copyright
Google Loses German Court Ruling Over YouTube Videos
Google Inc.’s YouTube video service lost a Hamburg court ruling over copyrighted material that was posted online without permission for rebroadcast.BusinessWeek.com -- Technology
‘Torrent Tweets’ Marries BitTorrent to Twitter
Peer-to-peer file sharing is getting its hooks into Twitter, thanks to an update from BitTorrent, the company that makes the popular µTorrent client and which is seeking to make a big, legitimate business from a protocol mostly associated with copyright infringement.Wired News
China Rejects US Piracy Claims As “Groundless”
eldavojohn writes "Earlier this month, a United States piracy list fingered China, Russia and Canada as the first, second and third worst governments (respectively) for enforcing copyright policy in the world.Slashdot
Seinfeld’s Wife Wins in Cookbook Infringement Appeal (Update2)
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica, defeated a lawsuit accusing her of copyright and trademark infringement as a federal appeals court upheld a lower-court decision in her favor.BusinessWeek.com --
Citing E-Mail, Viacom Says YouTube Ignored Copyrights
The charge was one of many made by Viacom in filings in its copyright lawsuit against YouTube and Google.New York Times
Filings in Viacom’s Suit Against Google Are Released
Thousands of pages of court filings that are part of Viacom's copyright infringement suit against Google, YouTube's owner, were unsealed on Thursday.New York Times
China Faces U.S. Piracy Lawsuit for Internet-Filtering Software
China was accused of piracy in a lawsuit filed by a California software maker, which said the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering program installed on personal computers in the country infringes its copyright.BusinessWeek.com --
Court Castrates Mininova, The Pirate Bay Alternative
BitTorrent file sharing suffered another setback on a global scale Wednesday when a Dutch-based court ordered Pirate Bay rival – Mininova — to remove all its copyrighted worksWired News
European Opposition Mounts Against Google’s Selling Digitized Books
National copyright agencies, which charge fees to publishers, see the proposed deal as a threat to their income.
New York Times
We Were Smarter About Copyright Law 100 Years Ago
An anonymous reader writes "James Boyle has a blog post comparing the recording industry's arguments in 1909 to those of 2009, with some lovely Google book links to the originals.Slashdot
Study Deconstructs Canadian Copyright Lobby Deception
An anonymous reader writes "A new Canadian study deconstructs how copyright lobby groups manipulate public opinion by laundering proposals through seemingly independent groups. The study started after the Conference Board of Canada was shown to have plagiarized several of its IP reports and now shows the connections that all lead through the MPAA and RIAA.Slashdot
Gear gallery: The iPhone 3GS, GPS Grandmaster and Split Personality Samsung Phone
Wired News
RIAA Wants To Bar Jammie From Making Objections
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In the Duluth, Minnesota case headed for a re-trial on June 15th, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset, the RIAA has filed a motion seeking to bar the defendant, Jammie Thomas-Rasset (she got married recently), from making objections to the plaintiffs' copyright registration documents.Slashdot
copyright
Oracle Says Google Android Violates Its Java Patents
Oracle Corp. filed a patent- and copyright-infringement lawsuit against Google Inc., claiming its Android software for mobile devices uses technology Oracle obtained in its January acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. .BusinessWeek.com -- Technology
Why Recordings From World War I Aren’t Public Domain
An anonymous reader writes "While Disney and others have done a great job pushing the end date for works entering the public domain ever further forward, most people have assumed that anything from before 1923 is in the public domain.Slashdot
Hollywood Nervous About Kagan’s Fair Use Views
Of the many commentaries and analyses springing up about Obama's Supreme Court nominee, this community might be most interested in one from the Hollywood Reporter. Reader Hugh Pickens notes that Hollywood may have reason to be nervous about the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next US Supreme Court justice.Slashdot
The Economist Weighs In For Shorter Copyright Terms
lxmota writes "The Economist says that long copyright terms are hindering creativity, and that shortening them is the way to go: 'Largely thanks to the entertainment industry's lawyers and lobbyists, copyright's scope and duration have vastly increased.Slashdot
