In the News

["Jack Boeve" <JBoeve@xxxxxxxx>]

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RECENT ITEM FROM THE CIP COLLECTANEA BLOG:

When undercurrents break to the surface. By Georgia Harper, Collectanea,
October 23, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6gnae8

It took me a long time, actually, it took years for me to begin to sense
what was deep beneath the surface of our copyright law that actually
accounted for most of the bewildering aspects of what we see and
experience on the surface. It's not that they are a secret, these
undercurrents. No, most written explanations of copyright start right
off with the normal recitation of their existence, but then they go on
pretty quickly to deal with the nitty-gritty because that's what really
affects us, that's where we have to function.

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IN OTHER NEWS:
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Sony tells Phelps to stop song. By Carl Manning, AP/KansasCity.com,
October 27, 2008.
http://www.kansascity.com/116/story/856873.html

The Rev. Fred Phelps' church, known nationwide for picketing funerals of
soldiers killed in combat, has been accused again of violating copyright
laws, this time with an Internet video parody of the song "Holding Out
for a Hero."

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Dr Michael Geist: Why Copyright? The Fight for Canada's Digital Future.
By Scott Harris, VUE Weekly, October 23, 2008.
http://www.vueweekly.com/article.php?id=9995

Late last year, rumours began to swirl that federal Minister of Industry
Jim Prentice was about to introduce legislation to make sweeping changes
to Canada's copyright laws. In response, University of Ottawa law
professor Michael Geist created a Facebook group to provide a forum for
discussion on the expected bill. The reaction was incredible. In less
than a week the group had grown to more than 10 000 members, and within
a month to 35 000. Fair Copyright for Canada chapters began appearing in
cities across Canada, many holding demonstrations at the offices of
their local MPs.

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Blog: EA Faces Copyright Infringement Suit. By John Manalang, G4TV,
October 22, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6dghwp

Third-party megapublisher Electronic Arts was sued for copyright
infringement involving the company's NCAA sports games series. The
publisher allegedly used an official University of Las Vegas team anthem
without composer Gerald Willis's permission. Willis, who works as a high
school music teacher, now demands $1.5 million USD from EA.

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Will record labels control digital-music lockers? By Greg Sandoval, CNET
News, October 22, 2008.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10072496-93.html

A fitting anthem for Michael Robertson these days would be The Rolling
Stones' hit, Get Off of My Cloud. For nearly a decade, Robertson, the
often controversial cofounder of MP3.com and Linspire, has toiled to
store music in the cloud, the term used to describe the seemingly
limitless amount of data and services accessible with a Web browser. But
in the past, Robertson's efforts have led him into epic legal battles
with the music industry. That's where he finds himself once again. In
November, EMI filed a copyright suit against him and his music service,
MP3tunes.com.

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Record Site Taken Down for Violating Own Copyright. By Chloe Albanesius,
PC Magazine, October 21, 2008.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333006,00.asp

A donation-based record label is back online Tuesday after its
Web-hosting company took the label's Web site offline for alleged
copyright violations. One problem, though. The label - Quote Unquote
Records - produces all of its own content, and was perplexed as to how
it could have infringed upon itself.

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EFF Gets Involved in Election Video Takedown Spat. By Chloe Albanesius,
PC Magazine, October 21, 2008.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332981,00.asp

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is going after several
television networks for issuing YouTube takedown notices on campaign
videos. EFF on Monday penned a letter to CBS, Fox, NBC Universal, and
the Christian Broadcasting Network, and asked that they stop issuing
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices on campaign
videos posted to YouTube.

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G 'N' R leak blogger denies breaking copyright laws. By MusicWeek,
October 21, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6ybbd3

The blogger who is alleged to have leaked part of upcoming Guns 'N'
Roses album Chinese Democracy has today pleaded not guilty to breaking
copyright laws.

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German Artists Defend Copyright in Google Era. By Trinity Hartman, DW
World, October 21, 2008.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3726906,00.html

Google might reign as the unchallenged king of German search engines,
but a lawsuit over the company's popular image search feature brings
into question the rights of German artists in the Internet age.

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Blog: The future of copyright: an 'undiscovered country'. By Richard
Koman, ZDNet, October 18, 2008.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4121

In a speech at Sandra Day O'Connor's Conference on the State of the
Judiciary, Alan Greenspan held forth on the importance of capitalism and
property rights in the context of the financial meltdown. While many
have argued that Greenspan himself bears substantial blame for the
meltdown because of his support of unregulated derivatives trading, I
was interested in a brief comment he made about intellectual property.

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Blog: Oz High Court Hears Landmark TV Guide Copyright Case. By kdawson,
Slashdot, October 18.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/10/18/2037216.shtml

"It's rare that that a copyright case is heard in the Australian High
Court, let alone a case heard by all seven sitting judges. At stake is a
small company IceTV (which we discussed when it launched four years
back) taking on Australia's largest television station, the Nine
Network, over the copyright status of the weekly broadcast schedule.

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News week in review: copyright, copyright, copyright edition. By John
Timmer, Ars Technica, October 18, 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/6pd3kz

The ease with which digital media can be copied and spread has
completely changed the game as far as copyright issues are concerned,
and it's rare that a week goes by without a story that focuses on who
has the right to distribute what. But this past week, tussles over
intellectual property erupted both domestically and overseas, and even
dragged in the US Presidential campaign.

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Blog: Angry Canadian poets target Access Copyright. P2pnet News, October
16, 2008.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/17329

Access Copyright revenues will top $30 million in 2008 with 75% going to
publishers, the largest receiving $4 million, states League of Canadian
Poets. But the average writer receives only $496, it says, going on: "In
a [sic] historic meeting September 12, 2008 writers and other artists
came from across Canada to voice their concerns with Access Copyright
(AC)."

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Blog: Digital Natives May Force Rethinking on Copyright, Privacy and
Broadband. By Drew Bennett, BroadbandCensus.com, October 16, 2008.
http://broadbandcensus.com/blog/?p=889

As a part of its burgeoning lecture and discussion series, "DC Talks",
Google's Washington office on Wednesday featured Berkman Center Director
and Harvard Law Professor John Palfrey and his new book, Born Digital:
Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives. Accompanying
Palfrey were Sarah Zhang and Diana Kimball, two Harvard students and
digital natives who served as both research assistants and research
subjects for the book.


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