In The News

["Jack Boeve" <JBoeve@xxxxxxxx>]

-----
Blog: US copyright official loves DMCA but admits she's not tech savvy.
AfterDawn.com, September 18, 2007.
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11154.cfm

After reading statements made by U.S. Register of Copyrights Marybeth
Peters it shouldn't surprise anyone to find out that she's a self
described luddite who doesn't even have a computer at home. Short of
being in a coma since the law went into effect in 1998, that's the only
explanation for saying "I think it did what it was supposed to do,"
which is what she recently told an audience at the Future of Music
Policy Summit.

-----
Blog: Values of Fair Use. By Carlos Ovalle, Collectanea Blog, September
18, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/2a7pms

Georgia earlier reported on the CCIA study describing the economic value
of fair use. That study and responses to that study have shed light on a
few areas.

-----
Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site. By Richard Perez-Pena,
New York Times, September 18, 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web
site, effective at midnight tonight. In addition to opening the entire
site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives
from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to
1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some
material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

-----
Blog: Debating the Future of Music. By Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post,
September 18, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/29lu6q

I spent most of Monday in an auditorium at George Washington University,
attending the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit. This
gathering is meant to give musicians--as opposed to the recording
industry at large--a chance to mull over the state of the business.

-----
Nintendo Sues Korean Web Sites Over Copyright. The Korea Times,
September 17, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/3xx8mt

The Korean unit of Japan's game console maker Nintendo Co. said Monday
that it has taken a legal action against those who allegedly violated
its copyright for game software through Internet Web sites in South
Korea. Nintendo Korea said that it filed a suit with the Supreme
Prosecutors' Office in Seoul against an unidentified number of users who
it claims uploaded copied Nintendo software on peer-to-peer file-sharing
or Webhard sites.

-----
Blog: This just in... Libraries and library organizations ask Copyright
Office to free the registration database. By Georgia Harper, Collectanea
Blog, September 17, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/27a452

Peter Brantley and Carl Malamud have just asked the Copyright Office to
make its retrospective database of registrations of copyright freely
available to the public.

-----
A call for Net neutrality debate in U.K. By David Meyer, CNET News.com,
September 17, 2007.
http://www.news.com/2100-1028_3-6208405.html

The time has come for the United Kingdom to join the growing debate
surrounding Net neutrality, the president of the British Computer
Society told ZDNet UK. Professor Nigel Shadbolt said late last week
that, because so much of the Internet's content is derived from the
U.S., the U.K. and Europe would be affected by any Net
neutrality-related decisions made across the Atlantic.

-----
Ad-supported music site SpiralFrog launches Monday, offers free music
and video downloads. SiliconValley.com/Associated Press, September 17,
2007.
http://tinyurl.com/yqwkpm

SpiralFrog.com, an ad-supported Web site that allows visitors to
download music and videos free of charge, was scheduled to launch Monday
in the U.S. and Canada after months of "beta" testing. The music
service, which has arranged to pay record companies a cut of its
advertising revenue, aims to lure music fans who normally flock to
online file-swapping networks to share and download music for free. The
recording industry has sued thousands of computer users for doing so in
recent years.

-----
VW 'Nazi' Subpoena Points Up YouTube Privacy Risks. By David Kravets,
Wired.com, September 17, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/2uw9vm

A legal spat between YouTube and Volkswagen is throwing light on the
increasing copyright surveillance of social networking sites. Volkswagen
has filed a subpoena seeking the identity of a YouTube user who posted a
Nazi-themed parody of a recent VW Golf commercial. Volkswagen's move
underscores the privacy risks to a blossoming community of users on
sites like YouTube and Yahoo Video, and social-networking sites like
Facebook and MySpace.

-----
CRIA about-face on iPod levies tied to concerns over legitimizing
downloads. By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, September 17, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/2zrpuo

CRIA, Canada's version of the RIAA, has long been a fan of levies. The
Canadian government imposed these levies on blank media like CD-Rs and
audio tapes back in the late 1990s, with the idea being that the money
would go to artists whose work was being copied privately. CRIA, which
has pushed for the levies for years, is suddenly objecting to their
extension to portable music players like the iPod. The organization has
just filed papers in a Canadian federal appeals court that announce its
intention to object to the proposed new levies.

-----
Tokyo court clarifies copyright law. By Mark Schilling, Variety.com,
September 16, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/2fsqym

In two separate cases, Tokyo District Court on Friday ordered a DVD
maker to cease production and sales of DVDs of 10 pics by Akira
Kurosawa.

-----
Prince takes YouTube to court for Copyright Infringement. By Shubha
Krishnappa, The Money Times, September 15, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/ynmyb4

Prince, an influential star of the 1980s and known for being highly
protective of his copyright, is planning to drag YouTube, eBay, and The
Pirate Bay to the court for copyright infringement, claiming the
Internet sites are allegedly encouraging users to post unauthorized
content and violate copyright laws.

-----
Copyright will soon see its name in lights. Deirdre McMurdy, The Ottawa
Citizen, September 14, 2007.
http://tinyurl.com/2b9h2l

Pirates. Counterfeiters. Movie moguls. Gamers. Hackers. Bureaucrats.
Diplomats. And don't forget the money. Lots and lots of money. These are
ingredients worthy of any political thriller shown at the Toronto
International Film Festival. Except that the latest instalment of this
serial drama is playing out in Ottawa.

-----
News Corp. won't pull videos from iTunes. CNET News.com/Reuters,
September 11, 2007.
http://www.news.com/2040-1096_3-0.html?tag=byline

News Corp. will not pull its television shows from Apple's iTunes as
rival media group NBC Universal has done over a pricing dispute,
President Peter Chernin said in an interview Tuesday.
President Peter Chernin says the media giant has no dispute with Apple,
though it would like a bigger voice in pricing its shows.

-----
Blog: Playing Craps With Copyright?  By Brock Read, Chronicle of Highe
Education, September 11, 2007.
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2372

Folks following Google's ambitious book-scanning project might want to
check out First Monday's interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan, a strong
critic of the "Googlization" of libraries and copyright law. (The
interview is available as a podcast and as a written transcript.)

==========
(C)ollectanea Blog. Collected perspectives on copyright.
http://chaucer.umuc.edu/blogcip/collectanea/
Center for Intellectual Property, UMUC