In the News

["Jack Boeve" <JBoeve@xxxxxxxx>]

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RECENT ITEM FROM THE CIP COLLECTANEA BLOG:

CIP's Handbook - Cliff Lynch's Ch. 9 online. By Georgia Harper,
Collectanea, September 6, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/64qg49

CIP's Intellectual Property Handbook...includes as Chapter 9 a talk that
Cliff Lynch gave as keynote at one of the CIP annual symposia a few
years back. CIP recently posted Lynch's chapter online so that anyone
can read it. It's a very easy read.... The talk is well worth your time
and I heartily recommend reading it. His overall point is that the
university must clarify its values regarding our role in the
dissemination and preservation of scholarly communication, not just its
production and providing access to it.

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IN OTHER NEWS:

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'Potter' Author Wins Copyright Ruling. Associated Press/NY Times,
September 8, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/56ojwb

The author of the "Harry Potter" series, J.K. Rowling, has won her claim
that a fan violated her copyright with his plans to publish a Potter
encyclopedia. Judge Robert P. Patterson of Federal District Court said
Ms. Rowling had proved that Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon"
would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He permanently blocked
publication of the reference guide and awarded Ms. Rowling and her
publisher $6,750 in statutory damages.

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NIH Public Access Policy To Face Copyright Challenge in Congress? By
Andrew Albanese, Library Journal, September 5, 2008.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6593398.html?desc=topstory

In less than a week, on Thursday, September 11, the Subcommittee on
Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House of
Representatives' Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on
what sources tell LJ is a legislative attempt to redress publishers'
concerns that public access policies-namely the recently enacted policy
at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-conflict with copyright and
intellectual property laws. No text has yet been released for the
legislation, tentatively titled the "Fair Copyright in Research Works
Act." Nor has the hearing appeared on the subcommittee's schedule.

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City's biggest copyright case hits court. By Angela Xu, Shanghai Daily,
September 5, 2008.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=372683&type=Metro

A city court began hearing criminal charges yesterday against a gang
accused of global trading in pirated software - at US$10 million-plus,
the biggest case of copyright violation in Shanghai's history. Nine
defendants were brought before the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's
Court in a trial that is expected to last two days.

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Ninth Circuit maintains position on 'first sale' defense to copyright
actions. By Abigail Salisbury, The Jurist, September 4, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/589srh

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday reversed a
district court's grant of summary judgment to retailer Costco in a
copyright infringement action brought by watch manufacturer Omega. Omega
claimed that Costco's unauthorized sale of its imported watches
constituted infringing distribution and importation.

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Net neutrality, copyright, election issues: Charlie Angus. p2pnet news,
September 4, 2008.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16899

Canada is about to go through another election with Stephen Harper's
corporate-friendly Conservative government looking for a lease
extension. Harper heads up a minority government with the federal
Liberals and New Democratic Party of Canada in opposition to keep him in
check. He's praying that, with little to choose between his government
and the Liberals, he'll be returned to office, this time with a
majority. It'll be seriously bad news if either party is elected. But
there is an alternative.

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Blog: File Sharing Lawsuits at a Crossroads, After 5 Years of RIAA
Litigation. By David Kravets, Wired Blog Network, September 4, 2008.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/proving-file-sh.html

It was five years ago Monday the Recording Industry Association of
America began its massive litigation campaign that now includes more
than 30,000 lawsuits targeting alleged copyright scofflaws on
peer-to-peer networks. The targets include the elderly, students,
children and even the dead. No one in the U.S. who uses Kazaa, Limewire
or other file sharing networks is immune from the RIAA's investigators,
and fines under the Copyright Act go up to $150,000 per purloined music
track.

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He's giving you access, one document at a time. By Nathan Halverson, The
Press Democrat, September 3, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6zsqe2

California's building codes, plumbing standards and criminal laws can be
found online. But if you want to download and save those laws to your
computer, forget it. The state claims copyright to those laws. It
dictates how you can access and distribute them -- and therefore how
much you'll have to pay for print or digital copies. It forbids people
from storing or distributing its laws without consent. That doesn't sit
well with Carl Malamud, a Sebastopol resident with an impressive track
record of pushing for digital access to public information.

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Google Amends Chrome License Agreement After Objections. By Grant Gross,
IDG News Service/PC World, September 3, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/5fgb5a

Google will dump a section of the licensing agreement for its new Chrome
browser after some Internet users objected to its copyright
implications. Google said Wednesday it would dump one section of the
end-user licensing agreement that gave the company "a perpetual,
irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to
reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly
display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on
or through" the new browser.

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Contentious copyright bill would die with election. By David Akin,
Canwest News Service/National Post, September 2, 2008.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=764309

Made-in-Canada copyright legislation is among the bills that will die if
Prime Minister Stephen Harper goes ahead with a widely expected election
call at the end of this week, a prospect that bitterly disappoints many
artists. It will be the second time in as many governments that
copyright legislation designed for the era of the iPod has died on the
order paper at the dissolution of Parliament. The Liberals had tabled
copyright legislation in 2005 but it was killed when they lost power in
early 2006.

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New copyright laws grab for students' wallets. By Marie Burgoyne, The
Ubyssey Online, September 2, 2008.
http://www.ubyssey.ca/?p=3419

As of July 1, the outcome of the Viacom v. Google litigation in the
federal court for the Southern District of New York was the first step
in policing and restricting the accessibility of digital media in the
name of copyright. It was ruled that Google was to provide the American
media conglomerate with "all data from the logging database concerning
each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or
through embedding on a third-party website."


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Center for Intellectual Property, UMUC