At this talk, Kevin spoke about recent legal decisions and proposals regarding changing copyright and music licensing, the patentability of software, infringement cases, and Supreme Court cases.

He began with a review of basic copyright law and concepts, then introduced several changes being proposed:

• changing regulation of sound recordings vs. underlying works
• changing performance licensing of terrestrial radio
• putting pre-1972 into the "Sound Exchange" licensing system
• setting market rates for royalties

After a break, door prizes were awarded:

• Genelec totebag (AES convention swag) - Andy Meyer
• Sennheiser pen (AES convention swag) - Steve Wilkins
• AES hand Sanitizer (AES convention swag) - Dave Ellis
• AES magnetic address booklet and bookmark (AES convention swag) - Tom Stiles
• Millennia Media cable tie (AES convention swag) - Greg Mauser
• Beyer lanyard (AES convention swag) - Mark Rogers
• Neumann lanyard (AES convention swag) - Gary Louie
• Vintage King Tee (AES convention swag) - Dan Mortensen

Returning to the session, we continued with a discussion of software patents. A 2014 decision ("Alice v. CLS")  is having interesting effects on software patents right now.

Next, the recent case of copyright infringement on a Marvin Gaye song by Robin Thicke/Pharrell Williams et al was discussed. Kevin felt this was a poor jury decision, and likely to have negative effects. He also mentioned the old George Harrison "My Sweet Lord" case v. The Chiffons "He's So Fine," and the case of Garcia v Google, where a person made the claim they had been tricked into appearing in a video, and thus a copyright infringement. Finally, the recent case of TV rebroadcaster Aereo was discussed.