By Arnie Lutzker

I am currently teaching a month-long distance learning course for the Center for Intellectual Property Management of University of Maryland’s University College entitled “Copyright, Photos, Video, Art & Multimedia.”  The goal of the course is to provide an understanding of how to legally and ethically create and use multimedia in the digital environment.   The course will include units on copyright basics,  e-readers and the first sale doctrine, digital streaming, Google books and orphan works, and digital downloading issues.  This is the third time I have taught a formal course for UMUC, and I always enjoy the interaction with the professionals who enroll for the course as well as the challenging questions and creative ideas they bring to our virtual classroom.

Arnie and Susan Lutzker have just returned from Paris, where they participated in the annual conference of the International Network of Boutique Law Firms (INBLF).   The business focus of the meeting was the development of practice groups within the network to encourage interaction both domestically and with members of the international partner firms by lawyers working on similar issues.   Arnie Lutzker, an INLF Board member and Secretary of the organization, is co-chair of the Board committee coordinating the practice group initiative.  Networking social events included a night boat ride on the Seine and a black-tie dinner at the Automobile Club of Paris, where the guest speaker for the evening was New York Times Paris correspondent Elaine Sciolino, author of the recently published book La Séduction.

By Arnie Lutzker

Susan and I had a wonderful week in Turkey.  Our purpose in going to Istanbul (our fourth trip to this city we love) was to attend the European summit of the International Network of Boutique Law Firms (INBLF), of which I am a Board member as well as president of our local chapter.  The group included members we had met at the Toronto annual meeting in October, at prior annual meetings, or in other travels (including Jan Rolinski, who treated us to a lovely lunch in Warsaw last July).  In addition to the formal session, which focused on strategies for branding and marketing the network as a global law firm equipped to provide a full range of legal services throughout the world, there were many opportunities for informal networking, especially dinners on the Bosphorus with breathtaking views of the European and Asian sides of Istanbul.   The annual meeting of the group will take place in Paris in September.  This was a lovely return to Turkey for us a decade after the Palace of Gold & Light US touring exhibition which we organized through the nonprofit Palace Arts Foundation.  Seeing our exhibition poster hanging in the Topkapi Palace was thrilling.  After the summit, we did a detour to the surreal landscape of Cappadocia.

INBLF European Summit 2011, Istanbul, Turkey

Susan and Arnie Lutzker at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul with Palace of Gold & Light exhibition poster

By Arnie Lutzker

I recently had the opportunity to be the featured presenter for the University of Maryland’s Center for Intellectual Property Online Certification Course in Copyright.   As context for a discussion of DMCA issues currently in the news and before the courts, I described the origins of the law and my personal role as one of the lead negotiators for the legislation.  I also discussed the interplay of copyright law and contracts, the online service provider limitation and the anti-circumvention rules in the DMCA, the Librarian of Congress’ triennial proceeding to set DMCA exceptions, Digital Rights Management, copyright fair use, and the TEACH Act.  With this background, I turned to current matters –  Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement litigation against You Tube, the multi-million dollar music downloading verdict, the impact of the explosion of e-reader devices like the Kindle and the import of e-licensing, and details about the AIME streaming video case against UCLA.  The WIMBA online platform allowed the opportunity for the students to pose questions and make comments, and the debate was lively and active throughout the Q&A portion of the session.

By Jeannette Maurer Carmadella

I had the pleasure of being a guest lecturer in Professor Laura Pohl’s graduate journalism class at American University, on February 19, 2011. The class was on Multi-Media Storytelling and so the topic of copyright and social media was ripe for discussion.  I gave a presentation and answered questions on copyright basics and discussed specific issues and recent case law involving the use of content on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. The students, all working toward their Master’s degree as part of AU’s Graduate Program in Interactive Journalism, were very engaging and asked a lot of great questions! We had a lively discussion of fair use, using hot topic examples such as artist Shepard Fairey’s use of a 2006 Associated Press photo of Barack Obama to create an image that appeared on posters and stickers; the use of a 29-second clip of Prince’s song Let’s Go Crazy on You Tube; and photographer David LaChapelle’s recent suit against Rihanna claiming her new music video for her song “S&M” infringes his copyrights.  As part of the course curriculum, the students maintain personal blogs, and so it was a great opportunity to go over some do’s and don’ts to help them avoid infringement problems. A few brave students allowed me to review their blogs during the class, which helped highlight specific issues regarding proper use of images and other content online.

