Blog

Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act states that “no civil action for [copyright] infringement…shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made.”[1] In other words, copyright owners must “register” their copyrights before suing for copyright infringement. In Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com, decided in March 2019, the Supreme Court clarified that “registration” for the purposes of Section 411(a) occurs only when the Copyright Office registers a copyright and provides a certificate of registration and not when an applicant files for copyright registration.[2] Under this decision, copyright owners must wait for the Copyright Office to decide on their registrations before they are allowed to sue others for infringement. This decision could potentially create a substantial time lag during which copyright owners, especially those with limited budgets, are able to enforce their copyrights. This blog post summarizes the Fourth Estate case and its reasoning, the implications of the new rule, and some ways for copyright owners to respond, including how to register for copyright. →

The Cyberlaw Clinic filed an amicus curiae brief (.pdf) in the United States Supreme Court in Oracle v. Google, No. 18-956, on behalf of a group of intellectual property law scholars. The brief supported Google’s petition for certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to review decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Google’s petition is the latest stage in a nearly decade-long litigation battle between Oracle and Google concerning Google’s use of Oracle’s application programming interface (“API”) in Google’s Android smartphone platform.  The case raises two major sets of copyright issues.  The first concerns the scope of copyright protection for APIs and the line between protectable expression and purely functional elements of computer code.  The second concerns whether, if an API is protected by copyright, use of that API may fall under fair use. The Clinic’s brief supports Google on the second of those points, urging the Court to take the case and resolve the fair use issue. →

APPLICATIONS FOR THE SUMMER 2019 INTERNSHIP ARE NOW CLOSED

The Cyberlaw Clinic is hiring summer interns for 2019! Come join a dynamic team working on important issues related to technology and the law.

Summer legal interns work on all aspects of the Cyberlaw Clinic’s caseload and, like Fall and Spring semester students, take the lead on the projects they join, supported by the Clinic staff. Although Clinic projects vary from summer to summer, they often include substantive law related to the First Amendment, computer security, digital privacy, intellectual property, civic innovation, emerging technologies, and media and the arts. The Clinic also has a growing practice relating to AI, including with regard to criminal justice, human rights, and creative practice. Interns will be involved in supporting the Clinic’s ongoing docket and in planning decisions about clients, cases, and topic areas to be addressed in the Clinic’s work during the upcoming academic year.

Check out the full job posting for more information and application instructions.

The Cyberlaw Clinic is pleased to announce the release of “A Preservationist’s Guide to the DMCA Exemption for Software Preservation,” a document created in collaboration with the Software Preservation Network and hosted on the SPN website. The guide —authored by fall 2018 Cyberlaw Clinic student Kee Young Lee and Clinical Fellow Kendra Albert — builds on work that the Clinic and SPN have done together over the past year on the 2018 round of anti-circumvention exemptions announced by the Copyright Office in October of this year.

As we noted in a previous blog post, the Copyright Office conducts a rulemaking every three years to identify situations in which individuals should be exempt from liability under Section 1201 of the Copyright Act in cases where they circumvent a “technical measure that effectively controls access” to a copyrighted work. We were pleased that the latest round of exemptions included one that allows libraries, archives, and museums to circumvent technological protection measures on certain lawfully acquired software for the purposes of preserving software and materials that depend on it. The guide released today aims to frame that exemption in useful, practical terms for the librarians and archivists who will rely on and benefit from it.  “Getting the exemption is just the first step — SPN and the Cyberlaw Clinic are dedicated to supporting practitioners in using the exemption to preserve software,” said Mx. Albert.  “This is the first of a set of guides we plan to release to help institutions make the most of their rights under the law.”

The Cyberlaw Clinic is thrilled to have supported our friend Ji Qie and the rest of the team that launched patentpandas.org this week. The site aims to “help make patent law friendly for everyone,” offers stories from “[e]veryday people” about “their patent adventures and misadventures,” and provides a wide range of resources for creators and entrepreneurs about interacting with the patent system. Legal resources on the site address issues like “What Can Be Patented?” and “I Got a Cease and Desist Letter!.” Fall 2018 Clinic student Carol Lin worked with the Cyberlaw Clinic’s Assistant Director, Jessica Fjeld, to guide the project.  (Photo credit: Andy Sellars.)