Users Don’t Own Their Marvel “Create Your Own” Comics. Social media and other creative platforms are usually celebrated for empowering ordinary people to create and share content. However, Marvel’s “Create Your Own,” a new platform for fans to write comic strips featuring Marvel characters, ironically does just the opposite, according to The Verge’s Kaitlyn Tiffany. The “Create Your Own” terms…

America’s Public Domain Laws Remain Stuck In The Past. January 1 marked Public Domain Day — the date when certain published works enter the public domain, allowing artists and consumers to freely appreciate, recreate and remix works by creators like Rene Magritte, John Coltrane and Winston Churchill. The U.S., however, will wait one more year until works enter the public…

Keep America Winning Online: Promote America’s Balanced Copyright System By Joshua Lamel Morning Consult December 14, 2017 When the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1993, the internet economy as we know it today barely existed. Online content platforms such as Facebook and YouTube were a decade from launching and a few lucky users connected to the internet…

Re:Create Executive Director: Keep America Winning Online By Promoting A Balanced Copyright System. Executive Director Joshua Lamel penned a December 14 op-ed in Morning Consult calling for balanced copyright provisions, such as safe harbors and fair use, to be included in a renegotiated NAFTA if copyright is included in the agreement. Lamel wrote: “Fair use benefits 18 million American workers,…

Is Browsing The Web A Copyright Violation? In a recent blog post, Public Knowledge’s Katrina Worsham explained how current court interpretations essentially render browsing the internet a copyright violation. “Courts have held that creating a copy of website code in a browser’s cache constitutes a copyright violation. The issue here is that copying site code into a browser is the only…

Meet Malinda Reese: Google Translate Cover Artist, Actress And YouTube Vlogger. Malinda Reese first gained attention when she performed a parody of the Disney hit song “Let It Go,” by using an online translator to convert the lyrics through multiple languages. The end result went viral and has been viewed more than 10 million times. In the latest profile for…

Academics & Tech Groups Tell USTR: Fair Use Must Be In NAFTA. Over 65 intellectual property law professors and copyright experts signed onto a set of principles that NAFTA trade delegates should follow to protect public interests. Principles highlighted in the document include copyright limitations and exceptions such as fair use and safe harbors. Likewise, technology associations including the Internet…

New Research: International Balanced Copyright Policies Results In Positive Economic Development And Creativity. New research from American University’s law school found that balanced copyright policies are tied to positive economic development and creativity in a sample of 21 countries across the world. American University’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property established the Copyright User Rights Database to explore balanced…

Copy This Podcast With Michael Geist. In Re:Create’s tenth installment of our Copy This podcast, host Kirby Ferguson sits down with University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist to discuss how intellectual property and copyright fits into the NAFTA renegotiations. While trade agreements were once designed to remove barriers to trade and eliminate tariffs on traditional goods and services, the…

Fair Use and Halloween By Joshua Lamel Medium October 31, 2017 This year, the top three most-searched Halloween costumes all come from popular movies: Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn and the clown from Stephen King’s It. Other popular costumes for trick-or-treaters of all ages include Moana, Batman, Chucky, Daenerys Targaryen, and Mickey Mouse. Every October, Americans look to their favorite movies, TV shows and books…