Remarks made yesterday by the Assistant Secretary of Commerce:

Remarks of Assistant Secretary Strickling on Copyright Policy, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Economy | NTIA.

Australian record labels take legal action against restaurants and cafes not paying fees for background music. Read the article-here.

A very interesting article on how, especially prior to the Chace Act of 1891, authors and publishers dealt with the lack of copyright protections for non-American authors.

How Writers Coped Without Copyright – Reason.com.

The MPAA claims that in a 6 month period it sent 11 million takedown notices to search engines and another 13 million to sites directly.

There are those who argue this demonstrates that copyright infringers have the upper hand. But keep in mind these are just takedown notices, the entertainment industry doesn’t have to prove any infringement took place, let alone operate with good faith or care. Many have noted that illegitimate takedown requests are common, mostly because there are almost no consequences for abuse.

An interesting little video on Copyright & Creativity from Marco Bagni.

If you are a musician, this won’t be surprising news. But with all the hoopla about copyright infringers, etc., it might be of real interest to non-musicians.

A Tiny Percentage of Artist Income Comes from Copyright, Study Finds… | Digital Music NewsDigital Music News.

Creative Commons just released the new version of their copyright license suite, and they look pretty good.

Choose a Creative Commons Version 4.0 License..

Of course, that makes sense. They reached the final version through a transparent process of public discussions, blog posts, mailing lists and open meetings, over a period of two years, and were able to reach a broad public consensus.

All that makes the secretive discussions, closed negotiations, and back room sessions about copyright policy by the Trans-Pacific Partnership all the more despicable.