In the News

["Tamiru Degefe" <TDegefe@xxxxxxxx>]

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Opinion: Corporates and three strikes copyright law.
By Michael Wigley, Fairfax media, October 10, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/672cpjg

"Finally the truth outs. I've been rumbled by an online comment on a
talk I gave on the three strikes copyright law, reported in a
Computerworld article Lawyer explains how to bypass file sharing Act."

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EU Greens /EFA Position Paper on "Creation and Copyright."
By Mike Palmedo, Infojustice, October 9, 2011.
http://infojustice.org/archives/5753

"A new EU Greens/ European Free Alliance position paper starts from the
premise that copyright should guard against unauthorized commercial use,
but individuals should be able to copy and share works as long as the
author is cited."

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Pirate parties challenge US digital dominance.
By Tony Glover, The National, October 9, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/6jqtod2

"Political changes in Europe now represent a major threat to US
dominance of the digital entertainment industry."

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Music Copyright Police Ruin Artists' Gigs (and Coconut Curry).
By Allan Gregory, Torrent Freak, October 8, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/65e42k4

"This year alone more than 50 small restaurants, pubs and bars have been
sued by the U.S. royalty collectors agency BMI for playing (live) music
without a license."

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Stand and deliver: threat to force ISP disclosure.
By Lucy Battersby, Business Day, October 8, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3pjcerj

"Thousands of Australians who illegally downloaded a film about an Irish
unionist-turned-mobster face prosecution if a Queensland company
succeeds in persuading internet service providers (ISPs) to disclose
customer information."

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Court Says Men At Work Copied Song For Down Under.
By Brent Randall, Pop Blend, October 8, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3om6ozm

"Australian 80's rock band Men at Work have been denied appeal of a
ruling that found the flute riff from their hit "Down Under" was taken
from a campfire song. Aside from the chorus, the flute part is probably
the thing you remember about this song. So it's kind of a big deal if
they took that from somewhere else."

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Publisher Claims Ownership of Time-Zone Data.
By David Kravets, Wired, October 7, 2011.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/time-zone-data-lawsuit/

"The publisher of a database chronicling historical time-zone data is
claiming copyright ownership of those facts, and is suing two
researchers for re-purposing it in a free-to-use database relied on by
millions of computers."

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Some Good Court Rulings Against Copyright Trolls.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, October 7, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/6ydnduy

"The EFF has some news about more judges seeing through copyright trolls
misuse of the court system to try to shake people down for money. In the
first ruling they mention (embedded below), the judge doesn't just say
that the lumping together of so many distinct individuals was improper,
but also scolds the lawyers bringing the cases for clearly abusing the
system."

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Press release: U.K. Society Representing 50,000 Book Authors.
Market Watch, October 7, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3eonswr

"J.R. Salamanca, Author of "Orphaned" Book, Also Joins. Authors Seek to
Impound Unauthorized Digital Scans of 7 Million Copyright-Protected
Books, Pending Congressional Action."

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European Court Says Leagues Don't Hold Copyright On Sporting Events.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, October 6, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/66uvfgf

"Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about a case in which a woman from
the UK who owned a pub was in a legal fight with the UK Premier League
(football or soccer, depending on what you think the sport should be
called) concerning the use of a foreign satellite decoder. Basically,
the pub owner, Karen Murphy, felt that the rates charged by Sky Sports &
ESPN were crazy high."

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Court gives 'Kookaburra' victory over Men at Work.
By Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press, October 6, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/429rnz4

"Australian rockers Men at Work lost their final court bid on Friday to
prove they did not steal the distinctive flute riff of their 1980s hit
"Down Under" from another of the country's most famous songs, the
children's campfire staple "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree."

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DAR.fm Receives Cease & Desist For Letting People Record Radio Online.
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt, October 6, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/62yb88j

"Earlier this year, we wrote about Michael Robertson's latest project,
DAR.fm, noting that he was tempting copyright lawsuit fate again. DAR.fm
is basically an online DVR for radio. It lets you record and listen to
all sorts of online radio programming. As we noted at the time, it
seemed inevitable that someone would challenge the legality of this..."

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France acts against net pirates.
News Technology, October 6, 2011.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15198093

"Sixty French net users could have their connection turned off for a
month after ignoring letters telling them to stop infringing copyright."

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Supreme Court hears foreign art copyright dispute.
The Associated Press, October 5, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3ldk44m

"The Supreme Court has heard arguments over a law that extended
copyright protection to millions of works by foreign artists and authors
that had been in the public domain -- meaning they could be performed
and used in other ways without paying royalties."

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Courts Call Out Copyright Trolls' Coercive Business Model.
By Julie Samuels, Electronic Frontier Foundation, October 5, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3or3aqq

"A Virginia district court is the latest to call out a copyright troll
for using a business model designed to be little more than a shakedown
operation to extract quick and easy settlements from hundreds of
thousands of John Doe defendants. Judge Gibney says it far better than
we could:"

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Major Copyright Case Against UCLA Dismissed.
By Michael Kelley, Library Journal, Oct 4, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3jt54rx

"A federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed on Monday a closely watched
copyright case against the University of California Los Angeles, ruling
that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and that sovereign immunity
as well as the university's explicit licensing agreement afforded the
defendants protection from charges of copyright infringement."

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How Small Tech Companies Can Protect Big Ideas.
By John Brandon, Popular Mechanics, October 3, 2011.
http://tinyurl.com/3edv43j

"When the tech giants of the world roll out features that are remarkably
like those dreamed up by smaller firms, we get to wondering: How much of
a good idea can a tech company protect? We talked to patent,
intellectual property, and computing experts to find out."

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Tamiru Degefe
Center for Intellectual Property.