By Arnie Lutzker

As Washington braced for another mega-snowstorm, I attended a meeting at the Copyright Office concerning ongoing plans to bring the semi-annual filings of Cable Statements of Account (SOA) into the digital age.  Since 1978 thousands of cable systems have twice annually filed reports and paid fees in order to qualify for the compulsory license, which is spelled out in Section 111 of the Copyright Act.  And since 1978 I have filed claims for owners of copyrighted programs, who are entitled to a share of the collected royalties.  Between the cable and satellite compulsory systems, nearly $300 million is sent to the Copyright Office for distribution to copyright owners. Over the life of the compulsory systems, billions of dollars have been collected.  As representative of the Devotional Claimants, the producers of religious programs, who are one of the eight main groups receiving a share of the royalties, I attended the Stakeholders Meeting.  (See our website discussion for the recent Copyright Royalty Board decision nearly tripling the Devotional Claimants’ share in the 2004-2005 royalty distribution proceeding.)

From the dawn of the compulsory system, these SOAs have been sent by mail or delivered in person to the Copyright Office, which makes them available for in-person review.  All told, there are hundreds of thousands of these filings!  In recent years, the clamor for electronic submissions has been increasing, both from the cable operators who would like to take advantage of the ease of e-filing, and the copyright owners, who want an efficient and prompt way to review and analyze the submissions that involve so much money.  Agreeing with the demands, the Copyright Office initiated a process and is now moving actively to refine the effort that will make on-line submissions and access possible.

To gain insight into the needs of the copyright owners, the Copyright Office held a working session on January 26, 2011 with Stakeholders that I attended on behalf of the Devotional Claimants.  We discussed issues ranging from ensuring accuracy and responsibility, including the nettlesome question of obtaining legally valid digital signatures, to bulk filings by CATV multiple system operators, as well as what kinds of reports would be useful to generate, and what research (if any) needs to be secure and confidential.  Implementation of the e-filing/on-line review process will require a number of rule changes by the Copyright Office, which itself must follow the requirements of the federal administrative law rulemaking process.  Realistically, the changes are several filing cycles away, but when completed, one of the last bastions of a bygone age – the paper submission and hand review of SOAs – will fall to the digital revolution.

Arnie was recently the featured speaker at an event for the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. Here are his thoughts.

I had the great pleasure of being the Sandy Peterson Lecture Series luncheon speaker for the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C. meeting on January 20, 2011 at the Georgetown Law Center. LLSDC, which includes librarians from academic institutions, government agencies and private law firms, asked that I address topics ranging from copyright basics, to the differences between sale and license of copyrighted works and proper exploitation of digital documents and videos.  As you would expect from a sophisticated group like this, the questions were insightful and challenging, and very focused on practical problems.  Society members were particularly concerned about restrictions on reuse of materials, copyright term, orphan works and tips on negotiations with publishers.  Before the session, I chatted with a number of the participants, including a senior librarian from the National Science Foundation (NSF), who is working on a project digitizing articles regarding Antarctica.  The project poses quite a number of special issues dealing with locating authors and clearing materials from decades ago.  Her project gave me a chance to mention the work of Ira Meyer, a close friend from elementary school days, who is now a renowned photographer of the polar regions.  Ira’s work is featured on our website, and I hope to connect Ira to NSF when he returns from his current excursion to the South Pole.