In the News

["Amy Mata" <AMata@xxxxxxxx>]

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Parody, Copyright Law Clash in Online Clips.
By Benny Evangelista, The San Francisco Chronicle, July 23, 2010.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/BUQV1EHV9G.DTL

In a dramatic scene from the 2004 European film "Downfall," Adolf Hitler
flies into a tirade as the defeat of Nazi Germany looms. But on the Web, that
clip is best known as the foundation for thousands of funny, user-generated
parody videos that continue to sprout despite an effort by the studio that
produced the movie to block them over copyright issues.
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Is Flipboard Legal?
By Joel Johnson, Gizmodo, July 23, 2010.
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/07/is-flipboard-legal/

Social news app Flipboard was yesterdays hot new app, despite  or perhaps
because of  technical problems preventing some features from working. But
there might be a bigger snag: Is Flipboard scraping content it doesnt have
the rights to?
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Newspaper Chains New Business Plan: Copyright Suits.
By David Kravets, Wired, July 22, 2010.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyright-trolling-for-dollars/

Steve Gibson has a plan to save the media worlds financial crisis  and its
not the iPad. Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las
Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper
content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those
articles without permission. And he says hes making money.
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UK: Draft Filesharing Code Flawed, Says Open Rights Group.
By Charles Arthur, The Guardian, July 22, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/2652gsn

Ofcom's draft code to cut down on illicit filesharing is flawed and should be
torn up and redrafted, according to the Open Rights Group (ORG), an advocacy
organisation pushing for more freedom on the internet.
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Russia Gets Tough in Copyright Case.
United Press International, Inc., July 22, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/2aog3gb

The Moscow Arbitration Court awarded a publishing house $249.6 million in
damages in a copyright infringement case, an unprecedented sum, an attorney
said. The case could be viewed as a get-tough stance intended to signal to the
World Trade Organization that Russia was ready to pursue copyright
infractions.
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Google: FTC's proposals to help newspapers would hurt journalism.
By Josh Halliday, The Guardian, July 22, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/2ct9msc

The future of US online news could be stifled by proposals put forward by the
Federal Trade Commission to protect journalism, Google has warned.
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Bratz Dolls Breathe Again After Stunning Ninth Circuit Reversal.
By Ashby Jones, The Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/38yyb2o

Wowza. Its been a while since we heard anything on the Mattel/MGA front. But
the Ninth Circuit on Thursday handed down a stunning ruling, essentially
reversing much of the December 2008 ruling that gave Mattel the rights to much
of MGAs Bratz products.
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IP Czar Targets Overseas Pirate Sites.
By Greg Sandoval, CNET News, July 21, 2010.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20011210-261.html

U.S. President Barack Obama isn't the only government official who wants to
smack down copyright infringement and counterfeiting. During a hearing before
the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, some congressional
lawmakers on Wednesday said they want the U.S. government to retaliate against
countries that turn a blind eye to online piracy, as well as people who peddle
knockoffs of American products here and abroad.
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Why Did Michael Moore Take Someone Else's Story, Photos and Video and Post
Them on His Website?
By Joe Piazza, Fox News, July 21, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/3yq4swk

Filmmaker Michael Moore calls himself a staunch defender of the little guy,
except maybe when that little guy has some content he wants to use and he
doesn't want to pay for it.
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The Copyright Term Extension Act And Congress Authority To Extend Copyright
Terms.
By Shane Greenberg, Internet Business Law Services, July 21, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/3xayj2f

The Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), also known as the Sonny Bono Act,
was enacted by the United States Congress and entered into force on October,
1998 (Pub. L. 105-298). CTEA became part of and amended the United States
Copyright Act. CTEA extended protection of copyrights for the life of the
author plus 70 years. CTEA extension of the copyright terms was challenged in
legal proceedings under the argument that the Act was enacted under corporate
pressure from Walt Disney. The challenged went to the Supreme Court which
declared CTEA constitutional. Following there is a brief description of CTEA
and its historical challenge before the United States Supreme Court.
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Appeal of Veoh Ruling to be Heard Before Viacom-YouTube.
By Mark Hefflinger, Digital Media Wire, July 21, 2010.
http://tinyurl.com/2ud7cwz

Universal Music Group's (UMG) appeal to the Ninth Circuit of its loss in a
copyright infringement case against video-sharing site Veoh is likely to be
heard before Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) appeal to the Second Circuit of its similar
loss of a suit brought against Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube, according to The
Hollywood Reporter.
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