Group items tagged

This case study looks at "jailbreakers," who are hacking their iPhones so that they may use unauthorized software and applications from other cell phone carriers. Apple has warned that such hacking will not only damage their iPhone, but is indeed copyright infringement. However, the Copyright Office has actually proposed that "jailbreaking" is actually considered "fair use." In the past, other laws, like the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (1998), have been used to protect creative property for much longer than actually necessary, thus diminishing valuable work available in the public domain.

Some claim that the digital music industry is not going to grow any larger than it already is--mostly due to piracy occurring online. Inspired by the U.S. Senate, which shut down LimeWire last year, other countries across Europe and Asia are looking to revisit copyright laws to crack down on piracy and promote growth in the digital music industry, as well as lead a shift away from monopolizing applications, like iTunes, and redirect sales to alternative subscription music service websites.

Personality rights, a subset of intellectual property/copyright, is a major issue among players in the NCAA.  

copyright should not act as an obstacle to small businesses on the internet!!!

Should Google be doing more to protect original content that is made available on YouTube?

Rebuttal of Turow's op ed, referenced in Andrea's blog post last week.

A reference to Section 512 of Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbors" exception from my blog entry.

NY federal judge ruled against google last week in their copyright case, having  "[tossed] out a 165-page settlement reached in 2008 between Google and authors and publishers groups". This article discusses Google's 2009 plan for a global digitized library and the lawsuits that have surrounded it.

The article is recent from March 25th (LA Times, Business Section). It's discussing Google's history regarding the e-book controversy. Judge Chin's decision forces us to think about what an online digital library might look like without infringing parties, like Google. As noted in the article, Google was attempting to use "orphan works," whose right holders could not be found. As a result, Google would be using the works without being held accountable under copyright law. Here's the original document, filed by the U.S. Supreme Court, on 3/22/2011: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/74854-chin-ruling

Google worries that the 2009 ruling against isoHunt will affect its own services and services of its website, YouTube. While Google believes isoHunt is liable, they would like the court to be more precise. They would like to see isoHunt charged with only specific instances of inducing. Google is also pushing to see isoHunt protected by safe harbor under DMCA. "It's clear this court thinks the DMCA online safe harbors only insulate against direct infringement, not secondary infringement," writes intellectual property attorney Eric Goldman on his Technology & Marketing Law Blog. "The interplay between the safe harbors and secondary infringement remains a multi-billion statutory ambiguity."

In the bottom corner of the page, there is an ad that keeps running to the tune of "Spoonful of Sugar" from Mary Poppins.  The chances that it's legally licensed?  Super sweet-n-low.

It's really interesting to see how Google adapts to being an international corporation. The company clearly needs to comply with each country's laws. This is where people need to ask themselves the following question: do we WANT Google to be the same in every country? What are we saying about globalization/transnationalism at this point? People show concern towards homogenization (at least in a cultural sense), but putting ourselves in the shows of Belgian Google users who may find the links and excerpts useful or integral their research, where do we draw the line? Something to think about, I suppose. Here's another article on the matter, from PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/article/227379/google_busted_for_copyright_violation_in_belgium.html