"Prosecutor as bully."

Lawrence Lessig on the suicide of Aaron Swartz (which we've already been talking about here ). Lessig was Swartz's friend and — for...

"Reddit, Creative Commons and Demand Progress co-founder Aaron Swartz committed suicide in New York City on Friday, Jan. 11."

"He was 26 years old." Aaron Swartz was facing a potential sentence of dozens of years in prison for allegedly trying to make MIT ...

"Your average Dylan fan could be excused for not knowing about a new European compilation called The Copyright Extension Collection Vol. 1."

"Only 100 of these four-CD sets even exist, and they've been shipped to a tiny number of stores located in Germany, France, Sweden,...

"Instagram said today that it has the perpetual right to sell users' photographs without payment or notification..."

"... a dramatic policy shift that quickly sparked a public outcry." The new intellectual property policy, which takes effect on Ja...

"Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style."

Okay , but $8.1 million isn't that much considering the magnitude of the success of the thing. On the other hand, it's the kind of t...

"Unfathomably, the programme notes for the Harry Potter author, who read from the opening of Peter Pan, declared her to be 'a great philanthropist, praised by the Government as a tax angel – one of the few who willingly pays her tax bill.'"

From the long, photo-filled Daily Mail article about last night's opening ceremony for the London Olympics. Unfathomably? Oh, come on....

After Obama's ad mocked Romney's singing, Romney responded with an ad that used Obama's singing "Let's Stay Together."

And now the ad is gone, due to a copyright claim. The campaign says "Our use was 100% proper, under fair use, and we plan to defend ou...

"Copying Is Not Theft."

ADDED: Some analysis by a lawprof, Stuart P. Green: The problem is that most people simply don’t buy the claim that illegally downloading a ...

"The two versions of ['What What (In The Butt)'] are very similar.... However the South Park version stars Butters..."

"... a naïve nine-year old, in a variety of costumes drawing attention to his innocence: at various points he is dressed as a teddy be...

Reporter challenges State Department official to explain how the U.S. Constitution gives Jay Leno the right to make fun of religion.

State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland is grilled about a Jay Leno joke that has offended Sikhs. Here's the joke, which targets Mitt ...

"You never know how the legislation will be interpreted. Depending on the legal climate, it could be interpreted quite a bit."

Wisconsin lawprof Shubha Ghosh commenting on the proposed Commercial Felony Streaming Act. By contrast: [U]nder the proposed legislation, i...

So... what's a law professor to do about this website that sells outlines to our courses?

Here 's the website. My ideas, off the top of my head: 1. Buy the outlines to your class, find the errors, and deliberately frame the ex...

"Copyright time bomb threatens music labels."

The Wall Street Journal reports: Under a US copyright law from 1978, artists who sold themselves to the recording companies could reclaim th...

Requiring patients to sign over copyrights to reviews of doctors so the doctors can make websites take down bad reviews.

If you've chosen a doctor based on all the good reviews in Yelp, and he won't treat you unless you sign a form that gives him owners...

"Six Reasons Google Books Failed."

Robert Darnton digests Judge Denny Chin’s opinion rejecting the settlement of the copyright claim against Google: First, Google abandoned it...

"Honestly Monica, the web is considered 'public domain'..."

"... and you should be happy we just didn't 'lift' your whole article and put someone else's name on it!" Via Inst...

The Squirrel Rights Song.

"We didn't sign a release!"

"A group of Radiohead fans went to a recent show in Prague 'on a mission to capture the band playing using as many different angles as possible.'"

"Radiohead found out about this and provided the audio so that the fans could piece everything together into proper videos." Beaut...

"If you are building a business model that says that people can only copy things with your permission..."

"... your business is going to fail because whether or not you like it, people will be able to copy your product without your permissio...

"David Byrne Sues Florida Gov. Charlie Crist For $1 Million."

Crist used the song "Road to Nowhere," without permission, in a campaign ad. "I was pretty upset by that," says Byrne, ...