well, this sounds familiar.

Though this video is interesting, the comment thread gives a great look at people's thoughts on current copyright laws.

not actually news, but an interesting article on plagiarism from 2007. "The idea that culture can be property-intellectual property-is used to justify everything from attempts to force the Girl Scouts to pay royalties for singing songs around campfires to the infringement suit brought by the estate of Margaret Mitchell against the publishers of Alice Randall's The Wind Done Gone." What do you all think of Lethem's article?

"The internet titan was found guilty of infringing a patent related to the Linux kernel and fined " "The software is used by Google for its server platforms and could also extend to its Android mobile platform.The kernel is at the core of the open-source operating system meaning this verdict could be far-reaching" "The implication here is really that there is a huge number of Linux users who will be required to pay royalties if this patent holder knocks on their doors in the US. This is definitely a major impediment to the growth of Linux and makes companies, including Google, that rely on open source code particularly vulnerable to patent threats.

"A federal appeals court upheld a ruling that EchoStar infringed TiVo patents for digital recording technology, raising hopes the long legal battle could end with a TiVo victory."

"Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," Apple said. "The copying is so pervasive that the Samsung Galaxy products appear to be actual Apple products."

The "supposed" author is suing the licensing company that sold the rights of his song to sports teams on the basis that he hasn't been paid royalties. Also note that this song has possibly been a part of the the USC marching band's repertoire since the 1950s. How can this situation be addressed?

Viacom is maintaining its 2007 billion dollar lawsuit against Google (as it acquired YouTube in 2006), despite the latter continuous fervent denial. Though "Google argues that when YouTube promptly took down tens of thousands of videos after Viacom gave it notice, YouTube was within provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." Viacom is stating that the infringement is taking the form of violating the 1998 Copyright Act. Which holds both content owners and systems operators responsible for the protection of copyrighted content online. After reading this article, a few questions come to mind: What can Google do to appease and keep the "integrity" of YouTube? and Isn't it interesting that Viacom only filed this $1 billion lawsuit AFTER Google had acquired YouTube? What can we say about interested parties possibly abusing copyright law?

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.

International Publishing Company, Hachette has signed a "print-on-demand" agreement with the French National Library (BnF) which will allow them to sell out-of-copyright works from the BnF's online library. European Union countries have been known for setting limitations on the reproductions of oeuvres, particularly where the web is concerned. Hachette seems to have found a way to profit from this...

The operator of popular live streaming site channelsurfing.net, has allegedly made $90,000 from sold ad space on the site since 2005. "Brian McCarthy allegedly hid behind the anonymity of the Internet to make a quick buck through what is little more than high-tech thievery". This is true, but then he got arrested and is facing a maximum 5 year jail sentence...

Creative Commons is facilitating the use and reuse of educational materials. According to this post written by a policy coordinator at the nonprofit organization, it can potentially allow students to save money they would be spending on textbooks. A professor at the University of MIchigan published a $10 book in 11 days because he adapted a book "offered under an open content license"

the article I will be editing.

the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed a copyright infringement suit against Hotfile (a file hosting service) on behalf of Disney Enterprises, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros, claiming that it promotes piracy. This suit is reminiscent of the music industry's attack on Limewire which resulted in it being shut down. Read the original Associated Press article on the Wall Street Journal Website: http://online.wsj.com/article/APba256b5b302d4d9c9e8af569d017dba6.html

The web radio service's filings show that over half of its revenue (approximately $45 million) was used to pay copyright owners, an amount so high that it expects to have a virtually non-existent profit margin through to 2012. Though the company has grown in the past year and copyright fee expenditures don't represent as large a chunk of the earnings as last year (when it was 60%), concern remains over its ability to make ends meet. Royalty payments are principally made to: SoundExchange (which receive 45 of Pandora's revenue alone), BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC. The company is also looking to "go global" but has encountered problems, as its business model is based on US copyright laws. 

A search engineer at Google claims that Microsoft's Bing is copying their search results. She reached this conclusion after having toyed with the Google search algorithm and seeing that Bing was still displaying identical results. If interested, also see articles on engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/google-responds-bing-recycles-search-results-and-wed-like-it/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/google-accuses-bing-of-cheating-piggybacking-off-its-search-r/

After lengthy copyright diputes, Swedish author and publisher Fredrik Colting has essentially decided to wait for "The Catcher in the Rye" to enter the public domain before releasing "60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye", the unauthorized sequel to the work.