At the Association of American Publishers' 2012 Annual Meeting, Cary Sherman, Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, discussed how US ISPs will begin a copyright enforcement program this July. (See the AAP's USTREAM page, Content Industries and Copyright entry.)

The ISPs will be acting in accordance with a "Memorandum of Understanding" that outlines a graduated response and "mitigation measures."

Read more about it at "As ISPs Prepare to Police Web Piracy, Questions of Efficacy and Motive Remain," "ISP Copyright Alerts: Your Questions Answered," "ISP Piracy Warnings: What You Need to Know," and "RIAA Chief: ISPs to Start Policing Copyright by July 1."

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David Robert Hansen has self-archived "Orphan Works: Mapping the Possible Solution Spaces" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper surveys a range of proposed orphan works solutions. The goal is to acquaint the reader with the wide variety of solution types, and to identify the positive and negative aspects of each. The paper discusses four general categories of proposed solutions to the orphan works problem: Remedy-limitation approaches, such as the one advocated in the 2006 U.S. Copyright office proposal, that are predicated on a user's good-faith, reasonable search for rights holders; administrative systems, such as the one adopted in Canada, that allow users to petition a centralized copyright board to license specific reuses of orphan works; access and reuse solutions that are tailored to rely upon the existing doctrine of fair use; and extended collective licensing schemes, which permit collective management organizations ('CMOs') to license the use of works that are not necessarily owned by CMO members, but that are representative of the CMO members' works.

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The Authors Guild has filed a motion for partial judgment on the pleadings in the Authors Guild et al. v. Hathitrust et al. case.

Here's an excerpt from the associated "Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Judgment on the Pleadings":

Defendants are wildly exceeding the special privileges Congress granted to libraries under Section 108 by systematically digitizing, reproducing, distributing and putting at risk millions of works through their mass book digitization program. Defendants' so-called orphan works program is similarly inimical to the Copyright Act, as it violates Section 108(h)'s explicit limitation of libraries' use of orphan works to the twenty year period preceding the end of their copyright term. Neither fair use under Section 107, nor any other statutory exception under the Copyright Act, can justify Defendants' systematic and concerted digitization, reproduction, distribution and other unauthorized uses of millions of copyright-protected library books. Accordingly, Plaintiffs urge the Court to grant their motion for partial judgment on the pleadings.

Read more about it at "GBS: Authors Guild Goes for an Early Knockout," "Guild Motion Asks for Quick Ruling on HathiTrust's Fair Use Defense," and "A Masterpiece of Misdirection."

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Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the UC Berkeley School of Law, and other scholars have sent a letter ("Academic Author Objections to Plaintiff's Motion for Class Certification") to US District Court Judge Denny Chin about class certification issues in the Authors Guild v. Google Case.

Here's an excerpt:

We believe that our works of scholarship are more typical of the contents of research library collections than works of the three named plaintiffs in this case. Betty Miles is the author of numerous children's books. Jim Bouton is a former baseball pitcher who has written both fiction and nonfiction books based on his experiences as a baseball player. Joseph Goulden is a professional writer who has written a number of nonfiction books on a variety of subjects, including a book about "superlawyers." None of these three are academic authors. Their books are aimed at a popular, rather than an academic, audience. As professional writers, their motivations and interests in having their books published would understandably be different, and likely more commercial, than those of academic scholars. Hence, our concern is that these three do not share the academic interests that are typical of authors of books in research library collections. As we explain further below, the clearest indication that the named plaintiffs do not share the same priorities typical of academic authors is their insistence on pursuing this litigation.

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William Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, has published How to Fix Copyright (publisher's description).

Here's an excerpt:

Our current laws are the result of "lobbynomics," the continual use of exaggerated (and often false) claims and crises as an excuse to pass laws that are unnecessary and many times harmful. . . . We will never fix our laws unless we clean house and start all over again, this time on a sound, empirical basis: Simply adding on to a failed structure will no longer work.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

The Library Copyright Alliance has released "Golan v. Holder: A Farewell to Constitutional Challenges to Copyright Laws" by Jonathan Band.

