Peter Menell quoted in InsideCounsel, April 30, 2012
“The model for publication is shifting. This looks like an effort by publishers to squeeze some more juice out of the lemon,” says Prof. Peter Menell…. “It sounds like publishers see this as a new revenue stream. There are a half-million patent applications per year, and they figure they can make some money here.”
The Media Institute, December 21, 2011 by Peter S. Menell, Herman Phleger
and Robert L. Bridges
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/2011/122111.php
As deals with iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, and Spotify attest, the major record labels are now willing to license their content to a wide range of download and streaming services. Yet these businesses are hobbled by competing with Grooveshark and other enterprises that abuse the DMCA safe harbor.
InformationWeek, February 18, 2011 by Charles Babcock
http://bit.ly/eNImJH
A member of the audience suggested that the recent decision in the Bilski vs. Kappos case by the U.S. Supreme Court resolved the software patent issue in favor of more restricted software patents. But Professor Menell disagreed. It was argued on a basis of business processes, not software, and resolved nothing, he said.
The Media Institute, August 31, 2010 by Peter Menell
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/2010/090110.php
So that brings me to the “ugly”: the inability of just about everyone with a stake in this debate to discuss the growing pains, shortcomings, and anachronisms of the DMCA safe harbors forthrightly. As reflected in the views of our industry panelists, the DMCA safe harbors are either perfect and prescient or dysfunctional…. It should have been clear to everyone on the panel that neither Web 2.0 nor peer-to-peer technology were even on Congress’s radar when it passed the DMCA, and that the statute is not well-crafted to confront the modern challenges.
BroadbandBreakfast.com, July 2, 2010 by David Cup
http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/07/experts-debate-need-for-new-digital-copyright-law/
“We’re seeing an evolution in this sector,” said Menell. However, when innovators see “policy” or “legal” they immediately think “stifling innovation.” Menell said this sort of thing happens all the time, and is in fact good for the industry. “We chill innovation in automobiles all the time because we not only care about speed, but also about the safety,” countered Menell.
San Francisco Chronicle, May 24, 2010 by Bloomberg News
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/05/24/bloomberg1376-L2YCGV1A74E9-1.DTL
“China is denying that they are a piracy haven but that’s contrary to a tremendous amount of empirical research,” Peter Menell, director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Center for Law and Technology, said by phone. “You don’t really have effective enforcement rules. If China was manufacturing software, they would have a bigger incentive to clamp down.”
The Media Institute, February 17, 2010 by Peter Menell
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/021710_FileSharingCopyrighted.php
This painful chapter in the transition to digital distribution reveals that although Joel Tenenbaum may have shared “Rosa Parks,” he is no Rosa Parks. His defense team’s choice to employ the rhetoric of social-justice movements devalues other, legitimate social movements, misleads the public, and obscures the critical legal issues of his and analogous cases—the scope of copyright’s distribution right and how statutory damages should be applied in file-sharing cases.
The Recorder, January 4, 2010 by Zusha Elinson
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202437343598&pos=ataglance&hbxlogin=1
“I think there is widespread support for bringing a district court judge with patent experience,” said Peter Menell, a professor at Berkeley Law who specializes in intellectual property.
The Media Institute, IP Issues, September 16, 2009 by Peter Menell
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/091609_GoogleBooksSettlement.php
Google’s efforts deserve commendation, but to allow Google effective monopoly control over the world’s most comprehensive knowledge repository would be out of proportion to those efforts. Such control would pose undue threats to long-term competition, innovation, and preservation of and access to knowledge.
The Media Institute, July 24, 2009 by Peter S. Menell
http://www.mediainstitute.org/new_site/IPI/072409_ChilledInnovations.php
Digital innovation and commercialization that could potentially contribute to copyright infringement has been far from retreat. Each month brings new digital technologies—iPod, image search engines, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Google’s Book Search, BitTorrent, iPhone, Twitter, Kindle 2.0—many of which could be (and have been) portrayed as facilitating copyright infringement. The development and commercialization of these technologies suggest that the cloud of liability has not throttled the digital innovation pipeline.