Our Contributors & their Columns

National and International Dimensions of Copyright’s Public Domain (An Australian Case Study)

1. The value of Australia’s copyright public domain 1.1 Introduction: What do these innovations have in common? A set of examples follow. They all involve valuable contributions to Australian innovation in the area of information goods. They al...
Read more...

Chinese law

Unfortunately Professor Cohen's speech did not contain many surprises, merely reflecting the fact that China is ruled by law by the Communist Party. The suppression of dissident groups, the manipulation and intimidation of the courts and continued fo...
Read more...

Woman ordered to pay $1.9 million in music download case

by Steve Karnowski, Associated Press; June 18, 2009 Minneapolis — A replay of the nation's only file-sharing case to go to trial ended the same as the first, with a Minnesota woman found to have violated music copyrights and ordered...
Read more...

Print Books Are Target of Pirates on the Web

Ursula K. Le Guin, the science fiction writer, was perusing the Web site Scribd last month when she came across digital copies of some books that seemed quite familiar to her. No wonder. She wrote them, including a free-for-the-taking copy of one of ...
Read more...

Judge Halts Publication of ‘Catcher’ Sequel, For Now

In a post we did a couple weeks ago about the Salinger suit, we quoted a copyright lawyer who suggested that the work by the defendant, J.D. California (a.k.a. Fredrik Colting) might only withstand Salinger’s challenge if he could prove that his bo...
Read more...

Virgin Media and Universal Music to Launch World's First Unlimited Music Download Subscription Service

LONDON, June 15, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Virgin Media (Nasdaq:VMED) and Universal Music today unveiled plans for a ground-breaking digital music service designed to bring about a rapid and permanent change in the way UK consumers buy and listen to m...
Read more...

International Copyright and Neighbouring Rights: The Berne Convention and Beyond (2rd ed.)

This website is for the real Berne aficionado and is a vivid demonstration of how easy things have now become for the international copyright scholar in the digital age. No longer will it be necessary to trawl painfully though dusty archives and libr...
Read more...

Copyright Holders Acknowledge Losing Battle For Public Consciousness At World Copyright Summit

WASHINGTON, DC - Copyright holders on Wednesday acknowledged they have done a poor job of countering the “anti-copyright” lobby and demonstrating the creative community’s value to the world. During the second day of the 9-10 June Internationa...
Read more...

JD Salinger launches legal action against author of Catcher in the Rye 'sequel'

Book entitled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye features character similar to Holden Caulfield, lawsuit says JD Salinger, the 90-year-old author of the Catcher in the Rye, launched a legal action against an author who has purportedly writte...
Read more...

Historical Bafflement of the Chinese People

David Kelly, researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, translated the following opinion piece by overseas political commentator Liang Jing. He has published several previous pieces at China Digital Times, including, “Trigger for an Earthqu...
Read more...

US Senate Judiciary Prioritises Performance Rights Bill

Draft legislation to change United States copyright law related to payment for music on radio is likely to see action this summer in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee chairman said Thursday. ”We have many important matters awaiting us...
Read more...

Towards a copyright for fans, as well as critics

The celebrated American science-fiction writer Steven Brust produced a fantastic, full-length novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, inspired by the television show Firefly. Brust didn’t – and probably can’t – receive any money for this work, but...
Read more...

Copyright, Individual Labor and Entitlement: Private Rights in Social Relations

Author as Homo sapiens Oeconomicus is a creative economic and social agent with the propensity to originate, adopt and retain novelty, as well as the needs and capacity of communication. He/she is living within relations with other agents and agencie...
Read more...

Is “Making Available” All It Takes to Get Sued in the Digital Age?

If you’ve been following the news about Internet piracy and copyright infringement in the digital age, you know that the major players in the music and video industries are waging a battle against a mostly unseen enemy. The enemy is peer-to-pe...
Read more...

Guidance on Employment Affairs for Foreigners in Shanghai

I、What are the related laws and regulations by which the foreigners shall be bound if they are employed in Shanghai? The foreigners who are employed in Shanghai shall be governed by the Employment Law of the People’s Republic of China, the...
Read more...

WIPO Limitations & Exceptions Treaty Advances; Audiovisual Treaty Gets New Life

After intensive negotiations, the World Intellectual Property Organization copyright committee reached agreement Friday night on a plan to address a proposed treaty on copyright exceptions for visually impaired persons and others. There also appea...
Read more...

Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom conference 2009 - central themes

My colleague Kylie posted a summary of the fantastic conference "Copyright Future: Copyright Freedom" on her blog. The following ponts are her summary and the original post is here: Australia has typically followed UK and US movements in copyrigh...
Read more...