Blog posts

Article although from earlier this year is an interesting comment from Lessig in which he praises Google for the Book Settlement allowing the public more access than fair use, but which he speaks out against in the level of control control the settlement which allows different types of licensing on word/quote/page basis. Potentially it could be a permissions nightmare for people who would like to use excerpts from the books.

Nintendo VS NXPGAME. Filing lawsuit to repeat offender who was asked by Nintendo to desist in selling illegal video game copiers which allowed users to download, play and distribute NintendoDS and DSi games. Piracy in the video game market is a widespread problem to which video game companies are also taking an agressive stance.

Privacy may not be completely dead with Google promising a broader future roll out of an SSL encrypted Google search meaning companies will not be able to track where traffic to a site comes from...

Voltage pictures, production company of the oscar winning movie, The Hurt Locker has joined with the US copyright group filed thousands of lawsuits against people who have downloaded the movie through torrent sites. Magnitude of this is much larger than any prior legal action taken before for illegally downloaded movies.

German Criminal Court rules that Wi-Fi internet account owners who do not have password protection will be fined 100 euros for 3rd parties which perform acts of piracy on their account, further broadening the spectrum of responsibility of copyright infringement.

Apple is one of several companies being sued for an alleged iTunes patent breach of an idea which is an online store for music downloads, some of Apple's other applications are also being sued for other patent breaches. Apple's operating Systems & Safari are also being sued by a Monkeymedia for breaching patents which dictate ways of displaying varying amounts of data through user control.

How YouTube has created porn sites made in it's image e.g. YouPorn, Porntube and its impact on the industry.

Verizon has imposed a version of the controversial graduated response policy which was recently uncovered in the US- in which ISP's basically disconnect repeat copyright infringement offenders from the internet. Verizon is terminating internet service to an undisclosed number of repeat offenders.

Head programmer of Wolfire games, David, also talking about the methods of measurement for analysing economic losses through piracy that do not truly reflect losses terms of real world consumer spending

Report released in the United States which says that it is almost impossible to quantify the economic wide impacts of piracy, figures which have been given in the past are likely to have grossly overestimate the actual losses made in reality, It discusses how much of infringing copyright should be counted as a lost sale. i.e. Counting one illegal download as one lost sale is unrealistic in terms of real world economics.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association disclosed a report revealing the value of industries dependent on copyright limitations. The report claims that it accounts for US$4.7 trillion and 23% of the US' real economic growth from 2002-2007.

A group of independent film producers have initiated court actions against over 20,000 Bit Torrent users, through an organisation of their own design, a group of lawyers known as the U.S Copyright Group. This group are demanding users to either defend themselves in court or alternatively, to settle outside of court for downloading particular movie titles. Most accused will settle to avoid the costs of litigation. Actions such as this are worrying as may give rise to a standard in which large numbers of corporates, not only in film but in all types of media, may start bringing forth unrelenting actions against individual users- holding them personally accountable. This is problematic (amongst a variety of reasons) that in the identification process through IP addresses is not 100% accurate, leaving room to wrongly accuse some users.

An insightful episode- which speaks about the cyber-crime/espionage and privacy issues which have been linked back to China.

Unofficial reports of Google's open source VP8 video codec may arguably give other major video codec companies a run for their money- offering internet users good quality video, whilst using smaller bandwidth. But keeping it royalty and patent free for web browsers to use without charge- making it difficult for royalty codecs to compete.

New Zealand is getting ready for a potential patent reform? Predominantly this bill includes an exclusion of patents on software which is a big development in a digital commercial industry which is rife with conflict over intellectual property. Personally, I feel it is a step in the right direction? But I guess that is the point of view of an end user.

I believe Apple will not be very happy about this.

Another case in which intellectual property rights come into question. Apple is suing HTC for infringement of 20 Apple patents. It is interesting to note, that the majority of handsets which been specified in this case are powered by Google's Android operating system which is open source. I feel that corporations using open sources to power their products need to consider the potential repercussions. Although open source communities tend to operate with an ethic of contribution and collaborative innovation; it is inevitable that ideas and the products which stem from it will crossover from one realm to another, which in turn will lead to a figurative 'stepping on one another's toes' and ensuing law suits. In saying this, it is clear that whether or not it is open source product or not, that cases like this have almost become a symptom of the modern tech-business climate.

Article from PC World dated 19/3/2010 Talks about the the enduring legal battle between Viacom and Google over intellectual property rights which have been (arguably) 'violated' by the Video sharing website, Youtube. This is another prime example of the indefinable nature of the digital medium and the problems inherent in resolving issues of ownership and distribution of information in the context of the internet. The inability to fully implement control in free flowing information forums again raises the question who can really be made responsible for copyright infringements?