Short Takes On The News

• As is typical, new laws take effect with the start of the new year.  The National Conference of State Legislatures has a nice summary of those new laws with links to the text of the legislation.


• Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, retired at the end of the past year.  Her interim replacement is Maria Pallante.  The Register of Copyrights has a tremendous impact on intellectual property as the office decides every three years what DMCA exemptions should be granted.  Past exemptions included jailbreaking cell phones, allowing circumvention of copy protections on DVDs for presentation of film clips in an academic setting, and the breaking of protection of obsolete databases to get access to the content.  Many of the exemptions granted by Marybeth Peters seemed quite reasonable to consumers in a time when copyright laws are tilted towards intellectual property holders.


• Facebook became the most visited site in the United States for 2010 according to Hitwise.  For those who see this as the beginning of Google's demise, CNN spoils the fun by noting that "Google," for analytical purposes, does not include Google property YouTube.  All of Google's properties are visited more than those of Facebook.  Besides, where do people get those video clips for their Facebook postings anyway.  With that said, I'm surprised that Facebook hasn't created its own video site.  Why share the Internet when you can reproduce the most popular aspects of it?


• Speaking of Google, the company announced just before Christmas that it will extend free calling in Gmail through the end of 2011.  With Skype's recent problems, Gmail, Google Talk, and free calling might be a nice backup to other online calling options. 


• Here's one I didn't see when I put up the original post.  Saturday was Public Domain Day, the day when older works enter the public domain.  Thanks to copyright extention legislation.  NO WORK ENTERED the pubic domain this year.  Big content must be thrilled.  More on this from the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law.  [MG]