Google Slams Viacom For Secret YouTube Uploads
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "Google, Inc. accused Viacom, Inc. of secretly uploading its videos to YouTube even as the media conglomerate publicly denounced the online video site for copyright infringement, according to court documents made public on Thursday." As "statements from the corporate counsel's office" go, this post on the YouTube blog is pretty hot reading. .Slashdot
Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Reprint Under Way, Bucking German Ban
Scholars in Germany are working on a reprint of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” they may publish after a ban by the state copyright holders expires, a researcher said.BusinessWeek.com --
China Accused of Piracy by California Software Maker (Update1)
China was accused of piracy in a lawsuit filed by a California software maker, which said that the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software installed on personal computers in the country infringes its copyright.BusinessWeek.com -- Technology
Pirate Bay Archive Goes Online
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "With the main Pirate Bay website experiencing DNS issues, downtime and uncertainty about both the lawsuits and potential sale to GGF, a Pirate Bay clone has already gone online.Slashdot
Hollywood Wins Key Round Against RealNetworks’ ReadDVD
BusinessWeek.com --
Google and YouTube Win Dismissal of Some Damages Claims
A U.S. judge dismissed some claims in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google’s video-sharing Web site YouTube.com. .New York Times
Copyright Should Encourage Derivative Works
Techdirt has an interesting look at copyright and the idea that an author is the originator of a new work. Instead, the piece suggests that all works are in some way based on the works of others (even our own copyright law), and the system should be much more encouraging of "remixing" work into new, unique experiences.Slashdot
Fighting For Downloaders’ Hearts and Minds
iateyourcookies writes "As opposed to enforcement which usually makes the headlines, The BBC is running an article called Inside A Downloader's Head which looks at the film and music industries' attempts to prevent copyright infringement.Slashdot
Eric Baptiste Weighs In On Copyright Summit Issues
With the upcoming biennial summit of authors and composers in Washington D.C., The Register has an interview with Eric Baptiste head of the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) that touches on some of the hot issues.Slashdot
copyright
Oracle Says Google Android Violates Patents That Came With Sun
Oracle Corp. filed a patent and copyright infringement lawsuit against Google Inc. over its Android software, citing technology gained from the January acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. .BusinessWeek.com -- Technology
Google’s YouTube Didn’t Infringe Viacom, Judge Says
Google Inc.’s YouTube video-sharing website didn’t infringe copyrights owned by movie and television producer Viacom Inc., a judge ruled.BusinessWeek.com --
Can Employer Usurp Copyright On GPL-Derived Work?
An anonymous reader writes "I am a recent graduate, and I've been working on my own on a project that uses GPL-licensed libraries. Later a university department hired me, on a part-time basis, to develop this project into a solution that they needed.Slashdot
Storyboard: 5 Years of YouTube’s Meme Machine
What did we do before YouTube? Where is it all going? In this week's Storyboard podcast, editors Nancy Miller and Joe Brown discussWired News
Accusations Fly in Viacom, YouTube Copyright Fight
The Viacom-YouTube copyright battle heated up Thursday. Viacom told a federal judge that Google-owned YouTube turns a blind eye to wanton copyright infringement on the video-sharing site.Wired News
Obama ‘Hope’ Artist Fairey May Plead the Fifth in AP Lawsuit
Shepard Fairey, the artist whose “Hope” election poster of Barack Obama spawned a copyright battle with the Associated Press, may invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to answer legal questions after revealing he’s under criminal investigation for faking evidence in the case.BusinessWeek.com --
Apple Crushes Clone Maker in Court
Apple won a sweeping legal victory against Macintosh clone maker Psystar Corp. Nov. 13 when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled (PDF, courtesy of Groklaw) that Psystar had violated Apple's copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.BusinessWeek.com --
Appeals Court Overturns 2007 Unix Copyright Decision
