Founder of Techdirt and the Copia Institute, Mike Masnick joined us last Friday for a talk on government ownership of copyrights.

A deep dive into our archive of Federal Bureau of Investigation files released through FOIA reveal that radio and TV personality Casey Kasem - better known as the voice of Shaggy in Scooby Doo - involved the Bureau in his infamous feud with the band Negativland after he threatened to sue them for releasing a track of recordings of him swearing.

A presentation from Homeland Security on Intelligence Oversight Training appears to include a version of Anonymous’ “man without a head” logo that was modified to depict a surveillance state. Perhaps even more interestingly, the image has a preexisting copyright and appears to have been originally used in an article describing Pakistan’s mass surveillance system - a system that appears to liaise with the National Security Agency.

Request for records related to Phoenix, Arizona’s federally trademarked bird symbol reveals a surprising trove of city-owned phrases.

After the Marines Corps refused to release Beyoncé’s vocal tracks, I filed a request for the processing notes. What I found: Beyoncé truly is a law unto herself.

Encroaching or unclear copyright means that taxpayer-funded documents and data are less usable, available, and analyzed. Fortunately, there are some best practices for making sure that does not happen.

New York’s economic development agency owns the family of “I Love New York” trademarks and service marks. Records released to MuckRock show the state has brought in about $282,000 by enforcing its copyright in the last two years.

Today MuckRock chronicles the saga of a request for Beyoncé’s Inauguration backing track, as well as copies of other backing tracks created for Inauguration events. Unfortunately, two outside legal experts and the U.S. Marines Corps have warned us strongly against publishing the documents we got got back. The reason? Copyright.