In the News

["Amy Mata" <AMata@xxxxxxxx>]

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Obama admin: Mandated exemptions can strengthen copyright.
By Nate Anderson, Ars Technica, December 30, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/y8qwqa3

"The Obama administration has offered up a strange mix of copyright
policies in its first year (both ACTA and Creative Commons, for
instance), but it has at least made clear that "better copyright law"
does not always mean "more copyright protection."
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Blog: Record Label Stops Signing Artists Because of Piracy.
Posted on TorrentFreak, January 5, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/ybk3h7v

"The Finnish record label Lion Music has announced that it will not sign
any new musicians until politicians have managed to stop piracy. Illegal
downloading is killing music, they say, and the label has rallied up its
rock stars to spread the word."
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New Internet Piracy Law Comes into Effect in France.
By Hugh Schofield, BBC News, January 1, 2010.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8436745.stm

"The first effects of France's new law against internet piracy will
begin to be felt as the New Year begins."
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Digital Piracy Hits the e-book Industry.
By Matt Frisch, CNN, January 1, 2010.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/01/ebook.piracy/index.html

"When Dan Brown's blockbuster novel "The Lost Symbol" hit stores in
September, it may have offered a peek at the future of bookselling. On
Amazon.com, the book sold more digital copies for the Kindle e-reader in
its first few days than hardback editions. This was seen as something of
a paradigm shift in the publishing industry, but it also may have come
at a cost. Less than 24 hours after its release, pirated digital copies
of the novel were found on file-sharing sites such as Rapidshare and
BitTorrent. Within days, it had been downloaded for free more than
100,000 times."
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Tomorrow is National Book Burning Day; thank your Friendly Entertainment
Industry Lobbyists.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, December 31, 2009.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091231/1105257562.shtml

"January 1st of each year should be National Public Domain Day, when
many different creative works enter the public domain, where they can be
made useful. In years past, it was a regular occurrence as tons of
creative works went into the public domain each year. Often this was by
choice on the part of the copyright holder. That's because copyright
used to have a renewal requirement, and the vast majority of copyright
holders found little reason to renew their copyright."
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Netflix Envoy Pitches Online Films to Wary Studios
By Adam Satariano, Ari Levy and Ronald Grover, Bloomberg Press, December
29, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/yastc3n

"Netflix Inc. Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos bypassed Hollywood to
jump-start the company's online film-rental business last year. Now he
has to convince the studios the company is a friend and not a foe."
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Hackers Claim to Crack Kindle Copyright Armor.
By Leslie Katz, CNET News, December 23, 2009.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10421296-1.html

"A not-so-merry holiday gift for Amazon.com: hackers say they've
successfully cracked copyright protections on the company's Kindle
e-reader, making it possible to export e-books to other devices."
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Beyond ACTA: Proposed EU - Canada Trade Agreement Intellectual Property
Chapter Leaks.
By Michael Geist, Michael Geist's Blog, December 16, 2009.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4627/125/

"Canada's participation in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
negotiations has understandably generated enormous public concern as
leaked documents indicate that ACTA would have a dramatic impact on
Canadian copyright law.  The U.S. has proposed provisions that would
mandate a DMCA-style implementation for the WIPO Internet treaties and
encourage the adoption of a three-strikes and you're out system to cut
off access where there are repeated allegations of infringement."
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Amy Mata
Graduate Assistant
Center For Intellectual Property
University of Maryland University College
Rm. 2293, Largo, 3501 University Boulevard East
Adelphi, MD  20783
(240) 684-2967 office
(240) 684-2961 fax
amata@xxxxxxxx
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