Category Archives: Intellectual Property

How “The Lego Movie” is Really About Copyright

This weekend I finally got around to watching The Lego Movie. My watching it was long overdue, I was a Lego fanatic as a kid, and the movie had been recommended to me countless times since its release. Of course I loved it, it’s a really good movie. The kids love it because it’s a […]

August 15, 2014 – 4:42 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property | Tagged | Comments (4)

Aereo Gets Its Day In Court

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments in the American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo case. This case pits traditional broadcasters and media conglomerates against the next generation of tech upstarts, and has huge implications for the future of ‘cloud services’. A Brief Overview and History Aereo was first launched in New York City in February of […]

April 25, 2014 – 4:24 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Cloud Computing, Intellectual Property | Tagged | Comments (1)

More Than Just a “Rude Rap Song”

Last week Matt Schruers wrote a blog post at Project Disco titled “Today’s Internet: Made Possible By A Rude Rap Song” (both TechDirt and Reason’s Hit & Run wrote follow up pieces). I enjoyed the post but as a hip hop head and a copyright nerd I need to drop some knowledge. I have one […]

March 13, 2014 – 10:58 am | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Derek Khanna on the Politics of Copyright Reform

Derek Khanna is a rising start in the Republican party and has become the face of copyright reform advocates on the right. While a staff member of the Republican Study Committee, a group that researches policy issues for House Republicans, Khanna authored a a widely read report titled “Three Myths about Copyright Law”. The report […]

May 7, 2013 – 7:13 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

US Ambassador Asks Australians to Stop Pirating Game of Thrones, Commenters React

Last Tuesday US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich took to Facebook to plead with Australians to stop pirating the popular HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. Ambassador Bleich chastised his audience reminding them that “stealing is stealing” and pointing out that “the show is now available from legitimate sources within hours of its broadcast in […]

April 26, 2013 – 3:34 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

TDIF: Expression (Part 3: Financial)

This post is really a continuation of Threats to the Declaration of the Internet: Expression (Part 2: Institutional). Below is an excerpted introduction from that post and then we’ll jump right in. The past several posts here have looked at the recently released Declaration of Internet Freedom (rundown here) and threats that it faces. In the […]

April 23, 2013 – 7:47 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Good News, Bad News — Aereo and ReDigi

This past week saw two interesting and important court decisions come down, both relating to copyright in the digital space. One involving innovative ‘online broadcaster’, Aereo, brought goods news, while the other, involving digital music reseller ReDigi, brought some not so good news. Lets start with the good. Aereo Aereo is an interesting service which was […]

April 10, 2013 – 11:32 am | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Cloud Computing, Intellectual Property, Open Internet | Tagged , | Comments (4)

The Unlocking Technology Act of 2013

Today Congress introduced yet another bill to address the recent ban on cell phone unlocking, which prevents cellphone owners from using their phones on different wireless carriers. The Digital Millienlium Copyright Act (DMCA) forbids the of circumvention of digital lock,s but givae the Librarian of Congress the ability to grant exceptions every 3 years. In […]

March 9, 2013 – 12:42 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property | Tagged , | Comments (0)

OT: New God Flow and Sampling

We interrupt the regular scheduled blogging for a brief off topic hip hop link-fest regarding G.O.O.D. Music’s recent track New God Flow and a recent article/discussion about Hip Hop sampling. Starts with this article The court case that changed hip-hop — from Public Enemy to Kanye — forever from the Washington Post. The article talks about this 1991 […]

July 14, 2012 – 5:36 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Intellectual Property, Off Topic | Tagged | Comments (0)

TDIF: Expression (Part 2: Institutional)

The past several posts here have looked at the recently released Delcaration of Internet Freedom (rundown here) and threats that it faces. In the last post we looked at how the Expression principle is constantly being objected to in the United States on morality grounds. Today we’ll look at an even greater threat to expression […]

July 10, 2012 – 1:11 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Intellectual Property, Open Internet | Tagged , , | Comments (0)