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Popular 80's band from Australia ruled to have infringed on the copyright of an old children's campfire song, "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree" for their hit, "Men Down Under." The court ruled on Thursday (February 4) that Men at Work copied the children's song in "Down Under" and must pay the copyright owner years of royalties. Sinclair, who wrote "Kookaburra" died in 1988, but her publishing company, Larrikin, owns the copyright for the ode to the native Australian bird and filed a copyright-infringement suit last year against the band.

"An article published in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new "digital economy bill. One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes: The new proposal - which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 - gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that ajudge could shut down a Web site because of copyright infringement, even if thesite's manager didn't put the content online."

An article published on Thursday in, The Guardian, discusses a debate taking place in the British Parliament around a new "digital economy bill." One amendment in particular is stirring a lot of discussion about its impact on content online. The Guardian writes: The new proposal - which was passed in the House of Lords by 165 votes to 140 - gives a high court judge the right to issue an injunction against a Web site accused of hosting a "substantial" amount of copyright infringing material, potentially forcing the entire site offline. Critics say the major problem with this amendment is that a judge could  shut down a Web site  because of copyright infringement, even if the site's manager didn't put the content online. What is left unanswered is how a company can be held accountable for every piece of content placed on its site.  Many critics of this bill and others in Europe say it is most likely to result in the stifling of creativity, innovation and free speech. In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act offers some protection against liability to Internet service providers and Web sites that host copyrighted material uploaded by third parties.

The number of media and entertainment media and acquisitions deals fell by 49 percent in 2009, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The accounting firm's 2010 U.S. Entertainment & Media M&A Insights report said the deals totaled $77.4 billion last year, the lowest level since 2004. There were 714 deals, down 29 percent from 2008 and the smallest number in seven years.

Broadcasting and Cable conducts a sit down interview with Steven Waldman, senior advisor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, to discuss the Governments role in balancing old and new media. Subsidies and media industry economics are also discussed.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a new task force on intellectual property in an effort to crack down on a "growing number" of IP crimes in the U.S. and elsewhere, the agency announced.

Australia's largest videogame retailer has joined the movement to add an R18+ rating category for interactive entertainment Down Under.

"The scheduling change is among the first examples of an informal new agreement U.S. theater owners are discussing with the six major Hollywood studios: The exhibitors would let the studios experiment more with DVD release dates. As a result, studios could each release one or two movies a year on DVD a month or so sooner than they usually do, according to people familiar with the matter. The seemingly minor move could portend a big shift in the movie business down the road. The nascent arrangement, which has been under discussion for several months, highlights the growing pressure on the longstanding backbone of Hollywood's business model, an elaborate system known as "release windows." By separating a movie's release in theaters from the time window of when it is released on DVD or cable TV, studios were able to maximize revenue. DVD sales, for example, didn't eat into a movie's take at the box office."

Discusses framing of Net Neutrality as contested First Amendment terrain, with comments by Kyle McSlarrow, President of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association.

NBC owns the U.S. rights to the Vancouver Olympics, and, for this Olympics, it has clamped down on online live streaming of events. Only hockey and curling will be shown live online, with all other events either shown live on television or held for tape-delay airing on prime time or late night television, says the industry publication Broadcasting & Cable in a story Monday. The Web site for CTV, the Canadian network with rights to the Olympics in that country, is live-streaming events, but NBC has made sure that computers with U.S. IP addresses can't log onto the CTV site.

Video of Luge Crash raises interesting discussions about copyright and Fair Use. Google would not comment on the particular video but offered this general statement. "We approach each video individually, and we do not prescreen content. Instead, we count on our community members to know the Guidelines and to flag videos they think violate them. We review all flagged videos quickly, and if we find that a video does break the rules, we remove it, usually in under an hour." And, interestingly enough, regular TV broadcasters, with no licensing agreement with the IOC, are employing the fair use argument and airing the clip. Yet YouTube, and other online outlets are so terrified of the constant bullying from content creators that they're not going to take any chance and are taking the video down. In the end, nobody wins, people don't have access to the information, online video sites lose viewers and trust from their users and the IOC comes out as trying to hush up an unpleasant situation and (mis)using copyright law to do so.

"It looks like 99 cents could become the new $1.99 for TV shows on iTunes. A new report puts Apple in talks with CBS about discounting at least a portion of the network's TV shows sold on iTunes to 99 cents, down from the standard $1.99 price point. If true, the move would confirm a previous Financial Times report which asserted that Apple's content partners are considering cutting iTunes TV shows in half when the iPad is officially released come this March."

Current fair use law is hazy by design; instead of laying out specific use cases, the law relies on the famous "four factors" about the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount borrowed, and the effect on the value of the original work. This can be maddening in many situations, because it is impossible to know in advance if a particular use qualifies. On the other hand, it gives a fair use incredible flexibility to adapt to new circumstances like the advent of the VCR. But in the paragraph that comes just before the four factors, Congress did see fit to lay down a nonexclusive list of fair uses: "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research." Is it time for more list items? The new Copyright Reform Act, proposed by Public Knowledge, would make a deceptively simple change to bring fair use into the 21st century-add seven words to this list. The CRA is a new project from Public Knowledge, with much of the heavy lifting being done by the Cyberlaw Clinic at Stanford and the Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC-Berkeley. While Berkeley's noted copyright scholar Pam Samuelson works up a new "model statute" for copyright law in the digital age, Public Knowledge hopes to make smaller interim fixes to copyright law that won't require the same dramatic reworking.

The music industry in Sweden has filed for the Stockholm District Court to enforce a ruling from last October that would require the founders of The Pirate Bay (a file sharing site) to pay a fine of 500,000 kronor (US$ 71,000) if the site was not shut down.

Despite a down economy, CA and NY compete for screen productions with tax incentives and other perks. Both say it's about jobs.

A new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that while one in 10 adults blogs, only 14 percent of teens do, down from nearly 30 percent in 2006. Surprisingly, they don't seem too partial to Twitter either: The Pew survey found that only 8 percent of teenage Internet users tweet.

Several broadcast companies that reported earnings the past few weeks have pointed out that TV station revenues were down due to the lack of political ad spending in 2009. Since 2010 is a banner year for major Congressional races, local media researcher Borrell Associates expects that TV broadcasters will have something to cheer about. The same can't be said for online media, which will hardly see a fraction of the total $42 billion Borrell says will be spent on political campaigns.

Disney shuts down Miramax films due to financial struggles. Eighty staff members will lose their jobs. What will this mean for the "indie" film scene?

America's advanced cellphone network is already beginning to be bogged down by smartphones that double as computers, navigation devices and e-book readers. Cellphones are increasingly being used as TVs, which hog even more bandwidth. They can also transmit video, allowing for videoconferencing on cellphones.

News Corp. the media conglomerate run by the billionaire, said second-quarter earnings got a boost from Avatar ticket sales and its broadcast TV division. The New York-based company reported net income of $254 million, or 10 cents per share, up from a net loss of $6.4 billion, or $2.45 cents per share in the same period a year prior, when the company was forced to write down the value of its assets.