In the News

["Jack Boeve" <JBoeve@xxxxxxxx>]

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Blog: Common sense asserts itself occasionally. By Georgia Harper,
Collectanea, March 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/2emyc4

I was reading about amateur photographers in Tel Aviv refusing to accept
that they couldn't take pictures of a building visible on a public
street...and it reminded me of a couple of summers ago when guards or
the sculptor, or someone tried to stop tourists in Chicago from taking
pictures of "the bean," this fabulous reflective, monstrously large,
bean-shaped sculpture in a public park there.

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Lebanon: Problems of Piracy. Naharnet Newsdesk, March 12, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/yqtbmu

The cost of copyright infringements in Lebanon is high and getting
higher, according to a report released by the International Intellectual
Property Alliance (IIPA) in mid-February.

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Authors sue cram school over copyright. The Yomiuri Shimbun. March 12,
2008.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080312TDY02306.htm

A group of nine authors filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Kawaijuku
Educational Institution, a major cram school operator, demanding the
school pay a total of about 4.7 million yen in compensation for
reprinting their work without permission.

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Google to media companies: We're your friend. By Juan Perez, IDG News
Service, March 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/26yz9j

Traditional media companies should see Google as a friend willing to
help them take advantage of online opportunities, and not as an enemy
that competes with them. So said David Eun, Google's vice president of
content partnerships, at the Bear Stearns Media Conference on Monday.

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Blog: Hulu Launches -- Takes "You" Out of YouTube, Puts Copyright In. By
Kevin Heisler, SearchEngineWatch.com, March 11, 2008
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080311-213221

Hulu, the video search engine for copyrighted and trademarked
entertainment, will premiere Wednesday. It will be a minor Internet
miracle if the GE-NewsCorp JV Web site can keep up with online demand
and search engine searchers.

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Press Release: KMWorld Magazine Names Copyright Clearance Center One of
the '100 Companies that Matter Most in Knowledge Management.'
EarthTimes, March 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/ywqxtv

Copyright Clearance Center, the world's largest provider of copyright
licensing solutions, has been named one of the "100 Companies that
Matter Most in Knowledge Management" by KMWorld Magazine.

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A Strange Decision... By Nancy Wolff, The Stock Asylum, March 11, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/292d4p

When a photographer discovered that his client was using photographs he
took on assignment longer than the two year term of use granted in
writing, and refused to pay additional use fees, he sued. These
photographs were registered with the Copyright Office as required under
the Copyright Act to enforce his rights and the photographer assumed he
would have his day in court. To his surprise, his case was dismissed
because the infringing client had never affirmatively granted him
permission to copyright the photographs.

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House panel kills provision in controversial copyright bill. By Grant
Gross, IDG News Service. March 10, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/2bnups

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has stripped out a
provision in a copyright-enforcement bill that would have increased
fines for compilation CDs containing pirated music by 10 times or more.

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The FAIR USE Act: Anything But Fair to Consumers, Innovators, Trade -
IPI. PRNewswire-USNewswire, March 10, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/2bx7el

The latest version of H.R. 1201, ill-fittingly named the "Freedom and
Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship" (FAIR USE) Act, is Rep.
Rick Boucher's (D-VA) newest attempt to unravel the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), the Supreme Court's unanimous Grokster decision
and recent U.S. trade treaties in a single piece of legislation.

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MPAA, Weekly Reader Campaign goes to the dogs. Businessofcinema.com,
March 9, 2008.
http://www.businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=7342

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Weekly Reader
unveiled a new curriculum that will be used to educate millions of
children about the importance of protecting copyrights. The new
curriculum features Lucky and Flo - the world's first-ever DVD sniffing
dogs - and is geared towards students in grades 5-7.

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Schools 'risk copyright breach.'  BBC News, March 7, 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7283926.stm

Schools using photo images downloaded from the internet on their
websites are being warned they could face huge bills in unpaid copyright
fees. Schools need to be aware of how legislation affects the use of
images taken from the internet, says a UK copyright lawyer.

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House Subcommittee Approves Copyright Law Overhaul. CQ Politics, March
6, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/25y9x6

A House Judiciary subcommittee Thursday approved legislation to revamp
federal copyright law. The measure, approved by the Subcommittee on
Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property by voice vote, would
consolidate the federal government's efforts to crack down on piracy and
counterfeiting of American-owned intellectual property, such as
inventions and artistic works.

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Blog: House panel deletes part of music industry-backed copyright bill.
Posted by Anne Broache, CNET News.com, March 6, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/yvsxrw

To avoid having a copyright bill favored by the music industry become
mired in controversy, a U.S. House of Representatives panel has agreed
to remove a section that would have dramatically increased fines in
copyright infringement lawsuits.

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Warner Music drops copyright protection for music downloads. In The
News, March 5, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/2yv4uj

Warner Music has revolutionised the music download industry by inking a
deal to provide a rival download service to rival Apple's iTunes store.
The record label's contract with download website 7digital.com will see
computer users in a number of European countries able to download albums
from the likes of REM, Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers without
copy protection.

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Court To Consider Whether P2P Uploads Infringe Copyright. By Wendy
Davis, MediaPost Publications, March 5, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/25qqhb

In a closely watched case, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier
Foundation will argue to a federal judge today that a man who allegedly
uploaded tracks to Kazaa shouldn't be held liable for copyright
infringement unless the record industry can prove that other users have
downloaded those tracks.

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History suggests copyright crusade is a lost cause. By Timothy Lee, Ars
Tecnicha, March 4, 2008.
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/copyright-crusade.ars

Recently, the Los Angeles Times's Jon Healey kicked off a new round in
the long-running debate about the moral status of file-sharing. Critics
of the practice analogize copyrights to property rights, suggesting that
file-sharing is a form of theft. Property rights have emotional
resonance across the political spectrum. As a result, those who want to
increase the power of copyright owners have tended to stress the
similarities between copyrights and property rights. In contrast, those
who who favor less restrictive copyright laws, as well as those who
oppose copyright altogether, have resisted this analogy.

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Do the (Copy)right Thing. By Neal Starkman, T.H.E. Journal, March 1,
2008.
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/22173

"How many do you want to know about?" Having been prompted for an
anecdote that demonstrates the lack of regard school districts have for
complying with copyright law, Carol Simpson makes it clear that she has
an abundant sample size to choose from. "I collect copyright horror
stories," she says.


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