This week it is time to take a look at copyrights. We’ll be joining John Taylor Williams, Thomas “Cmdline” Gideon, Suzanne Rosen, and panel draftee Randy Chirco as they look at what Copyright is, how it does and doesn’t apply to writing and music, what is and isn’t protected, and some of the pitfalls one can find in contracts. Of particular interest is how the Google Scholar program ran into problems with copyright by trying to declare books as “orphan works” without any investigation, the impact of SOPA and other “anti-piracy” acts that over-zealously attack end users, copyright trolls who attempt to extort money from people for rights they don’t even own, and how the digital economy is changing the concept of copyright.

This is important information for anyone who creates content, or wants to know what they need to do to stay on the right side of copyright law when referring to others work. We hope you’ll enjoy it.