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Global media publisher Bertelemann, an investor in the pioneering music file swapping company Napster, was sued in federal district court in New York by fellow music publishers, for $17 billion. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, details from the 18 page complaint “allege that Bertelsmann contributed to the wide-scale infringement of their …
The March 2003 issue of Scientific American includes an article, Some Rights Reserved, on the non-profit Creative Commons licensing project that promotes a new avenue of sharing copyrighted works while retaining different levels of rights of authorship. See my previous post on this topic here.
ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions) launched a new online global discussion forum focused on ensuring universal access to scientific knowledge. There are currently 26 articles posted on the site from authors around the world, and issues addressed include copyright, privacy, digital rights and the free and unfettered publication and distribution of scientific research via …
The International Intellectual Property Alliance industry trade group issued a press release, in PDF, discussing recommendations it made to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to combat global Internet piracy. In addition, the group published a study, 2003 Special 301 Report on Global Copyright Protection and Enforcement, that reviews piracy in 63 countries and …
The music and film industries are expanding their crusade against file-swapping from college campuses to corporate cubicles. See this RIAA press release, dated February 13. As part of their effort, they are distributing a publication titled, A Corporate Policy Guide to Copyright Use and Security on the Internet (PDF) to Fortune 1000 companies.
Verizon has requested a stay in Judge John D. Bates’ (United States District Court for the District of Columbia) ruling in favor of RIAA, compelling Verizon to release personal customer data on a subscriber who downloaded copyrighted music. See my previous post on this issue here.
Copyright Issues Relevant to the Creation of a Digital Archive: A Preliminary Assessment.
As previously reported, college and university students are under growing scrutiny for downloading digital files using campus provided ISP access. Brown University is the latest institution in the news to formalize efforts to control the parameters of student use of file sharing applications. Keeping the DMCA (PDF) firmly in mind, and with an awareneess of …
Copyright and piracy issues associated with file sharing are the subject of news articles, lawsuits and web forum discussion groups. Add another element to this mix: a company whose business is to monitor file sharing traffic from popular applications such as Kazaa and Morpheus. The company is called BigChampagne, and it tracks 25 million searches …
The USPTO held a hearing yesterday in accordance with the requirements of the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act of 2002 (known as the TEACH Act), Public Law 107-273. See my previous post here on this issue of protecting digitized copyrighted works that are used in distance education. Public comments from the Federal Register notice …
The University of Indiana Digital Student reported that several hundred students were forced to remove music download files from their computers or their Internet access would be discontinued, in accordance with an RIAA demand. I have made a series of posts on RIAA’s communications with college and university presidents indicating that they are responsible for …
Verizon is appealing the district court’s decision compelling the ISP to release customer data to RIAA in a copyright dispute concerning music downloading. According to Verizon’s deputy general counsel, “If this ruling stands, consumers will be caught in a digital dragnet – not only from record companies alleging infringement of their copyright monopolies – but …
