In the News

["Amy Mata" <AMata@xxxxxxxx>]

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Google Book Settlement Has Librarians Worried.
By John Timmer, Ars Technica, May 5, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/cfqr8n

"The American Library Association and the Association of Research
Libraries have filed comments on the proposed settlement between Google
and book publishers, voicing concerns over pricing, access, and privacy,
and suggesting that the deal may require long-term monitoring."
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Pirate Bay Attorney Outlines Arguments for Appeal.
By Erik Palm, CNET News, May 8, 2009.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10236624-93.html

"The judge had a conflict of interest--that's one argument that will be
used in appealing the Pirate Bay verdict, an attorney of one of the
defendants told CNET News on Friday."
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Q&A: Gigi Sohn Says Give Remote DVR A Chance.
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, May 9, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/ob5vur

"The U.S. Supreme Court is awaiting advice from the solicitor general on
whether or not to hear content creators' - studios and programmers -
appeal of an earlier ruling that found Cablevision's plan to provide DVR
functionality in centralized servers does not violate copying and
performance restrictions in copyright law. The studios say that
fundamentally distorts copyright law. Cablevision, meanwhile, has yet to
roll out the service. Public Knowledge president Gigi Sohn wants the
last decision to stand, enabling Cablevision to roll out the "cool,
consumer-friendly technology" and reinforcing fair-use rights
established in the Sony Betamax case over video cassette recording. She
spoke with Multichannel News senior Washington editor John Eggerton
about the issue."
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The DMCA Hearings Bring out Outrageous Arguments against Fair Use and
Consumer Rights.
By Rashmi Rangnath, Public Knowledge, May 10, 2009.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/2156

"This past week the Copyright Office held public hearings in Washington
D.C. and Palo Alto, California, as part of its fourth section 1201 rule
making proceeding."
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Blog: Music Piracy Controversy Surrounds Charity Fund Raising.
TorrentFreak, May 10, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/pat66k

"In Italy artists and musicians have made a charity song to raise money
for victims of the recent earthquake and over in Spain, artists have
performed to raise funds for a seriously ill boy. Both events, thanks to
the involvement of music industry lobby groups, have been touched by
copyright controversy."
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Tech Advances Trample Over Copyright Paradigms.
By James Chen, La Voz Weekly Online, May 11, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/od7d3k

"Last week, Technophilia covered the artistic flowering seen in a
culture where ideas and concepts are seen less as individual property
and more a collective resource. But the issue isn't just about whether
letting ideas go free is good on artistic merit. Rather, it's a more
pressing issue: whether the very concept of copyright can even stand up
in the face of mounting technological change."
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Commentary: Is Google Too Big to Infringe?
By Robert Kunstadt, The National Law Journal, on Law.com, May 11, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/q68vds

"Technology lets Google scan books. It does it because now it can. But
authors and publishers sued -- and a class action settlement is now
pending in the Southern District of New York. The settlement would
authorize Google to scan copyrighted books and maintain an electronic
database of books. Google will be able to sell access to individual
books and subscriptions to the database, place advertisements on any
page dedicated to a book and make other commercial uses of books. Google
will pay the copyright owner 63 percent of revenue. The settlement
should be rejected."
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Print Books Are Target of Pirates on the Web.
By Motoko Rich, The New York Times, May 11, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/technology/internet/12digital.html?_r=
1&hpw

"Several publishers declined to comment on the issue, fearing the
attention might inspire more theft. For now, electronic piracy of books
does not seem as widespread as what hit the music world, when
file-sharing services like Napster threatened to take down the whole
industry. Publishers and authors say they can learn from their peers in
music, who alienated fans by using the courts aggressively to go after
college students and Napster before it converted to a legitimate online
store."
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Blog: BitTorrent: King of Copyright Infringements.
Posted by enigmax, TorrentFreak, May 12, 2009.
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-king-of-copyright-infringements-09051
2/

"While anti-piracy company MediaDefender only got involved in hindering
downloaders, BayTSP is the outfit that tracks file-sharers and sends
infringement notices to ISPs. Using cumulative data from its
entertainment industry clients, the company reveals which nation's
sharers get caught infringing the most."
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UK ISPs Refuse to Play Copyright Cops.
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, May 12, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/rch9pm

"The UK government is finalizing its approach to dealing with online
copyright infringement. Internet disconnections have been publicly taken
off the table, but UK creative industries are now lobbying hard for
disconnection as the report nears completion. ISPs argue that better
licensing and business models would do a better job of solving the
problem."
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No Settlement in RIAA v. Jammie Thomas.
Posted by David Kravets, Wired Blog Network, May 12, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/r8yjz7

"The Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday failed to
settle the infamous Jammie Thomas case, setting the stage for a retrial
of the nations only file sharing case to have gone before a jury."
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Unofficial Software Incurs Apple's Wrath.
By Jenna Wortham, The New York Times, May 12, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/ob8lpn

"Apple filed its brief in response to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation's request that the copyright office recognize an exemption to
the digital copyright act that would permit jailbreaking of iPhones and
other devices. The copyright office is expected to rule on the issue by
October."
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Argentina Copyright Case Brings Access to Education Into the Spotlight.
By Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, May 12, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/olayss

"An Argentinean philosophy professor is being sued for alleged copyright
infringement for posting translated versions of French philosopher
Jacques Derrida's works on a website, according to the Copy South
Research Group. The case is bringing international attention to the
limitations on access to education brought about by copyright."
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RealNetworks: MPAA is 'Price Fixing Cartel.'
By David Kravets, Wired Blog Network, May 14, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/rxnbwj

"RealNetworks is upping the ante in litigation seeking to prevent it
from distributing DVD-copying software. The company argues the Hollywood
studios are a "price-fixing cartel" that have no right to prevent
consumers from duplicating the movie discs. That said, RealNetworks has
gargantuan legal hurdles to clear before it can prevail on its claim,
which includes allegations the companies colluded against RealNetworks
to banish its DVD-copying software... For starters, RealNetworks'
argument that consumers have a "fair use" right to make copies of their
DVDs for personal use is a claim the federal courts have never embraced.
The reason is the 10-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which
clearly bans circumventing encryption technology designed to prevent
copying."
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Share a File, Lose Your Laptop?
Bill Snyder, PC World, May 14, 2009.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/164889/share_a_file_lose_your_laptop.html

"You're returning to the U.S. from a quick trip to Canada. A customs
official says he wants to examine your laptop. You boot it for him and
he finds (gasp!) a bootlegged copy of Allen Toussaint's new CD. "Sorry,
sir, we'll have to hold on to that." Just like that, your MacBook is the
property of the U.S. government and you're out $1,600. Or maybe it
becomes known that you've shared music or an old version of WordPerfect
online. Good-bye Internet account. That couldn't happen today. But
Hollywood and the software industry are in lather about piracy, so
they're pushing a draconian, international agreement that could make
those ugly scenarios an everyday occurrence."
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Where Does Obama Stand on Open Source?
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet.com, May 14, 2009.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4214
"This is a key moment for open source. In some ways it is going from
strength to strength. But it remains vulnerable to counter-attack from
the copyright industries. So far the President's record on open source
is mixed."
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Amy Mata
Graduate Assistant
Center for Intellectual Property
University of Maryland University College

amata@xxxxxxxx
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