In The News

["Olga Francois" <OFrancois@xxxxxxxx>]

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DMCA more a hindrance than a help: Study finds abuse of 'takedowns'
By Iain Thomson, vnunet.com, 28 Nov 2005
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2146807/dmca-hindrance-help

"A new study by researchers at the Universitys of Berkley and Southern
California has criticised widespread abuse of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA)."
*
Disturbing Number of Legal Flaws in so-called "DMCA Notices"
http://lawweb.usc.edu/news/releases/2005/legalFlaws.html

"Jennifer M. Urban of the USC Gould School of Law and Laura Quilter of
the University of California-Berkeley (Boalt Hall) have found a
disturbing number of legal flaws in so-called "DMCA notices"--which
result in online materials being pulled from the Internet, generally
without notice to the target."
*
Report:
http://mylaw.usc.edu/documents/512Rep-ExecSum_out.pdf
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The End Of Copyright
By Ernest Adam, Gamasutra, November 28, 2005
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051128/adams_01.shtml

"I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of a major era in
world history. It may take fifty years, it may take a hundred, but the
age of copyright is drawing to a close. I don't know if this is a good
thing or a bad thing, but it's inevitable. And I say this as the author
of two books and over 75 columns like this one, all copyrighted."
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iPod DRM faces another reverse-engineering challenge
By Jim Dalrymple, Playlist.com,
http://playlistmag.com/news/2005/11/21/ipoddrm/index.php

"A company that specializes in rights-management technology for online
stores has declared its plans to reverse-engineer the FairPlay encoding
system Apple uses on iTunes Music Store purchases."
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Free Encyclopedia Wikipedia.de Has Copyright Issues
Germany | 29.11.2005
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1796407,00.html
"The German version of free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has hit a
glitch. Hundreds of entries are thought to have been lifted from East
German reference books, reducing their value to users."
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$3-Million Gift From Google Jump-Starts Library of Congress's Digital
Cultural Archive
By BROCK READ, Chronicle.com, November 23, 2005
http://chronicle.com/daily/2005/11/2005112302t.htm
(Registration Required)

"The Library of Congress has begun a campaign to raise money for the
World Digital Library, a proposed online archive of international
cultural artifacts, and announced this week a $3-million grant from the
project's first patron: Google, the search engine turned information
monolith."
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Finding a balance between digital copyright and consumers' rights
By Miguel Dias, Information Society and Media DG
http://istresults.cordis.lu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingT
ype/Features/ID/79476

"In the war against piracy copyright holders are obtaining a new arsenal
of tools in the form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies to
protect music, movies, video games and even broadcast television from
illegal copying. But using such tools effectively without violating
consumers' rights is a tricky obstacle."
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Website offers MP3 storage
By Chris Nuttall, Financial Times, November 29 2005
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9d357024-6101-11da-9b07-0000779e2340.html

"Two software developers who have attracted lawsuits from media
organisations are behind an online music service launching on Wednesday
that seems certain to be scrutinised for copyright violations."
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Kazaa keywords to be blocked, Australian judge rules
By Steven Deare, CNET News.com, November 28, 2005
http://news.com.com/Kazaa+keywords+to+be+blocked%2C+Australian+judge+rul
es/2100-1028_3-5973653.html?tag=alert

"Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists
whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the
peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Australian federal court orders
last week."
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Hollywood, BitTorrent reach agreement
By Gary Gentile, The Associated Press/USAToday, 11/23/2005
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-11-23-bittorrent-hollywood_x.htm

"LOS ANGELES - In a deal aimed at reducing illegal Internet traffic in
pirated films, Hollywood reached an agreement Tuesday with the creator
of the popular file-sharing software BitTorrent."
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Blog: A 1-page summary of Canadian copyright reform?
By Russell McOrmond on Fri, 2005/11/25
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1252

"As a followup to the meeting I had with Mr. McGuinty on November 15, I
was asked to create a 1-page summary of my perspective. This is without
the tables I used with the handout I gave to him at the meeting. The
following is what I came up with."
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Waiting for Google to Search for One More Author: Ann Woolner
By Ann Woolner, Bloomberg, Nov. 25
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_woolne
r&sid=al5gk05NVDO0

"Given the news that Google is scanning copyrighted books without
bothering to ask the authors' permission, I decided to see whether I had
become a victim of Google's latest venture."