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… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Digital Rights
Record Company President Supports Music Downloading
Embrace file-sharing, or die is a new article from Salon, available free and in full-text (but requiring that you view ads in between pages). It is actually the text of a presentation made last week by John Snyder, president of Artist House Records, to the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) and the… Continue Reading
USPTO Hearing on Protection of Copyrighted Works
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… Continue Reading
Verizon Fights to Protect Consumer Privacy
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… Continue Reading
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. Continue Reading
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… Continue Reading
New IP Advocacy Group
“IP Justice is a new non-profit organization that works to promote balance in global intellectual property law and protect freedom of expression with digital media.” An interview with Executive Director Robin D. Gross, an IP attorney formerly with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was conducted by CNet. Continue Reading
Debut of the Alliance for Digital Progress
A new lobbying organization, the Alliance for Digital Progress, representing industry and advocacy groups, launched their website and announced their agenda yesterday via a press release and press conference presented by President Fred McClure. The group is “opposed to government-designed and mandated technology to solve the problem of digital piracy,” and seeks to create acceptable… Continue Reading
RIAA Wins Battle With Verizon Over Customer Data
Judge John D. Bates, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, has ruled in favor of RIAA in their high profile case against Verizon to compel the ISP to provide personal data on customers’ use and online distribution of music obtained using P2P downloading applications. See Recording Industry of America v. Verizon Internet… Continue Reading
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… Continue Reading
Libraries and UCITA
This Action Alert from the American Associaton of Law Libraries (AALL) Washington Affairs Office urges law librarians to contact the ABA House of Delegates as they consider Resolution 113G, proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) that, “Approves the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (2002) promulgated by the National Conference… Continue Reading
Publisher Prentice Hall Tries Open Source
Prentice Hall has made the leap into open source publishing, in no small measure due to the impetus provided by Bruce Perens, author, programmer, researcher, and father of the open source movement. He states on this site, “I’ve convinced Prentice Hall PTR to publish a series of books that have their text under Open Source… Continue Reading
