Assignment for May 3, 2010

On Monday, May 3rd, Professor Dan Laster will be the guest lecturer for the class.

As we continue to focus on the emerging legal, business, policy and other interests related to content on the internet, especially as debated in the Viacom v. Google (YouTube) litigation, and the litigation and settlement discussions surrounding Google Books, a more complete understanding of the DMCA remains central to our work. Of course, you have already studied the DMCA and we have mentioned it as we walked through the foundational case law and statutes underlying these issues over the last few weeks. However, Dan will take a deeper dive with you on the DMCA. You will also have some time during the class to meet with your stakeholder groups.

Some key issues you should consider and discuss include:
-- who qualifies for the DMCA protections and why?
-- how current and relevant is the statute after so many changes with respect to the internet and social media in the past ten years?
-- how fair use and the DMCA interact
-- what are the issues surrounding take-down notices for sites such as YouTube and Twitter; and
-- what are some of the policy and business issues different stakeholders might consider beneficial or damaging to their interests.

Think about the statute and some of these related issues from the perspective of your assigned stakeholder team – a Silicon Valley internet startup; an “old media” company like Viacom (or Disney); and independent recording or visual artist; or a Congressional staffer thinking about broad public interests and the constitutional balance between protection and public dissemination.

There are many law review articles and other journal pieces on the DMCA, but we’ll make it easy and have you look at some basic sites that describe the process, some complaints, and some relevant situations.

DMCA:


http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/04/27/twitter-removes-song-link-tweet-after-dmca-complaint

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83757

www.dmca.com

www.anti-dmca.org

www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/07/universal-says/

Also, here is the article I mentioned in the last class covering the recent briefings filed as part of the motion for summary judgment describing some of the emails behind the scenes.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/company-news/viacom-v-youtube-google-a-piracy-case-in-their-own-words/19407896/

Of course, if interested, you can find many other interesting sites, blogs, commentary and funny you tube videos online.

I will be back in town and see you all on May 10th.

Steve