The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many campuses closing temporarily. These closings have heavily affected access to research labs and materials. In order to ensure the continuation of vital research, libraries including Penn State University Libraries, George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida, and The Ohio State University Libraries are sharing a wide range of information and skills…

Engine Blog Re:Create’s Get to Know Our Members blog series helps others better understand the different ways Re:Create members work to support balanced copyright laws and why they are so motivated by copyright issues. For this post, we heard from Engine. 1: What is your organization’s mission? Engine is a policy, advocacy, and research organization supporting startups as an engine…

One of the main criticisms of the Copyright Office (“the Office”)’s report on Section 512 of Title 17 is that it focused upon the impact of Section 512 on rightsholders and online service providers (“OSPs”), and largely ignored Section 512’s impact on users. The Copyright Office redressed this oversight in a June 29, 2020 letter the Office wrote in response…

California Uses Copyright Excuse To Avoid Police Transparency. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is taking on the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) for using copyright as justification for skirting state transparency laws. According to a Newsweek report, EFF was denied access to POST’s open data portal on training materials for the use of automated license plate…

Re:Create’s Get to Know Our Members blog series helps others better understand the different ways Re:Create members work to support balanced copyright laws and why they are so motivated by copyright issues. For this post, we heard from Andy Hickner, Co-Chair of the Medical Library Association Governmental Relations Committee. 1: What is your organization’s mission? The Medical Library Association (MLA) is…

Re:Create Executive Director: Websites We Rely On Actually Rely On Balanced Copyright Law. In an op-ed published by Inside Sources, Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel highlights the increasingly prevalent role the internet plays in our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and how policy proposals from the entertainment industry would threaten the tools that are keeping us connected as a society….

The sudden changes to our society and economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have challenged Americans’ capacity to innovate, demonstrating once again how indispensable the internet is to human ingenuity and productivity. We’re living indoors and online, and the fact that our transformed lives are still occupied, engaged, aspiring and fulfilling is a testament to the sweeping utility of the…

Medical providers face countless challenges in responding to the COVID pandemic, and copyright shouldn’t have to be one of them. Hundreds of volunteers came together to create the Medical Device Repair Database posted to the repair information website iFixit, providing medical practitioners and technicians an easy-to-use, annotated, and indexed resource to help them keep devices in good repair. The database includes documentation…

TLDR: Amid the coronavirus pandemic and critical ongoing conversations about race-based inequalities and injustices, Americans are increasingly turning to the Internet to learn, share, and stay informed. That’s shining a brighter light on the ways in which Internet platforms handle all kinds of content—including misinformation, violent speech, and alleged infringement from the country’s highest office. What’s Happening This Week: President Donald Trump…

When our nation reels from a global pandemic and nationwide protests against systemic racial injustice and law enforcement abuses, the circumstances call for prioritizing public health and civil rights.  It hardly seems the time to re-examine digital copyright law.  It turns out, however, that the misuse of digital copyright law can short-circuit discussions of these critical issues. This week, copyright…