Further US copyright extension unlikely this year

Why Mickey Mouse’s 1998 copyright extension probably won’t happen again | Ars Technica - Timothy B. Lee:

January 8, 2018 - "On January 1, 2019, every book, film, and song published in 1923 will fall out of copyright protection — something that hasn't happened in 40 years. At least, that's what will happen if Congress doesn't retroactively change copyright law to prevent it — as Congress has done two previous times.

"Until the 1970s, copyright terms only lasted for 56 years. But Congress retroactively extended the term of older works to 75 years in 1976. Then on October 27, 1998 — just weeks before works from 1923 were scheduled to fall into the public domain — President Bill Clinton signed legislation retroactively extending the term of older works to 95 years, locking up works published in 1923 or later for another 20 years.

"Will Congress do the same thing again this year? To find out, we talked to groups on both sides of the nation's copyright debate.... To our surprise, there seemed to be universal agreement that another copyright extension was unlikely to be on the agenda this year....

"The rise of the Internet has totally changed the political landscape on copyright issues. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is much larger than it was in 1998. Other groups, including Public Knowledge, didn't even exist 20 years ago. Internet companies — especially Google — have become powerful opponents of expanding copyright protections.

"Most importantly, there's now a broad grassroots engagement on copyright issues — something that became evident with the massive online protests against the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act in 2012. SOPA would have forced ISPs to enforce DNS-based blacklists of sites accused of promoting piracy. It was such a bad idea that Wikipedia, Google, and other major sites blacked themselves out in protest.... The protest against SOPA 'was a big show of force," says Meredith Rose, a lawyer at Public Knowledge. The protest showed that 'the public really cares about this stuff.'

"The defeat of SOPA was so complete that it has essentially ended efforts by copyright interests to expand copyright protection via legislation. Prior to SOPA, Congress would regularly pass bills ratcheting up copyright protections.... Since 2012, copyright has been a legislative stalemate, with neither side passing significant legislation.

"And that means that advocates of a new copyright term extension bill wouldn't be able to steamroll opponents the way they did 20 years ago. Any term extension proposal would face a well-organized and well-funded opposition with significant grassroots support.... Of course, copyright interests might try to slip a copyright term extension into a must-pass bill in hopes opponents wouldn't notice until it was too late. But ... 'The likelihood of it slipping by unnoticed' is low, Rose said.

"And even some content creators aren't keen on ever-longer copyright terms. The Authors Guild, for example, 'does not support extending the copyright term, especially since many of our members benefit from having access to a thriving and substantial public domain of older works,' a Guild spokeswoman told Ars in an email. 'If anything, we would likely support a rollback to a term of life-plus-50 if it were politically feasible.'"

Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/hollywood-says-its-not-planning-another-copyright-extension-push/
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Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder dead

Cyber-Libertarian And Pioneer John Perry Barlow Dies At Age 70 : The Two-Way : NPR - Richard Gonzalez:

February 7, 2018 -"A founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, John Perry Barlow, has died at the age of 70, according to a statement issued by the Foundation.

"Barlow was a poet, essayist, Internet pioneer and prominent cyber-libertarian. He co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1990 after realizing that the government was ill-equipped to understand what he called the "legal, technical, and metaphorical nature of datacrime.' He said believed that 'everyone's liberties would become at risk.'

Barlow described the founding of the EFF after receiving a visit from an FBI agent in April 1990 seeking to find out whether he was a member of 'a dread band of info-terrorists.' Shortly thereafter, Barlow and Mitch Kapor, the creator of Lotus 1-2-3, organized a series of dinners with leaders of the computer industry for discussions that would lead to the creation of the EFF.

"'It ... became clear that we were dealing with a set of problems which was a great deal more complex and far-reaching than a few cases of governmental confusion. The actions of the FBI and Secret Service were symptoms of a growing social crisis.... America was entering the Information Age with neither laws nor metaphors for the appropriate protection and conveyance of information itself.'

"Barlow was a Fellow Emeritus of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School.

"Earlier in his life, Barlow was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead who co-wrote songs such as 'Cassidy,' 'Mexicali Blues,' and "Black-Throated Wind.'

"According to the Electric Frontier Foundation, Barlow 'passed away quietly in his sleep' on Wednesday morning."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/07/584124201/cyber-libertarian-and-pioneer-john-perry-barlow-dies-at-age-70

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Google resists FBI 'fishing' in Benton's e-mails

Google Won’t Let the Government See the Emails of Rand Paul's Aides | Mother Jones - Russ Choma:

Aug. 19, 2015 - "In the summer of 2014, federal investigators began probing whether Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign had paid Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson for his endorsement. After Sorenson confessed, investigators focused on three other men, including current presidential candidate Rand Paul's nephew-in-law, Jesse Benton, whose email account supposedly contained evidence....

"FBI agents got a search warrant that entitled them to read the emails without Benton's cooperation. But the plan did not go smoothly. Benton has a Gmail account, and Google's policy is to notify users when their accounts have been hit with a search warrant. Benton's attorney, Roscoe Howard, promptly filed a motion to block the search warrant, alleging that it was improper, and Google stopped cooperating with the FBI.

"Two weeks ago, Benton and two other top Paul aides ... were indicted on federal charges, including conspiracy, campaign finance violations, and making false statements.... The FBI still hasn't gotten ahold of Benton's emails. Last week, a judge ruled that the FBI had a right to the emails, but once again, Benton resisted and Google agreed....

"'Frighteningly, the government still maintains that it has the right to trample Mr. Benton’s privacy rights and look through every single one of Mr. Benton’s emails, just as if his email account were a warehouse full of documents,' Howard wrote. 'The government’s statement underscores its true intent —to conduct a fishing expedition.'

"The government has now demanded that Google be held in contempt if the company doesn't immediately turn over the emails, and it has argued that Benton and his attorney can raise their concerns at trial if they don't like the way the search warrant was obtained....

"Hanni Fakhoury, a senior staff counsel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said courts have not yet settled the question of how specific or broad email search warrants should be.... 'This case is smack in the middle of the debate,' Fakhoury says. 'This is a very high-profile and dramatic example of it, because we're talking about half a million emails.'

"Howard, Benton's attorney, wrote in one filing that his client had cooperated fully with investigators and provided a 50,000-page list of all the emails in his account, which may contain as many as 500,000 emails. Howard argues that the government's search warrant is simply too broad, and that Benton's Gmail account contains both personal and political correspondence.

"Google has now officially joined the fight. Its lawyer, Guy Cook, told the court that the company will not turn over Benton's emails. 'Google cannot be held in contempt simply for allowing Mr. Benton to exercise his appellate rights and awaiting the district court’s ruling on the warrant’s validity,' Cook wrote. The company's position is that it will release emails only after the conflict over the search warrant has been resolved in court.

"A Google spokeswoman declined to discuss the case specifically but said the company won't comply with overly broad requests."

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/google-jumps-legal-fight-over-paul-aides
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