington, D.C. 

Another highlight -- a luncheon speech by Daily Kos founder -- and BU Law School alum -- Markos Moulitsas.

In her opening 15-minute talk, Sohn referred to a blog by Northestern University Law School professor and Harvard Berkman Center fellow Wendy Seltzer as one of the best on the topic of intellectual property in cyberspace. And she refers to a lawsuit brought by San Francisco mother Stephanie Lenz  testing Universal Music’s request to have her remove a YouTube video showing her infant with copyrighted music in the background.    

Other panelists were BU Law Professor Robert Bone and intellectual-property lawyer
Bruce Sunstein.

Sohn proposes six ways to change the U.S. copyright-law system to make it less tied to the “printing-press model.” She says; “We need to make pre-PC law consistent with the YouTube world . . . [there is a]clear mismatch between the technology and the law.”  The six proposed changes – she terms them “modest”:   

n       Fair use reform – Add to the current four-part test of when a consumer can make “fair-use” of a work without license a right to use a work for “incidental, transformation and non-commercial personal uses. Also, make it clear that when a computer system makes a copy of a digital work solely for indexing and searching, that is not an infringement. Finally, make it OK to break a technology “lock” on digital content for lawful purposes, such as academic research.
n       Relax limits on secondary libraries  -- TiVO, iPOD popular because they challenge status quo. Innovation without permission should be preserved in the law. Sony BetaMax standard should be enabled in law, statutory damages for secondary liability should be repealed, only actual damages.
n       Provide penalties for copyright owners who make legally frivolous or factually erroneous claims of copyright infringement to consumers, and make such “takedown notices” subject to regulation as potential examples of unfair and deceptive trade practices.
n       Develop fair and accessible licensing systems, such as copyright clearing houses.
n       Simplify what she termed the “completely Byzantine” system of licensing  music, using such things as the Creative Commons approach.
n       Clarify the law on so-called “orphan use” so that a work for which copyright is unclear, it can be used as if it were the public domain. 
n       Require  copyright owners and distributors of their works to give consumer purchasers notice when the work is sold with technological restrictions against copying.  Forbid suits against users for circumventing such restrictions if they weren’t notified of their existence at point of purchase.

Sunstein says the fundamental change which has upended the application of copyright law is the transition from "analog" content to "digital" content. Analog content is hard to copy and each successive copy is not quite as good as the original. Digital copies can be indistinguisable from the original, noted the attorney with Bromberg & Sunstein of Boston.

 Prof. Bone identified four challenges to copyright law:

n       Copying is real easy, and you can get digital copies