Cojones On The Cutting Edge

On Independence Day, I write about Courage, Class Action, a culture of piracy... and sauce for the gander.

Courage first. The copyrightalliance.org has generated a two-part report on Thom Tillis's and Chris Coons's Senate subcommittee hearings asking, "Is the DMCA's Notice & Takedown System Working in the 21st Century?"

Kudos to panelists Kerry Muzzey (composer); Don Henley (musician); Jeff Sedlik (photographer) and Doug Preston (author/Authors Guild).

Part 1
https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/senators-and-creators-say-notice-and-takedown-system-is-broken-while-platforms-blame-creators/

Part 2
https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_post/senators-and-creators-say-notice-and-takedown-system-is-broken-while-platforms-blame-creators/?_zs=TqSBb&_zl=bj5A2

As Kerry Muzzey explains, standing up for ones intellectual property rights is like being "a tiny David in a sea of big tech Goliaths."

Meanwhile the courageous Maria Scheider (Grammy award winning composer and performer) and Pirate Monitor LTD have launched a likely-Quixotic class action, taking the sartorial scissors (wordplay on the meaning of her name) to the big tech goolies of the self-same Goliaths.
https://musictechpolicy.com/2020/07/03/2016-guest-post-by-schneidermaria-content-id-is-still-just-piracy-in-disguise-an-open-letter-to-rightsholders-and-a-music-industry-ready-to-renegotiate-with-a-monster/

One might also laugh out loud at the outrageous cheek of Judicial Watch, a charity with the popular motto, "Because No One Is Above The Law," which is claiming viewpoint discrimination if they are prevented from painting their own urgent and timely expressive message in enormous yellow lettering on DC and New York City tarmacadam.

https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Paint-NY-Letter-June-2020.pdf

They do say, what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander!

Apparently, there is no law against it, and no process to apply for a permit, so perhaps we can all chalk big bold advertisements for our novels on hot public pavements.

All the best,
Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ http://www.spacesnark.com/ 

PS. Be on the lookout for genuine-looking emails from gmail and spotify that appear to suggest that someone else is trying to log in to "your" account. 4th July might be a good date to change passwords again. Just saying...