International Law

This post is the second part of the second installment in a multipart series designed to help right holders and importers better understand the opportunities and obligations that attach to intellectual property rights (IPR) in the U.S. Customs regulatory environment. Part 1 of the second installment discussed copyright infringement levels recognized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and their attendant enforcement regimes. In Part 2, we complete the copyrights-trade picture by discussing enforcement relief options and presenting best practice tips for both right holders and importers.

Enforcement Relief

Assuming the gravity of a copyright infringement does not rise to the level of a criminal referral, both remission and mitigation/cancelation relief is available. The authority for this relief is found at 19 USC 1618 and 19 CFR 171.

Remedies Following Seizure

A copyright-based seizure presents an importer with a choice of procedural pathways. These include: (i) requesting administrative forfeiture proceedings;

As part of a symposium, I was asked to write a short paper about how the Internet has changed since the mid-1990s when Section 230 was adopted. I chose to address the 1990s stereotype that most early Internet users were well-meaning and trying to build communities, a presumption that seems mockably quaint in the 2020s. I explain why that presumption prevailed in the Internet’s early days, what’s changed since then, and the operational and regulatory implications of that loss of innocence. Check out my forthcoming draft, entitled “Assuming Good Faith Online.”

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The abstract:

Every internet service enabling user-generated content faces a dilemma of balancing good-faith and bad-faith activity. Without that balance, the service loses one of the internet’s signature features—users’ ability to engage with and learn from each other in pro-social and self-actualizing ways—and instead drives towards one of two suboptimal outcomes. Either it devolves

We are pleased to present the second installment in a multipart series designed to help right holders and importers better understand the opportunities and obligations that attach to intellectual property rights (IPR) in the U.S. Customs regulatory environment. The focus of this installment is on copyrights. Owing to the diversity of considerations wrapped up in the management of copyrights in international trade, the topic will be addressed in two parts. The first part, set forth below, lays a foundation by addressing the copyright infringement levels recognized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and their attendant enforcement regimes. The second part will complete the copyrights-trade picture by discussing enforcement relief options and presenting best practice tips for both right holders and importers.

Introduction

Copyrights protect original works of authorship against unauthorized copying. Original works of authorship include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and architectural works, motion pictures and other

LGBTQ+ content creators “claim that despite YouTube’s purported viewpoint neutrality, defendants have discriminated against them based on their sexual or gender orientation, identity, and/or viewpoints by censoring, demonetizing, or otherwise interfering with certain videos that plaintiffs uploaded to YouTube.” In 2021, the court dismissed the lawsuit with limited leave to amend. In response to those amendments, the court dismisses the case again. Much of the opinion reiterates the prior ruling.

California state constitution claim: “no court has extended the Pruneyard line of cases, which concern physical property, to the Internet.” If you’re still invoking Pruneyard analogies for online content moderation, I question your motives.

Unruh Act. “The parties do not dispute that the Unruh Act applies to a website that hosts videos posted by members of the public.” The court continues:

Plaintiffs’ allegations that defendants intentionally discriminated against them because of their sexual orientation in violation of the