Here's an excerpt:

The majority opinion in Golan closes the door on constitutional challenges to copyright statutes unless those statutes contain absolutely no time limits or directly undermine the idea/expression dichotomy or fair use. Justice Breyer failed to convince the Court that under the Constitution Congress had the authority to enact only utilitarian copyright statutes that incentivized the creation of new material. The majority opinion leaves Congress as the sole venue for fighting draconian copyright laws.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |

The Amsterdam University Press has released Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age.

Here's an excerpt:

This book is about file sharing for creative, expressive or informative works in all media. More specifically, it is about file sharing between individuals and without profit motive. File sharing is the act of making a file available to other individuals by putting it on-line, by sending a copy, or by rendering it accessible through a file sharing software. We defend the view that sharing without direct or indirect monetary transaction—or "non-market" sharing—is legitimate. We also claim that sharing is socially and culturally valuable and will play a key role in the future of our culture and the creative economies. Furthermore, this book proposes a means to strengthen and exploit the synergy between file sharing and creativity, for the general benefit of society and the enrichment of the cultural economy.

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HathiTrust has responded to the plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint in the Authors Guild, Inc. et al. v. HathiTrust et al. copyright case.

Read more about it at "HathiTrust Answers Authors Guild Lawsuit; Trial Schedule Set" and "Authors Guild v. HathiTrust et al. Resources."

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Senator Ron Wyden and others have released a draft proposal, "Fighting the Unauthorized Trade of Digital Goods while Protecting Internet Security, Commerce and Speech," that presents an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PIPA).

Here's an excerpt:

We found that using trade laws to address the flow of infringing digital goods into the United States makes it possible to avoid many of the pitfalls that would arise from other legislative proposals currently being advanced to combat online infringement. Namely by putting the regulatory power in the hands of the International Trade Commission—versus a diversity of magistrate judges not versed in Internet and trade policy—will ensure a transparent process in which import policy is fairly and consistently applied and all interests are taken into account. When infringement is addressed only from a narrow judicial perspective, important issues pertaining to cybersecurity and the promotion of online innovation, commerce and speech get neglected. By approaching digital good infringement as a matter of regulating international commerce, we are able to take all of these factors into account.

Read more about it at "SOPA on the Ropes? Bipartisan Alternative to 'Net Censorship Emerges."

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College & Research Libraries has released a preprint of "Copyright Policy and Practice in Electronic Reserves among ARL Libraries."

Here's an excerpt:

This paper presents the results of a survey of 110 ARL institutions regarding their copyright policies for providing electronic reserves. It compiles descriptive statistics on library practice as well as coding responses to reveal trends and shared practices. Finally, it presents conclusions about policy-making, decision-making and risk aversion in ARL institutions.

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The American Assembly has released Copyright Infringement and Enforcement in the US.

Here's an excerpt:

The note excerpts a forthcoming survey-based study called Copy Culture in the U.S. and Germany. Drawing on results from the U.S. portion of the survey, it explores what Americans do with digital media, what they want to do, and how they reconcile their attitudes and values with different policies and proposals to enforce copyright online.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Booz & Company has released The Impact of U.S. Internet Copyright Regulations on Early-Stage Investment: A Quantitative Study

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

A large majority of the angel investors and venture capitalists who took part in a Booz & Company study say they will not put their money in digital content intermediaries (DCIs) if governments pass tough new rules allowing websites to be sued or fined for pirated digital content posted by users. (DCIs are the companies that provide search, hosting, and distribution services for digital content such as YouTube, Facebook, SoundCloud, eBay, and thousands of others.) More than 70 percent of angel investors reported they would be deterred from investing if anti-piracy regulations against "user uploaded" websites were increased.

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