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Wanting It Badly Is Not Enough: Real Problems For Creators Deserve Real Solutions As the European Parliament prepares for tomorrow’s vote on the new Copyright Directive with its provisions requiring mass-scale filtering of all public communications to check for copyright infringement (Article 13) and its provisions requiring paid permission to link to the news if you include as little as two words from the headline in your link text (Article 11), a dismaying number of “creators groups” are supporting it, telling their members that this will be good for them and their flagging financial fortunes. The real incomes of real creators are really important (disclosure: my primary income source comes from writing science fiction novels for Tor Books, a division of Macmillan). Improving the incomes of the creators who enliven our days, inform, shock, delight and frighten us is a genuine Good Thing. And creators are not faring well: as both the entertainment industry and tech industry hav...

Stephanie Lenz and Universal Music Publishing Group Settle ‘Dancing Baby’ Case SAN FRANCISCO – Stephanie Lenz and Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) today announced they have amicably resolved Lenz v. Universal, the widely followed litigation sometimes referred to as the “Dancing Baby” case. Lenz filed her complaint in 2007, after UMPG requested the removal of a video in which Lenz’s then-toddler aged son dances to music playing in the background. David Kokakis, UMPG’s Chief Counsel, said, “UMPG takes great pride in protecting the rights of our songwriters. Inherent in that objective is our desire to take a thoughtful approach to enforcement matters. The Lenz case helped us to develop a fair and tempered process for evaluation of potential takedowns.” “From what I have seen, UMPG’s current takedown review process is much better,” said Stephanie Lenz. “If UMPG’s current processes had been in place eleven years ago when I posted my video of my young son dancing, I probab...