New copyright news
After two years of law school, I am finally taking Copyright Law. And while I'm deep in the basics (what is copyrightable? What is a "Writing"? What is an idea and how do you separate it from expression?), I hope that at the end of the semester, I'll be able to read opinions like Golan v. Gonzales and form my own thoughts of the meaning (and meaningfulness) of such cases.
In the meantime, however, I point you to the reactions of Larry Lessig, William Patry and Carlos Ovalle.
And there is the added irony of lacking the time to keep up with copyright news ... in order to study copyright. I just found out that the Greenberg v. Nat'l. Geographic case is being reopen and heard en banc ... (for those who pay no attention to such things, cases that go to the federal appellate level are heard by a panel of 3 judges ... after a decision has been reached, the losing side may petition for rehearing by the "full court". If the full court denies an en banc hearing, then the appellant may appeal to the Supreme Court.)
I wrote about one of the Nat'l Geo. cases earlier that was supported by many in the library community (4 of 5 major lib. orgs sided with NG in amici curaie briefs), and there were further updates that I missed ... so these are very muddy waters ... and it's hard to tell if there will be significant clarification when the full 11th Circuit wades in ...