Lawmakers Attempt To include Controversial IP Bills In Unrelated Government Funding Bill. Protocol reported on last-minute efforts to include the CASE Act, Trademark Modernization Act and felony streaming legislation “at the eleventh hour.” A group of 18 organizations, including Re:Create, sent a letter to congressional leadership asking to remove these proposals from government funding bills. “This backroom deal to empower copyright and trademark trolls as part of a must-pass bill would have sweeping negative consequences for the entire internet ecosystem,” said the Internet Association’s Mike Lemon. “Copyright and trademark reform are important policy issues that warrant fulsome, measured debate. Jamming such significant measures into a government funding bill is bad policymaking.”
ACLU Weighs In: Say No To CASE Act In Government Spending Bills. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also wrote to congressional leadership urging them to remove the CASE Act from end-of-year government funding bills. “The CASE Act is a controversial provision that would significantly alter the enforcement of copyright law and would have the unintended consequence of undermining free expression online,” said the ACLU in a letter. “Because we recognize that it is essential to fund the federal government…we ask that you decline to include the CASE Act in the upcoming funding bill and instead allow that provision to proceed through regular order where Members will have an opportunity to address the significant concerns raised by the bill before it passes into law.”
Female Chess Prodigy Gets Huge Following On Twitch. Since the pandemic forced people indoors and left many unable to watch certain competitive sports, chess prodigy Alexandra Botez turned to Twitch to livestream her chess matches. Botez has now gained over 450,000 followers on the gaming platform, as well as more than 250,000 followers on Instagram and more than 25 million views on her YouTube channel. She’s also gotten an additional boost from the popular Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit. “Chess exploded on Twitch, and I was one of the top streamers. I remember being so excited, I couldn’t sleep. I was so high on adrenaline,” Botez said.
Technology Making It Easier Than Ever To Succeed As An Independent Musician. Bloomberg featured how platforms like Twitch, Spotify and TikTok are making it easier than ever to succeed as an independent musician. According to one survey, the number of independent musicians publishing their own music direct to fans grew 31% between 2019 and September this year to 4.7 million. “These artists, who tend to be earlier in their career, are playing by different rules to established artists by releasing directly themselves or doing label services deals with next-generation record labels,” said Midia analyst Mark Mulligan.
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