New Online Music Venture
The big-six music retailers, organized under the name Echo, have launched a new consortium to license and distribute digital music services.
Category «Copyright»
Kazaa Sues Movie Industry
Sharman Networks Ltd., owner of the file swapping application Kazaa, has responded to the January 23, 2003 order from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denying their motion to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit by the music and recording industries. Sharman filed its answer and counterclaims on January 27 in which …
Music Swapping Students May Not Remain Anonymous
In October 2002, I posted on the RIAA communicating their strong recommendation to college and university presidents that they put the brakes on the escalating rate of music downloading by students. Last week’s decision in RIAA v. Verizon has given the industry impetus to follow-through on identifying those who engage in extensive downloading of copyrighted …
Comments on Copyright Terms
Via Larry Lessig’s blog, The Economist published an editorial, A radical rethink, stating “The best way to foster creativity in the digital age is to overhaul current copyright laws.” Also, see this commentary, Copyright extensions put profits ahead of the public.
Lessig Continues Eldred Copyright Fight
Lawrence Lessig has not laid down the gauntlet in his crusade to amend the term of copyright protections despite last week’s Supreme Court decision. See his Op-Ed, Protecting Mickey Mouse at Art’s Expense, in the January 18 New York Times, as well as his announcement about a new effort to tackle the issue on the …
Hollywood v. PlanetReplay TV and SonicBlue
Chad Little, owner of Planet Replay, a P2P service that allows users to share TV shows they have digitally recorded using SonicBlue’s ReplayTV, has issued a press release indicating the discontinuation of part of his website’s service. This was done to protect the privacy of site users as a result of the entertainment industry’s copyright …
USPTO Issues IP Law Enforcement Report
The National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council Report 2001-2002 (in PDF) to Congress is a joint effort by DOJ, USPTO, State Dept., U.S. Trade Representative, Commerce, and the Copyright Office. “The mandate of the Council is to coordinate domestic and international intellectual property law enforcement among federal and foreign entities.” See also the DOJ …
PBS Program on Copyright
On January 17, PBS aired a program on Copyright in America, which included a useful timeline on the history of copyrights. In addition, they also published the transcript of an interview conducted by Rick Karr, called Tollbooths on the Digital Highway, with such industry advocates of copyright fees as Jack Valenti, Chairman, Motion Picture Association …
Supreme Court Upholds Copyright Protections
On January 15, the Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision in Eldred et al. v. Ashcroft, Attorney General, upholding the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, and extending by 20 years existing copyrights and future copyrights. Via Cornell’s Legal Information Institute there is access to the PDF versions of the Syllabus (PDF version), the Opinion …
Music/Tech Industry Reach Digital Rights Agreement
Yesterday afternoon, the Recording Industry Association of America announced via this press release that “key members of the recording and technology industries” had reached an agreement on a set of principles as the foundation for their joint anti-piracy and copyright protection lobbying efforts in the 108th Congress. The agreement is a result of efforts by …
Copyright and Open Source Software
With Microsoft making news today regarding their efforts against government use of open source software (OSS), this newly revised article, Making Copyright Ambidextrous: An Expose of Copyleft, is a useful resource on the history of OSS and associated licensing issues.
Kazaa Will Fight Infringement Lawsuit
Via ZDNet there is news that Sharman Networks, the investment consortium based in Sydney, Australia that owns the popular and controversial P2P software Kazaa will fight the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against them in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California (CV 01-08541-SVW, CV 01-09923-SVW) by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, after the court issued a 46 …
