Showing posts with label CASE Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CASE Act. Show all posts

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Sudden Death

If you do a DuckDuckGo search, you will have a hard time finding a definition of "sudden death" that involves bad luck and sportsmanship... or lack thereof. You will need to include a term such as "playoff" in your query.

Today, I am writing about the last gasp of the CASE Act, which has been apparently successfully smothered to death by being sat on by Oregon senator Ron Wyden and needs emergency resuscitation; the Legacy Kit from the SFWA; the focus at Authors Guild on the Death of the Author (owing to rampant overreach by internet giants), and the hidden perils of promoting ones book or other product through illegal contests involving luck or minimal "skill".

You see, it is all copyright-related, but grim, nonetheless.

If you follow this blog and do not support the SFWA, perhaps you should make joining a New Year's Resolution. It is a very useful professional association, and the dues are tax deductible.  They have just published a Legacy Kit, which is a wonderful, 28-page resource for authors interested in being prepared for their own sudden death and authorial immortality.

The Authors Guild is hosting a webinar on November 17th, called "The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling To Survive In The Age Of Billionaires And Big Tech".

The blurb:

"In the age of Big Tech and the gig economy, how can writers and artists survive? It’s never been easier to publish a book or make your art available to the public, but at the same time, the pay has never been lower."

Of course, the pay will never improve as long as writers have rights without meaningful recourse to the courts and the ability enforce their rights.  Which is why the Copyright Alliance is encouraging one final push by all creators and artists to implore their senators to pass the CASE Act, SW.1273.

Their blurb:

“Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019” (the CASE Act) — a bill that would create a “small claims court” within the U.S. Copyright Office to handle copyright infringement claims from individual creators and small businesses that cannot afford to defend themselves in federal court."

Their link:

Desperate to survive financially, many authors use legally questionable methods to promote their books, including illegal sweepstakes and contests that lack the fig leaf of legality. When the "skill" involved in a "contest of skill" amounts to little more than figuring out 2+2, it is little more than a game of chance. Depending where a contestant lives, a "consideration" (price of entry) might only be a "like" or a "follow" or a review on social media, but those things are "of value" to the author and therefore, to stay on the straight and narrow, the author must allow would-be winners of the prize, whatever it is, to enter in an alternative manner without providing the review or like or follow.

There is a lot more to it.  Legal bloggers Kasey Boucher and Matthew D. Stein, for the law firm Pierce Atwood LLP explain their top Ten Common Mistakes When Conducting Sweepstakes Or Contest Promotions On Social Media.

Lexology link:
 
Original link:

If you don't believe that you've been doing it all wrong these past many years, and would like a second legal opinion, or are especially concerned about Facebook, legal blogger David O. Klein of Klein Moynihan Turco LLP has just the ticket for you....metaphorically speaking with Planning On Running A Facebook Sweepstakes? Here's What You Need To Know.

Original link:
 
All the best,
Rowena Cherry   

Sunday, October 20, 2019

CASE Act Vote is in the House Tuesday Oct 22nd

The Authors Guild is asking all interested individuals to contact their Representatives with a message as simple as "I support authors' rights, please vote for the CASE Act HR 2426".

To find your representative, reply to one of their emails to you, or go to
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members

You may get the run around, but persist. You may have to enter your address more than once, and depending on your email address, you might have to enter that more than once, also.

Once you are on your home State, click to find Representatives (not Senators this time). Then, find the right Rep for your district by re-entering your home address, unless you know who your Rep is and which is your District. Click on their photo for a link to their website, when you can enter your address again to prove that you are a constituent, and you should be able to offer your opinion on how they should vote on the CASE Act.

You can be sure that the copyright infringement profiteers will be lobbying heavily to make sure small copyright owners cannot afford to enforce their rights.

Thank you,

Rowena Cherry

Sunday, August 04, 2019

Friendship Breach

If you are a writer (or a racing driver -- according to RUSH), it helps to have friends. But...

Writers tend to have thousands of friends of the social media kind, who, in the real world would not count even as acquaintances. With those friends come risks; unavoidable risks; exponentially compounding risks. Stay with me.

Cameron Abbott and Allison Wallace, legal bloggers for K & L Gates "Cyberwatch: Australia" explain how your name and number get into the hands of global searchable database owners.

Who Have You Been Giving Your Name And Number To? A Cautionary Tale.

