Professor Elizabeth Shaver is quoted in a Fortune article about Olympus' alleged business fraud. Check out what she has to say here .
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A friend, reader, and fellow law professor, Bill Rich, viewed the SOPA /PIPA video I posted and had this to say:
One of the main assertions in the video — that any site that enables or facilitates copyright violations is liable to be shut down as a site "dedicated to theft of U.S. property" — is incorrect. Even though the narrator reads it aloud, he proceeds to ignore completely the language in the bill requiring that, in order to be deemed a site dedicated to theft of U.S. property, the site must be either operated for the purpose of committing or enabling or facilitating copyright violations, or have only limited purpose or use other than committing or enabling or facilitating copyright violations, or be marketed for use in offering goods or services in a manner that violates copyright law. He says that Youtube, Vimeo, CNN.com, Facebook, Google, Bing, domain name servers, Paypal, etc., could be shut down as sites dedicated to the theft of U.S. property under this definition, but Youtube, etc., clearly aren't operated for the purpose of enabling or facilitating copyright violations, nor do they have only limited purpose or use other than committing or enabling or facilitating copyright violations, nor are they marketed for that purpose.
There are good reasons to oppose SOPA/PIPA, but this isn't one.
It seems to me the key is the interpretation of "operated for the purpose of…." It seems to me that it could be argued that Youtube in particular is operated at least partly for the purpose of enabling copyright violations. Actual knowledge of, and the continued taking of profit from, copyright violations makes it part of a profit-seeking entity's purpose. Their broader purpose is to make money facilitating all kinds of video communication, but that includes this kind.
I confessed at the outset that this was a debate I know little about, so the above is just me responding to Bill's point. Amirite? Any experts out there want to chime in?
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You can find some thoughts related to that question here.
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Although I have not been keeping up with the SOPA/PIPA debate, I found this video useful, although clearly from the perspective of critics of the proposed legislation:
The speaker is the founder of Khan Academy, whose free, clear, web-based video lessons inspired Bill Gates to fund as part of the future of education reform.
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Online piracy and counterfeiting is epidemic. The owners of copyrighted material — movies, music, etc., as well as of trademarked products, lose millions of dollars each year to piracy and counterfeting and thousands of jobs are lost as a result. In the past, Congress has responded to this problem by passing stronger civil and criminal laws, but the problem persists, perhaps even gotten worse. What to do?
Within the past year or so, a number of bills have been introduced in Congress aimed specifically at curtailing online piracy and counterfeiting. Under the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), for example, the Attorney General of the U.S. would be able to require service providers, such as Google, to take measures to block access to foreign websites that traffic in pirated and counterfeit goods, including blocking access to the relevant domain name. Payment network providers and internet advertising services could be required to cease doing business with the such "rogue" websites.
At first, such bills seemed destined for smooth sailing towards passage. However, strong opposition to such legislation has surfaced recently. The attacks have been led by tech companies, who argue, in effect, that the cure is worse than the disease — that SOPA and related legislation would have a crippling effect on the operation of the internet. Wikipedia and other sites today are blocking access to content in protest. And the Obama Administration recently weighed in in opposition to SOPA.
At this time, it is difficult to predict what, if any, legislation will be enacted. Congress will continue to consider the issue over the next several months. It is clear, however, that before any legislation can be passed, major changes will have to be made to the current proposals to address the concerns of the tech industry and of the Administration.
Akron Law, along with Sughrue Mion, PLLC will host a symposium on the latest developments on Intellectual Property Law and Policy on March 19. Details available here .
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Some thoughts here.
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And some other things (here).
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Some thoughts on that here.
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If you want to spend a little time looking back at 2011, you might try going over to The Race to the Bottom and checking out Jay Brown's overview of Delaware's worst shareholder decisions for 2011.
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Some thoughts on that here.
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