PATENT REFORM
S. 1145 continues to recede into the distance, like the water-on-the-road
mirage on a long auto trip. A couple of weeks ago, Hal Wegner noted: “The Congressional
Quarterly manifests an expectation that the patent reform legislation that
was to get a Senate cloture vote in ‘February’ is now in becalmed waters, with
no clear pathway for success in sight.” [MORE]
Now, February is done, and the media echo chamber is saying that an aide to
Harry Reid says that Reid “hopes” to get to it in early April. 31.http://www.ipo.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=This_Weeks_Daily_News
INTERNET FILTERING/TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
At CES in January, ATT said some good words about the idea of filtering the
Internet for copyrighted content. [NY
Times]. A panel at the Internet Caucus’ State
of the Net Conference also looked the issue, and the FCC
just held a hearing on Comcast’s ‘fess up that engages in traffic management,
such as inhibiting bandwidth-hogging P2P. The UK is also looking
at the issue.
Since the mere suggestion of ISP copyright enforcement not only makes the
ISPs nervous but sends the tech and communitarian academic communities into orbit, a
lively summer is in store.
ORPHAN WORKS
Two years ago, the problem of “orphan works” – those whose owners may be impossible
to identify and locate – was high on the
government’s IP agenda, largely because programs to digitize whole libraries
made it inescapable.
Now, orphans have vanished from consciousness. But Congressional ADD has not
made the problem disappear, nor is it anywhere close to resolution. The Copyright
Office proposal is fine for circumstances when someone knows the precise work
he wants to use, but the larger problem is the need to digitize works so
that people can search them to find out what just what it is that they do
want.
Congress needs to get back to work on this.
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