Feb
19
Scope of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (S. 1957 H.R. 2033)
Posted by Keeley Vega at 12:28 pm under Copyright, Patent.
Yesterday Dirk wrote about the testimony of Narcisco Rodriquez in support of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act.
Steve Maiman, co-owner of Stony Apparel Corp. testified on behalf of those in the industry who oppose the bill. Specifically, he argued that it is “impossible to determine the originality of a design because all designs are inspired by […]
Feb
18
Copyright cites
Posted by Dirk Avery at 12:26 pm under Copyright.
Copyright protection in the Egyptian Pyramids
The Egyptian government, wanting both to protect the country’s cultural heritage and to profit from manufactured souvenirs of Sphinxes etc., is considering expanding its intellectual-property laws to cover replicas of antiquities and monuments.
Motion Picture Association (MPA) sues Chinese P2P company (Xunlei) supported by Google (Download MPA press release here)
Narciso Rodriguez, […]
Feb
16
EU members, read this book
Posted by Dirk Avery at 8:36 am under Copyright, Supreme Court.
Before the EU proposal to extend copyright, sound-recording protection from 50 to 95 years becomes law, it “would need approval by the European Parliament and a majority of the EU’s 27 governments, whose votes are weighted by population size.” Of course, whenever copyright extension comes up, Lessig comes to mind. EU citizens and […]
Feb
14
Copyright: Trojan horse to net neutrality?
Posted by Dirk Avery at 11:34 am under Copyright, Internet.
Craig Aaron sets the scene well:
[I]n The Matrix… Morpheus… offers Neo… a fateful choice.
He holds out two pills. Take the blue pill, he says, and you go back to a life of clock-punching drudgery where your every move is monitored. Take the red one, and you get spaceships, kung-fu and a leather-clad Carrie-Anne Moss.
Take away […]
Feb
13
Three things I enjoy: Patent, copyright and photography
Posted by Dirk Avery at 11:34 am under Copyright, Internet, Patent.
(Name the movie: “Those are three names I enjoy: Marvin, Velma and Provo.”) Canon (to whose cameras I am partial) has submitted a patent application for a very cool new watermarking technology for protecting copyrights. The basic idea (more here) is that you put your eye up to the view finder, the camera […]
Feb
12
Doe v. Geller: DMCA takedown notice & jurisdiction
Posted by Dirk Avery at 2:42 pm under Copyright, DMCA, Internet.
We’ve discussed the issue of online activities and personal jurisdiction before. In Doe v. Geller (download here), filed last week in the Northern District of California, the plaintiff filed suit in response to the defendant sending a take down notice for plaintiff’s YouTube video and the defendant suing the plaintiff in his home state […]
Feb
11
Lessig’s Last Free Culture Talk
Posted by Keeley Vega at 3:04 pm under Copyright, Events.
“Creative Commons founder and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig [gave] his final presentation on Free Culture, Copyright and the future of ideas at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium on January 31st, 2008 from 1pm-2pm. After 10 years of enlightening and inspiring audiences around the world with multi-media presentations that inspired the Free Culture movement, Professor Lessig is moving on […]
Feb
8
eCO Update: Easy copyright registrations?
Posted by Dirk Avery at 2:08 pm under Copyright, Internet.
Yesterday I wrote about becoming a fancy beta tester for the new electronic Copyright Office (eCO). After registering as a user yesterday afternoon, the system went down for maintenance. After it came back late last night, my screen listed no option for new registrations, only preregistrations. Here’s the screen from yesterday:
An email to the help […]
Feb
8
House passes pro-MPAA college antipiracy bill
Posted by Dirk Avery at 9:01 am under Copyright, Internet.
CNet reports:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday overwhelmingly approved[, by a] 354-58 vote…the College Opportunity and Affordability Act leav[ing] intact an entertainment industry-backed provision…
It says higher-education institutions participating in federal financial aid programs “shall” devise plans for “alternative” offerings to unlawful downloading–such as subscription-based services–or “technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”
Feb
7
RIAA spyware infringement filters?
Posted by Dirk Avery at 5:40 pm under Copyright, Internet.
Last year, one of Google’s responses to Viacom’s copyright infringement suit was an infringement filter. Although Viacom is not crazy about it, imagine if the technology became not only common but mandatory. If RIAA had its way, your ISP might start filtering everything you do or, worse still, you could get a spyware infringement filter […]