Archive for the ‘DRM’ Category

DMCA author admits law’s failure

Tuesday, March 27th, 2007

At a conference over the weekend, former Clinton Administration IP chief Bruce Lehman admitted that his brainchild of a law banning the circumvention of digital rights management technologies hasn't worked out as well as he had hoped. The conference, Musical Myopia, Digital Dystopia: New Media and Copyright Reform (pdf), was at ...

Viacom v. YouTube

Wednesday, March 14th, 2007

I'm in the middle of a 2-week vacation in Colorado, but I guess I have to say something about Viacom's suit against YouTube--or, at least, I have to link to some people who say something. At News.com, Declan McCullagh says the case depends on how you view 17 USC ยง 512, ...

Debating the DMCA reform bill

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Representatives Rick Boucher (D-VA) and John Doolittle (R-CA) have introduced a bill that would scale back the effect of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA and limit the liability of technological innovators, sparking debate among all stakeholders. The Freedom And Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship Act of 2007, or FAIR USE Act ...

BitTorrent now selling content

Monday, February 26th, 2007

BitTorrent, long decried by studios as the source of all evil, has become the next great hope for turning online freeloaders into paying internet customers. Customers can rent Analyze That and other, um, hit movies for just $2.99 to $3.99 for one day. They can also buy single episodes of TV ...

HD-DVD “backup” software released

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

Recently, a hacker discovered and publicized a key that unlocks both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. Just a few days later, SlySoft has released a beta version of its AnyDVD software that can rip HD-DVDs. Since 2000, you've been legally forbidden from hacking the encryption on your DVDs. For about as ...

Jobs calls for DRM-free music

Thursday, February 8th, 2007

In an open letter (NOT a pdf for once), Apple CEO Steve Jobs blamed the big four music labels for forcing Apple to use DRM in iTunes and called for DRM-free licensing for the sale of online music.

Music industry still insisting on DRM

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

At their annual meeting in Cannes, the music industry is still trying to manage its digital rights, but it's angering customers while failing to stop piracy. For starters,, here's a choice quote from the article: Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, argues that some form of piracy should simply ...

Sony still paying for rootkit fiasco

Thursday, December 21st, 2006

The company has already settled and begun paying in Texas and California, but Sony still has other legal problems ahead. The company has agreed to $1.5 million in fines and cash settlements with customers in the two biggest states. A consortium of 13 other states are looking for a similar deal. ...

New Site: DMCA Exemption for Educational Use of AV Materials

Friday, December 1st, 2006

Here's a new website for the new DMCA exemption for film & communication professors. Hosted by the Annenberg School and Penn Film Studies professor Peter Decherney, the site links to all the official documents concerning the exemption. If you're reading this blog, the exemption is probably not news to you. Here's ...

Patry: DMCA trumps common law (C) exemptions

Friday, December 1st, 2006

The US, along with the UK, is a common law country, meaning the judicial branch has fairly wide powers to interpret the law. This is actually the basis of exemptions for fair use; long before the 1976 Copyright Act, courts had spent decades insisting that copyright didn't prevent all unauthorized ...