Archive for the ‘Copyright’ Category

Music Biz: Blooming or Dying? Same Data, Two Frames

Monday, January 7th, 2008

In two different news stories summarizing the latest Nielsen Soundscan music sales report, the music industry is cast as growing at a remarkable clip or continuing its long, slow decline. Variety takes the latter tack, moaning, "Album sales take a tumble in 2007." In contrast, the Centre Daily Times celebrates the ...

Boost Innovation: More Health Care, Less IP

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

US News interviewed a handful of cutting-edge tech gurus, asking them, "What if you were appointed innovation czar?" Three themes run through the answers: 1) Portable, especially universal health care. People stay in uninspiring jobs because they need the health insurance. Provide this automatically, and risk takers are free to start new ...

Major Newspapers v. RIAA

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

Copyright expert William Patry has a great post summarizing two RIAA-bashing opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post. Both articles challenge the RIAA's expansive view of copyright, but Patry is insightful enough to identify it as a bogus claim of natural property rights. It is not merely enough ...

WTO to Antigua: Violate $21m of US Copyrights

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

To help Antigua recover part of the vast sums lost due to the US blocking online gambling, the World Trade Organization is allowing the Carribean nation to make unauthorized copies of $21 million worth of US goods. The decision is surprising, but it will be hard to enforce. US trade representatives ...

Copyright Alliance Pretends to Help Professors

Monday, December 10th, 2007

At a symposium today, a relatively new group called the Copyright Alliance is offering to help professors get a sense of which movies they can show in class without getting in trouble for copyright infringement. The only problem with the idea is that, as long as the copy is obtained legally ...

Funny Slideshow Critiques DMCA, Shrinkwrap Licenses

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

Lok just emailed me Wellington Grey's hilarious DMCA slideshow. It's positively hi-larious.

France to Downloaders: Stop Infringing or Lose Internet Access

Saturday, November 24th, 2007

Internet users in France who use their connections to violate copyright law may lose their connections under a new policy announced this week. In a three-way deal between internet service providers, the French government, and copyright holders, those accused of infringement will receive warnings from their ISPs. If they are identified ...

Music Exec Bemoans “Inadvertent” War on Consumers

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

In a speech to the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman warned the mobile industry not to make the music industry's mistakes in failing to satisfy consumer wishes: "We used to fool ourselves,' he said. "We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as ...

Bill Requiring DRM for Colleges Passes Committee

Friday, November 16th, 2007

As we reported earlier, Section 494 of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (pdf) would turn colleges into copyright cops. Now, the bill is in front of the full House thanks to a unanimous committee vote in its favor. The section (on pp. 411-413 of the draft above) requires ...

Dems to Colleges: Police Copyright or Lose Funding

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

Two Democratic chairs of key House committees introduced a bill yesterday that would require colleges to police copyright and pay off the entertainment industry. Buried on pages 411 and 412 of the 747-page bill, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (pdf), is the following: Each eligible institution participating in any ...