In the News

["Amy Mata" <AMata@xxxxxxxx>]

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Copyright Law Could Get Ugly if ACTA is Adopted as is.
By Lora Bentley, IT Business Edge, May 17, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/37aeu53

"Lora Bentley spoke to Jim Burger, an intellectual property attorney in
the Washington, D.C., offices of Dow Lohnes, about the proposed Anti
Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the impact it would have on the tech
industry."
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Studios Score Another TKO Against Pirate Bay.
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News, May 17, 2010.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20005091-261.html

"The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent search engine that Hollywood has tried in
vain to shut down for years, was offline Monday morning. The blackout
was presumably the result of an injunction won recently by the film
studios that ordered The Pirate Bay's bandwidth provider to stop
servicing the site. This is only the latest chapter in the cat-and-mouse
game between Hollywood's big studios and the site's operators."
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Copyright: Time to change the laws?
By Stephen Evans, BBC, May 17, 2010.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10118823.stm

"The issue of copyright has to strike a delicate balance between
protecting the creators of music, words or photographs and the
dissemination of such material to a wider public."
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Princeton Demands Website Remove Elena Kagan's Thesis; Claiming
Copyright Infringement.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, May 17, 2010.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100517/0000079435.shtml

"Obviously, there's been lots of talk about Supreme Court nominee Elena
Kagan in numerous areas. There have been various reports concerning
Kagan's supposed views on copyright, but those seem pretty blown out of
proportion from what I've seen and in talking to folks who know Kagan."
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Owning a Name.
By Colleen DeBaise, The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/3a9ba5o

"I'm a professional artist, and recently saw that an artist in Austin is
using the same business name as I do, with just one letter different. I
can't remember if I have a copyright. How do I find out, or better yet,
how do I protect at this point?"
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Australia: Gyms Rocked by Tribunal Ruling on Music Fee.
By Bellinda Kontominas, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 17, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/2563hep

"Gym members could face higher fees for working out to original music
after a court ruled that musicians have not been paid enough for the
copyright of their songs."
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Superman Attorney Lawsuit: Smear campaign or savvy strategy?
By Matthew Belloni, The Hollywood Reporter, May 16, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/34zngkk

"The emails kept coming all day Friday: "What's going on at Warner
Bros?" asked a copyright lawyer."Man, you think Warners hates Toberoff?"
joked another. "So, you win a case against a studio these days and
they'll sue you personally?"
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German Man Fined for Poor WiFi Security.
By Iain Thompson, V3.co.uk, May 15, 2010.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2263084/german-man-fined-poor-wi

"A court in Germany has ruled that internet users are responsible for
the security of their connections after an unusual case in which a
musician took a home owner to court because his Wi-Fi signal was used to
illegally download music."
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Filming Transformers 3 Being Filmed Violates Copyright, Studio Claims.
By Kevin Poulsen, Wired News, May 14, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/23vzac4

"Brown says he posted the video to YouTube, where it was soon
accumulating 1,000 views an hour after being spotted by entertainment
sites. Unfortunately, it was also apparently spotted by Paramount
Pictures, the production company behind Transformers. Brown says
Paramount promptly issued a take down notice to the Google-owned
YouTube, which unceremoniously yanked the video and warned Brown that
repeated copyright violations would get him banned."
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Ruling Could Have Chilling Effect on P2P Services.
By Ben Sheffner and Antony Bruno, Reuters, May 14, 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64E09C20100515

"New York-based LimeWire claims to be "the world's most popular
peer-to-peer file sharing program," and, if the major labels succeed in
obtaining an injunction to disable the service, millions of users will
see their spigot of free songs suddenly shut off."
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Warner Bros. Alleges 'Scheme' in Suit Against Copyright Litigator Marc
Toberoff.
By Claudia Eller, Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/253j8jo
"Warner Bros., in an action aimed at undermining one of its key legal
foes, sued litigator Marc Toberoff in Los Angeles federal court on
Friday, alleging the attorney engaged in a "scheme" to "enrich himself"
by wrongfully seeking ownership rights to the studio's Superman
franchise."
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Clinton-Era Digital Copyright Law Needs Overhaul, Argues Rights Group.
By Sarah Lai Stirland, Broadband Breakfast, May 13, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/27beoxm

"A 12-year-record of abuses and misuses of a law designed to prevent
digital piracy shows definitively that it isn't working as intended,
said a digital rights group in a new report released Thursday."
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Pirate Bay Appeal Judges Cleared of Bias.
By David Kravet, Wired News, May 12, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/256hzyv

"Sweden's Supreme Court said Wednesday that two of the three judges set
to preside over The Pirate Bay's copyright conviction appeal are not
biased, despite their membership in pro-copyright groups."
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Big Record Labels Win LimeWire Copyright Case.
By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters, May 12, 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B63H20100512?type=domesticNews

"In a ruling made public on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood
agreed with the record companies that LimeWire's parent Lime Wire LLC
and its founder Mark Gorton were liable for infringement and engaging in
unfair competition."
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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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