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If you only listen to extremists, you would think that website blocking will lead to the destruction of the internet as we know it. A year ago, this blog wrote how courts in three different countries had ordered website blocking, and yet the internet failed to spontaneously self-destruct. In the ensuing year, it seems that the internet does not behave any differently than it did before. Recently released is this study that shows that not only does site blocking work, but the internet remains unscathed. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., examines Website Blocking Revisited: The Effect of the UK November 2014 Blocks on Consumer Behavior by researchers Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith, and Rahul Telang, which makes an in-depth analysis of consumer behavior in the United Kingdom following the court ordered site blocking of 53 websites.

Gossip Cop is a website that reports on celebrity gossip and opines on the veracity of celebrity news stories published by others. Along with stories critiquing the news reports, Gossip Cop also copied several photographs that illustrated those stories. When sued by the photo licensing agency, Gossip Cop responded with the all too familiar refrain of “but it’s a transformative use”! Not so fast, says the Court. What happened? Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., explains the Court’s reasoning and finds that maybe there are cracks in the walls of the “transformative use” defense.

They’re at it again. A few weeks ago, it was the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals that pulled out of thin air a ruling that Section 301 didn’t really say what it plainly said, despite no authority to the contrary. Now, it’s the U.S. Department of Justice’s turn. They have informed songwriter representatives that from now on, each performing rights organization will have the obligation to license 100% of musical compositions rights, even though that PRO did not own 100% of the rights. Or 50%. Or 5%. How did the DOJ come to this conclusion? They made it up. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle J.D., examines the ins and outs of musical performance licensing and goes into the actual current consent decree and finds out that not only is 100% licensing not in the consent decree, the decree says the opposite of what the DOJ says it states.

One of the bedrock principles of the current Copyright Act was that it did not apply in any way to sound recordings made before February 15, 1972. But now, in a horrific decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the notice and takedown provisions of the Copyright Act do apply to pre-1972 sounds recordings, disregarding the clear directives of the Copyright Act and the clear opinion of the Copyright Office. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., analyzes the serious logical flaws in the Court’s ruling and highlights the dangers of what happens when a Court puts its opinion of “good policy” ahead of the “plain meaning” of a statute.

On May 30, 2016, a District Court in California dropped a bombshell. It ruled that the act of re-mastering a sound recording created a new sound recording copyright. This paves the way for a host of unintended consequences, including the elimination of termination rights and the possibility that sound recordings could in effect receive “perpetual” copyright. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle J.D., analyzes the decision from legal, musical and practical standpoints, and finds that when the Court decided that “everything old is new again” a host of problems was created.

On May 12, 2016, a Federal Court in Florida refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Google’s various statements about its search results, including that “[i]t is Google’s policy not to censor search results,” are false, deceptive and misleading. The chief complaint is that Google, contrary to its public pronouncements, made all of the Plaintiff company’s’ websites disappear from all possible Google search results. Since Google controls 70% of the U.S. search market and 90% of the European search market, this is equivalent to making the websites virtually disappear from the internet. Nova Southeastern University's Copyright Officer, Stephen Carlisle, J.D., takes a look at the allegations and the Court’s decision and finds it’s mostly a case of Google stating “we don’t do this…except when we do.”