In The News

["Olga Francois" <ofrancois@xxxxxxxx>]

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ETHICS: Face the music and pay for the show tunes
By Jeffrey Seglin, The New York Times
http://www.sltrib.com/2004/Mar/03202004/saturday/149475.asp

"My wife and some friends have been planning a trip to Las Vegas, where
they will take in a few musical shows. Recently, when the traveling
companions had dinner together, one brought gifts for the others:
homemade CDs of the soundtrack for one of the musicals. She told her
friends that her husband had burned the copies of his own CD on his home
computer."
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Low-tech case has high-tech impact
By MICHAEL GEIST, LAW BYTES Mar. 22, 2004
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1079910611083&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851

"While the public's attention has been focused this month on the
Canadian Recording Industry Association's lawsuit against 29 unnamed
file sharers and the related issue of whether Internet service providers
should be compelled to disclose the file sharers' identities, Canadian
copyright law was hit recently with a decision of far greater import."
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Artists Suffer As Copyright Act Gathers Dust
By Henry Makiwa Zimbabwe Standard (Harare). March 21, 2004
http://allafrica.com/stories/200403220410.html

"FOUR years ago Zimbabwean lawmakers drafted what they thought was a
noble legislation that would protect artists' rights on their works and
curb the rampant piracy that has been a cancer to local art."
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Are You In Copyright Heaven Or Hell? 
23 March 2004
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=2527

"Heard the one about the company whose copyright infringement cost them
$20 million?"
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>From : BNA's Internet Law News (ILN) - 3/23/04

ARCHIVES CHALLENGE "EFFECTIVELY PERPETUAL" COPYRIGHT TERM
Two archives, including the Internet Archive, have launched a suit that
asks a federal court to find that the Berne Convention Implementation
Act (BCIA)is unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First
Amendment, and that the BCIA and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)
together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to works
first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978, in
violation of the Constitution's Progress
Clause. The complaint, which is supported by the Stanford Center for
Internet and Society, asks the court for a declaratory judgement ruling,
stating that copyright restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose
copyright has not expired but which are no longer available -- violates
the constitution. Case name is Kahle v. Ashcroft. Complaint at
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/Civil%20Complaint%203-22-04.pdf";
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Updates:  Complaint filed March 22, 2004 in Kahle v. Ashcroft.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/cases/kahle_v_ashcroft.shtml

"Summary- In this case, two archives ask the U.S. district court for the
Northern District of California to find that a law that extended
copyright terms unconditionally -- the Berne Convention Implementation
Act (BCIA) -- is unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the
First Amendment, and that the BCIA and Copyright Term Extension Act
(CTEA) together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to
works first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978,
in violation of the Constitution's Progress Clause. The complaint asks
the court for a declaratory judgement ruling, stating that copyright
restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose copyright has not expired
but which are no longer available -- violates the constitution."
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Copyright Watchdog Launches Amnesty Program: Online Registry Moves to
Provide Alternative to Costly Litigation
By PRNewswire, March 23 
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK2.story&STORY=/www/story/03-23-2004/0002132908&EDATE=TUE+Mar+23+2004,+06:55+AM

"WASHINGTON, -- The Institute for Global Intellectual Property
Protection (IGIPP), an advocate for intellectual property (IP) owners,
today launched an online amnesty registry.  The registry encourages
patent, trademark, and copyright holders to rely on amnesty, rather than
costly litigation, to slow rampant intellectual property abuse."
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New Zealand to 'legalise CD piracy' - music biz
By Tony Smith, The register, : 23/03/2004
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36467.html

"The music industry has claimed proposals to change New Zealand's
copyright laws would destroy its business by "opening the floodgates" to
piracy."
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Congress files for copyright, shows its Hand on reforms
By OUR POLITICAL BUREAU, TIMES NEWS NETWOR, MARCH 23, 2004
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/576178.cms

"NEW DELHI: The Congress' vacillation on reforms is over. Shedding its
coyness on economic reform, the party has devoted considerable space in
its election manifesto to its economic vision."
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