George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School

Protecting Authors and Artists by Closing the Streaming Loophole

U.S. Capitol buildingWe’ve released a new policy brief, Protecting Authors and Artists by Closing the Streaming Loophole, by Devlin Hartline & Matthew Barblan.

They argue that in order to protect authors and artists from having their works repeatedly stolen on the internet, it is long past time to harmonize the remedies for criminal copyright infringement to reflect the ways that copyrighted works are commonly misappropriated these days. Read more

Strong IP Protection Provides Inventors and Creators the Economic Freedom to Create

Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by Terrica Carrington that was published on IPWatchdog.

CPIP went against the grain with this conference, and showed us, bit by bit, what our world might look like today without intellectual property rights. Music wouldn’t sound the same. Read more

Creators, Innovators, and Appropriation Mechanisms

the word "inspiration" typed on a typewriterIn Creators, Innovators, and Appropriation Mechanisms, CPIP Senior Scholar Sean O’Connor tackles the erroneous narrative in copyright debates that tech firms produce “the innovative technologies and digital platforms of the future” while content owners “thwart this progress to maintain the status quo of an analog content world that no longer exists.” Read more

CloudFlare Enjoined From Aiding Infringers: Internet Unbroken

Just how far does a court’s power to enjoin reach into cyberspace? It’s clear enough that those directly posting or hosting infringing content are subject to an injunction. But what about a company such as CloudFlare that provides content delivery network and domain name server services? Read more

Copyright’s Republic: Promoting an Independent and Professional Class of Creators and Creative Businesses

By Mark Schultz and Devlin Hartline

The following essay is the first in a series of CPIP essays celebrating the 225th anniversary of the Copyright Act by recognizing the rich purposes, benefits, and contributions of copyright. This series of essays will be published together in a forthcoming collection entitled “Copyright’s Republic: Copyright for the Last and the Next 225 Years.” Read more

Copyright’s Republic: Copyright for the Last and the Next 225 Years

By Mark Schultz and Devlin Hartline

This past Sunday marked the 225th anniversary of the first U.S. Copyright Act. As we move well into the twenty-first century, a claim that copyright no longer “works” in the “digital age” has become commonplace – so commonplace, in fact, that it’s arguably the dominant cliché in modern copyright discussions. Read more

The Common Economic Case for Patents and Copyrights

This is the second in a series of posts summarizing CPIP’s 2014 Fall Conference, “Common Ground: How Intellectual Property Unites Creators and Innovators.” The Conference was held at George Mason University School of Law on October 9-10, 2014.  Videos of the conference panels and keynote will be available soon. Read more

Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Growth: Mercatus Gets it Wrong

By Mark Schultz & Adam Mossoff

A handful of increasingly noisy critics of intellectual property (IP) have emerged within free market organizations. Both the emergence and vehemence of this group has surprised most observers, since free market advocates generally support property rights. Read more

A Brief History of Software Patents (and Why They’re Valid)

a green screen with binary and figuresToday, there is significant public debate over patents on the digital processes and machines that comprise computer software programs. These are often referred to as “software patents,” but this is an odd moniker. Aside from the similarly mislabeled debate over “DNA patents,” nowhere else in the patent system do we refer to patents on machines or processes in a specific technological field in this way; for instance, people do not talk about “automobile brake patents” or “sex toy patents” as their own category of patents deserving of approval or scorn.  Read more

How Copyright Drives Innovation in Scholarly Publishing

[Cross posted at Truth on the Market]

Today’s public policy debates frame copyright policy solely in terms of a “trade off” between the benefits of incentivizing new works and the social deadweight losses imposed by the access restrictions imposed by these (temporary) “monopolies.” Read more