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1: MPA Taps Copyright Office Director Karyn Temple as General Counsel
First off today, Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter Esquire reports that Karyn Temple, the current Register of Copyrights at the United States Copyright Office (USC), has been picked to become the Motion Picture Association’s (MPA) new general counsel.
Temple has worked for the USCO for eight years. She was appointed as Acting Register of Copyrights in October 2016 and was appointed to the position permanently in March 2019. Prior to becoming the Register, Temple spent five years at the USCO and also has done work at the Department of Justice. Prior to that, she was a lawyer and a VP at the Recording Industry Association of America.
Temple’s resignation is effective January 3, 2020 and is slated to begin work at the MPA almost immediately thereafter.
2: Google Sees DMCA Anti-Circumvention Notices Skyrocket
Next up today, Ernesto at Torrentfreak writes that copyright holders are increasingly approaching Google to send anti-circumvention takedown notices, causing the number of such notices to rise from 921 to 6,281 in just three years.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows rightsholders to compel search engines, such as Google, to remove links that infringe their rights. The DMCA also had an anti-circumvention clause that made it unlawful to create or traffic in products that circumvent software or tools meant to protect copyrighted works. Rightsholders, including the major record studios and movie studios, have been combining those two aspects of the DMCA to compel Google to remove links to stream-rippers and other services that, while not hosting infringing content directly, allow users to circumvent protections.
To that end, such notices have skyrocketed, rising from 921 such notices in 2017 to 6,281 so far in 2019. Much of this represents a shift in the nature of piracy where both film and record studios are seeing a rise in stream-ripping operations, which allow users to download legitimately-streamed content for storage on their device. Still, the number of anti-circumvention notices pales in comparison to more traditional ones sent to Google, which sees millions of URLs removed every year.
3: An Apparel, Footwear Group is Pushing for Amazon’s Inclusion on Government’s Annual “Notorious Markets” List
Finally today, The Fashion Law reports that the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) is petitioning the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to include several international companies own by Amazon on its Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets.
The report, which has been provided every year since 2006, aims to identify foreign markets that, according to the USTR, are not adequately protecting intellectual property rights. Normally targeted at sites such as Alibaba and The Pirate Bay, the list aims to put pressure on foreign countries to do more to protect intellectual property. However, the list itself doesn’t carry any sanctions or direct action by the U.S. government.
According to the AAFA, several international branches of Amazon engage in “substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting” and have added their domains to their submission to the USTR for inclusion. Among the names included are the UK, Canadian, German, French and Indian Amazon websites. The AAFA is also calling for the USTR to expand the report to domestic marketplaces as well. A similar attempt to add the domains last year did not succeed.
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