Stanford Center for Internet and Society

This just in from EFFector:

* Action Alert - Support the FAIR USE Act!

A critical copyright reform bill has just been introduced
in the House, and we need your help to push it through.
Reps. Rick Boucher and John Doolittle's FAIR Use Act would
remove some of the entertainment industry's most draconian
anti-innovation weapons and chip away at the Digital

STANFORD, Calif., February 27, 2007—The Fair Use Project of the Center for Internet & Society at Stanford Law School announced that it has teamed with Media/Professional Insurance and leading intellectual property attorney Michael Donaldson to provide critical support for documentary filmmakers who rely on the “fair use” of copyrighted material in their films. The initiative was announced at the International Documentary Association’s 25th Annual Celebration of Academy Award Documentary Nominees in Beverly Hills February 22, 2007.

“Documentary filmmakers who use copyrighted materials in their work under the ‘fair use’ doctrine of copyright law have come under tremendous pressure in the face of demands for huge licensing fees from copyright holders and overly-aggressive enforcement of copyrights,” explained Lawrence Lessig, founder and director of the Center for Internet and Society and the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.

We won an important victory over the Estate of James Joyce's motion to dismiss last week in Shloss v. Estate of James Joyce. The Estate had moved to dismiss our entire case, arguing that Professor Shloss could not sue for a declaratory judgment of her fair use right to use quotations from Joyce family members on her Website because the Estate had not made threats sufficient to cause Professor Shloss reasonable apprehension that the Estate would sue her if she published her Website.

In a decisive 20-page opinion, the Court found that Shloss had alleged ample reasons to fear being sued by the Estate regarding her Website.

I attended the motion to dismiss hearing in the Shloss v. Estate of Joyce case on Wednesday morning. Here a photo of Professor Shloss and two people from the legal team, David Olson (CIS Fellow) and Tony Falzone (Exec. Dir. of the Fair Use Project). (A couple more photos are available in my flickr set.)

This post from the Legal Blog Watch brought a smile to my face. It reports on the wonderful sense of humor of the attorneys over at Second Life.

here.

Though the Court acknowledged that there had been a change from an opt-in to an opt-out system of copyright, the court held that because Eldred had resolved a “similar” claim, it would not “ignore the clear holding of Eldred” (about, apparently, not the same claim, but a “similar” claim.)

Some sad news to report: the 9th Circuit has rejected constitutional challenges to the copyright laws in *Kahle v. Gonzales*. The opinion is here. Sad, yes, but also positively maddening, for reasons I will explain shortly.

The Associate Director of the Fair Use Project will work in close collaboration with the Executive Director and Faculty Director in administering all FUP activities. The position is initially for 12 months, with the possibility of renewal for three additional years.