snydeq writes "A federal appeals court has overturned a 2007 decision that Novell owns the Unix code, clearing the way for SCO to pursue a $1 billion copyright infringement case against IBM.Slashdot
Fair Use Defense Dismissed In SONY V. Tenenbaum
Several readers sent us updates from the Boston courtroom where, mere hours before the start of trial, a federal judge ruled out fair use as a defense.Slashdot
RIAA Seeks Web Removal of Courtroom Audio
suraj.sun writes to tell us that the RIAA has asked a federal judge to order the removal of what they are calling "unauthorized and illegal recordings" by Harvard University's Charles Nesson of pretrial hearings and depositions in a file-sharing lawsuit.Slashdot
Buyer of Pirate Bay, a File-Sharing Site, Plans to Go Legal
Global Gaming Factory X said that it had bought Pirate Bay for $7.8 million and that it would start a business model intended to compensate both content operators and copyright owners.New York Times
Swedish Court Says IP Numbers Privacy Protected
oh2 writes "The highest applicable Swedish court, Regeringsrätten, has ruled that IP numbers are protected (in Swedish) since they can be traced to individuals. This means that only government agencies are allowed to track and store IP addresses, leaving 'anti-piracy' advocates with no legal way to find possible copyright infringers." Update: 06/18 14:42 GMT by KD : The original linked article had been pulled due to factual errors and a new article has been posted (link replaced above).Slashdot
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Oracle Says Google’s Android Violates Its Patents
Oracle Corp. filed a patent and copyright infringement lawsuit against Google Inc. over its Android software, citing technology gained from the January acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc. .BusinessWeek.com -- Technology
Mark Twain To Reveal All After 100 Year Wait
Hugh Pickens writes "The Independent reports that one of Mark Twain's dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published one hundred years after his death.Slashdot
13 Open Source Hardware Companies Make $1+ Million
kkleiner writes "Selling products whose design anyone can access, edit, or use on their own is pretty crazy. It's also good business. At the annual hacker conference Foo Camp East this year, Phillip Torrone and Limor Fried from Adafruit Industries gave a rapid fire five-minute presentation on thirteen companies with million+ dollar revenues from open source hardware.Slashdot
Visual Artists to Sue Google Over Library Project
The class action lawsuit asserts that a planned digital library amounts to large-scale copyright infringement.New York Times
Google: Viacom Snuck YouTube Clips
Google says Viacom secretly uploaded clips while complaining YouTube violated its copyrightsBusinessWeek.com --
Lawyers Challenge Lowered Amount of ‘Shocking’ File Sharing Award
Lawyers for a music file sharer are challenging a judge’s order reducing from $1.92 million to $54,000 the amount their client, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, must pay the recording industry for copyright infringement of 24 songs.Wired News
Google Books Fight Heats Up in Europe
Europe's objections to Google Books among Europeans focus on copyright, but also on questions about privacy and even censorshipBusinessWeek.com -- Technology
Incoming CEO’s Manifesto for New Pirate Bay
Hans Pandeya, whose Swedish software company is expected to assume control of The Pirate Bay perhaps as early as Thursday, writes in a manifesto that file sharers of unauthorized copyrighted works are not morally weak.Wired News
Should Copyright of Academic Works Be Abolished?
Dr_Ken writes to mention recent coverage of a Harvard Cyber-Law study on Techdirt that analyzes the uses of copyright in the academic world. Some are claiming that the applications of copyright in academia are stifling and that we should perhaps go so far as to abolish copyright in the academic world entirely.Slashdot
Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It’s Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity
Wired News
Supreme Court: Cablevision Remote DVR is OK
BusinessWeek.com --
Harvard Study Says Weak Copyright Benefits Society
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist summarizes an important new study on file sharing from economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf. The Harvard Business School working paper finds that given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public access conclude that "weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society." The authors' point out that file sharing may not result in reduced incentives to create if the willingness to pay for "complements" such as concerts or author speaking tours increases." .Slashdot