This three-minute video about copyright and fair use, which was produced by Common Sense Media and intended for use by secondary teachers, provides an excellent overview of basic concepts related to copyright law. For example, the video offers five tips for using copyrighted Internet content, including: check who owns it, get permission to use it, give credit to the creator, buy it (if necessary),...

With the recent shut down of the peer-to-peer file sharing utility Audiogalaxy, copy protection of all kinds of data is a very hot topic. Distribution of music, movies, and software is running rampant, and many believe the solution lies in better copy protection. To learn the basics of copy protection, visit Link Data Security (1). This company specializes in secure products that reduce piracy,...

LIBLICENSE-L is a moderated list for the discussion of issues related to the licensing of digital information by academic and research libraries. Increasingly, libraries are being inundated with information created in digital format and transmitted and accessed via computers. This list is designed to assist librarians and others concerned with the licensing of information in digital format in...

Yesterday US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued a temporary restraining order, directing Napster not to facilitate or permit infringement of copyrighted material. Because the immensely popular person-to-person music trading service does not have the capability to separate copyrighted materials from non-copyrighted, this ruling will effectively shut down Napster at midnight tonight, pending...

Section 104 of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) required the US Copyright Office to conduct a study to begin "an ongoing evaluation by Congress on the relationship between technological change and U.S. copyright law." This report focuses on three areas traditionally handled under copyright law that have changed in the digital world: first sale doctrine and the related issue of...

Founded in 2000, The Free Expression Policy Project has been part of the NYU School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice for the past two years. During that time, the Project has continued to provide research reports and a host of other valuable insights on copyright, free speech, and media democracy issues. The site is fairly easy to navigate, as users can peruse some of the topical headings...

A federal judge's order, made public Wednesday, January 30, 2002, puts the recording industry's copyright infringement suit against Internet song-downloading service Napster, Inc. on hold until February 17, 2002. The case was put on hold for a month after both sides submitted requests to seek a possible settlement. Capitol Records, Inc. and Virgin Records America were the only two recording labels...

This site is dedicated to copyright law and the national copyright system and has a lot to offer. For starters, the "Biographies of the Registers of Copyrights" is a real pip, as it contains profiles of the individuals who have served in this key government position since the days of Thorvald Solberg, who assumed the office in 1897 and served until 1930. The site also contains more wordy and...

On Monday a three-member panel from the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that a lower court decision requiring Napster to immediately halt music swapping was "overbroad." This week's decision was anything but a victory for Napster, however, as the panel instructed US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel to craft a narrower injunction that would still require Napster to block...