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If you are looking for pirated copies of the latest Hollywood blockbusters, look no further than Chilling Effects, a database operated by Harvard University and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While claiming to be a “research database,” what it actually does is provide a handy tool for finding pirated material on the internet, complete with a search function that will provide the exact pirate URL that you can copy and paste into your browser. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., shows you how Chilling Effects operates in brazen defiance of the copyright laws including their dubious claim to DMCA safe harbor.

Monday, May 18, 2015 saw the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversing itself in the closely watched case of Garcia v. Google. The earlier decision caused a lot of consternation around the copyright world, especially in Hollywood. The previous three judge panel ruled, for the first time, that an actor had a copyright in her individual performance in a motion picture. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., takes an in depth look at the legal controversy over the film Innocence of Muslims, and what this decision means for Hollywood and copyright in the future.

Pirate streaming site Grooveshark closed its operations last week rather than face the prospect that its founders would be personally liable for potentially $736 million dollars in damages. Two separate courts had issued summary judgements against them, with one Court noting that Grooveshark had sent out over 36 million music streams without payment or license. How did they stay in business for nearly 10 years? By hiding behind the DMCA safe harbor provisions, of course. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., takes you through the facts and findings of the two judgements and suggests how future Groovesharks can be prevented.

We’ve all heard the pirates' excuses for illegally downloading copyrighted material: it’s too expensive, it’s not available in my country when it’s available in others, etc. Google, for its part, keeps saying that if low cost, convenient alternatives were available, piracy would be greatly reduced. Well, HBO NOW just called their bluff: low cost, available across the United States, and with a free trial! Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., takes a look at the interesting results that occur when you take away all the excuses.

Streaming is supposed to be the future of the music business. There’s only one problem. None of the streaming services make a profit. Not only do Pandora, Spotify and yes, even YouTube lose tons of money every year, none of them have ever made a profit. Even worse, as the revenue goes up, the losses get bigger. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle J.D., takes a look at the numbers and discovers that there is a rather simple solution to the streaming companies' profit problem.

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued what looked to be a significant ruling. There, for the first time, a Court of Appeals was going to decide whether the tactics of so-called “copyright trolls” were reasonable when considering whether to award prevailing party attorneys' fees to a successful BitTorrent defendant. However, the language and procedure that the Court of Appeals utilized leaves one with the impression that not much has been clarified. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle J.D., digs into both the trial and appellate opinions to explain why the impact of the decision is less than certain.