Walled Culture the book, three years on
Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) was launched just over three years ago. A few weeks afterwards, I talked with journalist and editor Maria Bustillos about…
The long road to Marrakesh: 40 years of copyright obstruction to human rights and social justice
One of the little-known but extremely telling episodes in the history of modern copyright, discussed in Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available), concerns the Marrakesh Treaty.…
Canada’s new right-to-repair exemptions to copyright law are as useful as a chocolate teapot
A couple of weeks ago, Walled Culture wrote about the deeply unsatisfactory process for obtaining exemptions to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban on the circumvention of…
A rare copyright win for the public – but a small one, only in Canada, and possibly temporary
It is extraordinary that within the copyright world it is accepted dogma that legal protections for this intellectual monopoly should always get stronger – creating a kind of…
New research shows that the 2023 Canadian link tax has already failed – just like all the others
At the heart of Walled Culture the book (free digital versions available) lies the sorry tale of the EU Copyright Directive. Its stated aim appeared reasonable enough: to…
The EU link tax was bad enough, but Canada’s threatens to be even worse
At the heart of Walled Culture the book (available as a free ebook in various formats) is the story of the disgraceful EU Copyright Directive and how it…
Public domain: a belated step forward, two huge steps back
The first day of the year is a special time in the copyright world. It’s when a flood of works whose copyright has expired finally emerge from behind…
Canada is planning to take the EU’s link tax as a model for one of its own new and bad copyright laws
One chapter of my Walled Culture book (free download available in various formats) looks at how the bad ideas embodied in the EU’s appalling Copyright Directive – the…
Canada is about to repeat New Zealand’s folly by extending copyright term; so bring back registration
Canada looks likely to follow New Zealand’s bad example by extending its copyright term by 20 years, purely for the sake of a trade deal. The New Zealand…
How to save the newspaper industry (hint: not with snippet taxes)
There’s no denying that the newspaper industry is in trouble. In part, the publishing companies have themselves to blame. For too long, they have fought against the Internet,…
Longer copyright protection means fewer books are available, and they cost more
As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the standard copyright term of life plus 70 years makes no sense: a promise that they’ll be paid after their…
Widespread copyright anxiety, leading to copyright chill, means something is deeply wrong
Thirty years ago, copyright law was boring. It was the province of specialised lawyers, and had very little direct impact on ordinary people’s lives. The Internet changed all…