In the News

["Amy Mata" <AMata@xxxxxxxx>]

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Team Tenenbaum to Fight on for Those "RIAA has screwed over."
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, August 9, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/kwtltq

Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson can only shake his head over the outcome
of the Joel Tenenbaum trial, a case in which his young client was hit with a
$675,000 damage award for uploading and downloading 30 songs. "How can a jury
of common sense people be brought to a conclusion that is clearly divorced
from its common sense base?" he wants to know.

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Why is the FCC Even Giving the Time of Day to RIAA's Bogus Radio Witchhunt?
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 11, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0152565837.shtml

Earlier this year, MusicFirst, a lobbying group that is run by the RIAA and
pushing for a special tax on radio stations for daring to promote songs, came
out with its latest in a long list of bizarre claims, demanding that the FCC
investigate the fact that radio stations were supposedly boycotting musicians
who supported the Performance Royalty tax.

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Copyright Length and the Life of Mickey Mouse.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 11, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090811/0123105835.shtml

Last week, we reported on Rep. Zoe Lofgren's statement that copyright law has
become equal to the life of Mickey Mouse. Tom Bell has a couple of recent
posts exploring issues related to Mickey Mouse and copyright, that seem worth
exploring, given Rep. Lofgren's recognition of this fact.

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New Study States the Obvious: Kids Download a Lot of Music.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 11, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090810/1801565830.shtml

Over the past few months, there's been a push among some to suggest that file
sharing is really a marginalized behavior, only done by a small group of
people -- and that with just a little education (and maybe a few big legal
victories, such as the ones against Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum --
combined with new services like Spotify), perhaps it can be brought "under
control." The "evidence" given for this has often been a case study in how to
use statistics to delude yourself, often looking at the total percentage of
people or internet users who engage in file sharing. But, the fact is that
ignores the real issue: which is that kids today (tomorrow's consumers) are
file sharing at a very high rate.

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Ending Music Piracy: The best plan hasn't even been tried.
By John Timmer, Ars Technica, August 11, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/nwjjo8

A new study out from the University of Hertforshire discovers the obvious:
kids know that piracy is illegal, but they do it anyway. Only one music
service can make them go legit: something that provides unlimited, permanent
downloads, not just online streams. So why are such services so slow to get
off the ground?

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As Expected, Judge Still Bans Real From Selling RealDVD.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 12, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090812/0138215853.shtml

This will come as absolutely no surprise to folks who have followed
Hollywood's self-defeating battle against Real Network's RealDVD offering. If
you don't recall, Real announced a product that would let users backup a DVD
in their possession. Now, it's important to understand a few basic facts:
under copyright law, you are allowed to make a personal backup of something
like a CD or software. That's been found to be perfectly legal fair use. So
what's the problem? Well, one of the worst aspects of the DMCA is that it
includes a totally unnecessary (and questionably constitutional)
anti-circumvention clause.

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What the Associated Press Tracking Beacon is  and what it isnt.
By Zachary M. Seward, Nieman Journalism Lab, August 13, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/ko3jah

When The Associated Press said last month that it was building a news
registry of AP content, most reaction focused on the so-called tracking
beacon that will monitor usage across the web. I use quotation marks because,
well, those are metaphors for technology thats still in development: The AP
document weve obtained says the registry, set to launch on Nov. 15, will
require capabilities not currently available.

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You Buy a Book But Dont Own it?
By Brian Bethune, Macleans.co, August 13, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/l94b7f

Paper books are not, theoretically at least, as control-free as owners
imagine. The copyright page in most includes the publishers stern
admonitionor rather, fond hopethat no part may be reproduced in any form
without written permission. As one defender of Amazon noted, try to post
online pages from your copy of Harry Potter and see how quickly the lawyers
come calling. But thats akin to saying that because you cant use your
baseball bat to quiet your neighbours yowling cat, you dont truly own the
bat. (No, both your bat and your copy of The Deathly Hallows remains yours to
pass on as you will.)

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P2P Not to Blame for Content Industry Failures Says EU.
By Sarah Perez, Read Write Web, August 13, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/pp9hf2

A new study commissioned by the European Union has finally proven what many
have suspected all along: internet users don't want to pay for content.
Period. And nothing is going to change their minds. The report finds, in a
surprising contradiction to what industry executives have been spouting for
ages, consumers' behavior has nothing to do with the peer-to-peer technology
(P2P) that has given rise to all-you-can-eat systems for free downloads of
copyrighted content.

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Copyright Laws Tug at Superman's Cape.
By Steven Kirk, Examiner, August 14, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/r28jhq

Bound by lengths and lengths of legal chain, the Man of Steel finds himself
between the family of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and the deep-pockets of
Warner Bros. and DC Comics. But unlike the mythical Sampson, Superman won't be
pulling down these pillars any time soon.  But they sure might do a number on
him.

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Hollywood's War with Redbox Expanding to Netflix as Well?
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 14, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090814/0506145885.shtml

Hollywood really never learns, does it? Following 20th Century Fox's decision
to try to stop Redbox from getting movies to rent via its kiosks (to which
Redbox has responded by suing Fox), Warner Bros. has joined in as well, but
isn't just trying to stop Redbox, but Netflix, too.

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University Offers New Grade for Cheating Students: FD
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 14, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090813/1456565867.shtml

There's certainly a lot of concern at universities these days about how some
students may be using modern technology to cheat in some manner or another,
but does that ability to cheat require a change to the grading system?

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Movie Monsters, the Grateful Dead... and Fair Use Even in Commercial Use.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 14, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090810/1913245833.shtml

There's some good news on the fair use front. Many people seem to falsely
believe that if a work is used for commercial purposes it cannot be fair use.
They think fair use only applies to non-commercial efforts. But that's not
true. Commercial use is factored into the analysis, but just because it's
commercial does not mean that it's not fair use.

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Sony Recognizes that Openness is a Competitive Advantage.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, August 14, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090813/1848065875.shtml

It may have taken the (very) long way to get there, but it looks like at
least some folks over at Sony have figured out that openness can be a
competitive advantage, and have decided to support the open ePub ebook format
for its ebook reader.

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U.K. gets its own Pirate Party.
By Tom Espiner, August 14, 2009.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10309960-93.html?tag=mncol

The Pirate Party UK, which is dedicated to technology and copyright-law
reform, has become an official political party. The party was registered by
the Electoral Commission this week, the party's leader Andrew Robinson told
ZDNet UK.

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US Govt Says $1.92M P2P Damage Award Totally Fair.
By Nate Andersen, Ars Technica, August 16, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/l8ghod

The Department of Justice has stepped into the case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset,
the first file-sharing defendant whose trial ended with a $1.92 million
judgment against her. According to the DOJ, those damages are exactly what
Congress intended.

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Amy Mata
Graduate Assistant
Center for Intellectual Property
University of Maryland University College

amata@xxxxxxxx
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