Group items tagged

CNN, copyright and censorship? It is a kind of censorship, I think we can say by now, to cynically use the copyright laws to shut down embarrassing publication of obviously non-infringing works. It's particularly ugly when media outlets do it, though. Yet that's what Patterico says is going on right now with a video that showed a CNN reporter being a little too partisan at a "tea party," formerly available on YouTube (most recently reposted here). Let's cut to the legal mumbo-jumbo, which is what we're all about here after all - as Patterico puts it, "As to the validity of the copyright claim, let me turn over the megaphone to Ben Sheffner of Copyrights and Campaigns":

"In this article the author examines the impact that copyright law has on the issue of censorship and government regulation of mass media. The author states that copyright legislation pits international media conglomerates that control the availability of their products, against the consumer right to have access to information resources at a reasonable charge. It is suggested that the court cases Huntsman v. Soderbergh and Universal Studios v. Reimerdes tilted the advantage toward the proprietors of mass media outlets and away from consumers."

Google has banned subscribers to its Korean blogging platform, Textcube (www.textcube.org), from uploading songs onto their blogs, citing the country's new anti-file sharing provisions aimed at thwarting online piracy. This is the first time that the U.S. giant has disabled its bloggers from posting music files on their personal Web pages. Last month, Google blocked users from posting videos and comments on the Korean site of YouTube (kr.youtube.com), its online video service. This was to avoid the new regulations that mandate Internet users to make verifiable real-name registrations on all Web sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors, which means they have to submit their resident registration codes, the Korean equivalent of social security numbers.

At the end of March The Pirate Bay added new functionality to reach out to millions of Facebook users. Just over a week later and the world's largest social networking site has blocked all links to torrents on the world's largest and most infamous BitTorrent tracker.

The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website. Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled "Facts about Goldman Sachs" - the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com - just a few weeks ago.