You might not have signed up for this, but if any one of your friends does so, he or she or they might legally agree to give away their entire contact list and the personally identifying information for every friend on their contact list. They might not even realize that they did that.

It does not seem right, does it?
Read the cautionary tale. It is worth your time.

Some super "helpful" sites (such as LinkedIN in the early days) even made it so difficult *not* to "opt in" that a well intentioned member who mindfully tried not to share his or her or their contact list found that they had done so.

Some contact lists are more comprehensive than others.  Maybe you should check what you obediently have entered on yours in response to prompts. Do you really need the full first and last names and nicknames and home addresses and phone numbers for work, cell and home, and email addresses of everyone on your list?

Legal bloggers Thomas Dubuisson and Tom De Cordier  for CMS Belgium discuss social media plug ins, and the legal consequences for website owners (which writers are) of those Facebook "Like" buttons, and "share" and "follow" buttons, too.

Using Social Plug-Ins....

As a visitor to a site, you do not have to click a Facebook "like" button. You do not have to have a Facebook account. The mere presence of the Facebook "like" on the host's page will plant a tracking cookie on your computer, and the trustworthy people at Facebook will receive your IP address and your browsing string.

If you are a writer who runs a website (or six), and you have installed social plug-ins for likes and links and shares and social media optimization, and you have visitors from Europe and your books generate assets in Europe, you should read the CMS Belgium "Key takeaways" section.

As for this blog.... please consider yourself advised.

By the way, please note the irony: many of the legal sites writing about "Like" breaches have all the plug-ins on their pages!

Students aren't safe, either. At least 62 universities and colleges have a weak link that might reveal highly sensitive information that one has no choice at all but to provide to colleges and universities as part of the application process.

Higher Education Data Breaches.... 
or
https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/216013/Higher-Education-Data-Breaches-Draw-Response-from-Federal-Agencies

Specialists in cybersecurity and privacy for universities, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP share an alert, and their seven legal bloggers point out the problem with the Ellucian Banner system.

Finally, although Congress is on recess, it is still worth encouraging your Congress person to sponsor and support the CASE Act.  Even if you do not imagine that the CASE Act is of  benefit to you, it might be.

David Newhoff explains that which EFF does not want you to know.
https://illusionofmore.com/the-people-the-case-act-critics-dont-want-to-mention/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Sunday, October 07, 2018

Need To Know/ Nice To Know

Authors, do you know how long your copyrights on your works last? For your lifetime, plus 70 years.  This has been the case for authors in the USA and in the EU for some time. Now, it applies to Canadian creators.

Thanks to the negotiators of the USMCA, copyright in Canada has been changed from "life of the author + 50 years" to "life of the author + 70 years".

Legal bloggers Mark K. Evans and David Schwartz writing for the law firm Smart & Biggar/Fetherstonhaugh explain "USMCA v NAFTA: What's changed, and what it means for IP in Canada."
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b8e253be-0590-4d85-983d-13dc5f9b096e

It's a long and comprehensive article, but well worth bookmarking.

Authors should register their copyrights promptly, since, until the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rules, there is some disagreement in the courts about whether a work counts as "registered" as soon as registration is applied for and the fee paid, or if it is only "registered" when the certificate is issued by the Register of Copyrights... which latter can take over a year.

Writing for the law firm Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, legal blogger Samuel V. Eichner discusses why the Supreme Court Grants Certiorari....
https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/blogs/incontestable/supreme-court-grants-certiorari-in-fourth-estate-to-resolve-circuit-split-on-copyright-registration-prerequisite-to-suit.html#page=1

US creators ought to support the CASE Act.
Gabrielle Carteris opines on the urgency for photographers, authors, songwriters, bloggers, YouTube artists and others to contact their congresspersons in support of giving creators a cost-effective means to enforce their copyrights.
 https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/408749-why-us-creators-urgently-need-congress-to-support-the-case-act

The Authors Guild is strongly in support of the small copyright claims act, also.
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/revised-small-copyright-claims-bill-introduced-bipartisan-group-lawmakers/


Last word: if any of our readers are inspired by history, or planning a trip to Sherborne in the UK, my friend Cindy Chant does Sherborne Walks, and writes historical articles for the delightfully eclectic Sherborne Times. The Disastrous Ending is on pp 42-43 of 132.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry