The 1709 blog

The month of February has two important deadlines for consultations on copyright matters, both summarized and linked to concisely by The 1709 Blog (image), and condensed and summarized below.

February 5, 2014, is the deadline for the EU Commission's public consultation on the review of EU copyright rules. The second, due February 25, is a Public Consultation on the UK orphan works licensing scheme.

Please review the details, submit your responses, and follow us and The 1709 Blog for more!

In a questionable yet important decision on Fair Use, Federal Judge Danny Chin determined that Google's Book Digitization Project falls under Fair Use.

In a 30-page decision (.pdf) Judge Denny Chin of New York ruled that Google’s move to digitize millions of university and commercially available books is on its face a violation of the owners’ copyrights. But Google’s limited use of the work makes the scanning “fair use” under copyright law, Chin ruled. Google’s Book-Scanning Is Fair Use, Judge Rules in Landmark Copyright Case

Seeming to follow on the heels of that news is the British Library's initiative to digitize Spare Rib, an important UK feminist magazine of the '70s and '80s. In its outreach to authors who contributed to the landmark publication, the British Library asks that authors sign over their copyrights with a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0. licence.

The US government "shutdown" encompasses the closing of the Library of Congress, of which the Copyright Office is a part. Registrations may be submitted but will not be processed.