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This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That’s the way Big Copyright and their lackey’s want it, and it's bad news for you. Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again,...

This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That’s the way Big Copyright and their lackey’s want it, and it's bad news for you. Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license. Once again,...

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers. ~ snip ~ The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following: • Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would...

Unpaid use angers some publishers Not only is advertising moving from newspapers to the Internet, but newspaper stories increasingly are migrating as well. Whether they like it or not, newspaper publishers are seeing stories, or "content" as it is called in the Internet world, culled by outside parties for use on their Web sites and for their own profit. News aggregators, most notably Google Inc., put together summaries and lists of newspaper stories from around the world in a practice sometimes referred to as "scraping." Google and other aggregators pay publishers nothing. Meanwhile, The Associated Press, a news service cooperative...

Digital radio receivers without government-approved copy-prevention technology likely would become illegal to sell in the future, according to new federal legislation announced Thursday. Rep. Mike Ferguson, a New Jersey Republican, said his bill--which would enforce a so-called "broadcast flag" for digital and satellite audio receivers--was necessary to protect the music industry from the threat of piracy....

Molten metal and a black Workman's Ray Bowen - Blacksmith and Utilikiltarian - was interviewed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about his life as a kilted blacksmith, "Kilt gives blacksmith memorable edge". It is a cool Q&A article with a cool guy. Unfortunately, the AJC is not cool. I tried to get permission to reprint the article here for your reading pleasure, but the AJC wants 500 smackeroos for it!! After a fairly snotty email on Feb 7th, Joni Zeccola in the News Research department sent me another email that was more carefully worded: We do not allow use such as...

Internet giant Google Inc. infringed copyright rules by posting thumbnail-size photos from other websites on its search results pages, a US judge said in a ruling issued. US District Judge Howard Matz's ruling, handed down in Los Angeles, stems from a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the pornography firm Perfect 10 Inc., which accused Google of breaching on its copyrights. The type of search with which Perfect 10 took issue is Google's "Image Search" function, which returns a page with tiny images -- known as thumbnails -- that fit the searcher's query. The image search function also allows searchers to...

A federal judge has ruled that portions of Google's popular image search feature, which displays small thumbnail versions of images found on other Web sites, likely violate U.S. copyright law. U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz ruled Friday that Perfect 10, an adult-oriented Web site featuring "beautiful natural women" in the nude, has shown that Google image search probably infringes copyright law "by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs." The Los Angeles judge said he would award Perfect 10 a preliminary injunction against Google, and gave lawyers for both sides until March 8 to propose the injunction's wording....

Neuros Technology International CEO Joe Born in his open letter to congressmen James Sensenbrenner Jr. and John Conyers on HR 4569, the Digital Transition Content Security Act (aka: Analog Hole Legislation): …we believe the proposed bill will not only do nothing to protect against piracy, it will actually reduce legitimate media sales, unnecessarily harm consumers, and have a chilling effect on innovators of new media technologies…Today, we make a next generation digital VCR of sorts that would effectively be outlawed if HR 4569 becomes law….This device is meant to make it easier for consumers to adapt content they have already...

The far-reaching Intellectual Property Protection Act would deny consumers many of the freedoms they take for granted. ----- ----- ----- Do you like fast-forwarding through commercials on a television program youve recorded? How much do you like it? Enough to go to jail if you're caught doing it? If a new copyright and intellectual property omnibus bill sitting on Congresss desk passes, that may be the choice you'll face. How can this be possible? Because language that makes fast-forwarding through commercials illegal, no doubt inserted at the behest of lobbyists for the advertising industry, was inserted into a bill that...

Not long ago we updated you on the MPAA and RIAA's shenanigans to smuggle the Broadcast Flag through the United States Senate. Those who paid attention during "Schoolhouse Rock" will realize that's only half of the duo's burden. To make the Flag law, they must march it past the House of Representatives, too. Now the second shoe has dropped: 20 members of the House sent an open letter to Congressman Fred Upton, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet (part of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce), and its ranking member, Edward J. Markey. All 20...

Scholarly Publishers Protest Google's Online Library ProjectBy Michael Liedtke The Associated Press Published: May 23, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A group of academic publishers is challenging Google Inc.'s plan to scan millions of library books into its Internet search engine index, highlighting fears that the ambitious project will violate copyrights and stifle future sales. In letter scheduled to be delivered to Google Monday, the Association of American University Presses described the online search engine's library project as a troubling financial threat to its membership - 125 nonprofit publishers of academic journals and scholarly books. The plan "appears to involve...

A new bill that would imprison pre-release file pirates for up to three years is just a few procedural steps away from becoming law. The bill, known as the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, which includes the Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005 or the ART Act, was crafted to sentence distributors of prerelease copies of films, songs or other works for up to three years. The bill also would permit companies like ClearPlay to edit films for language and content. The bill, which is awaiting signature from President Bush, would assign the same penalties to...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Agence France Presse has sued Google Inc. (GOOG), alleging the Web search leader includes AFP's photos, news headlines and stories on its news site without permission. The French news service is seeking damages of at least $17.5 million and an order barring Google News from displaying AFP photographs, news headlines or story leads, according to the suit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

If John Adams and James Madison were alive today, they surely would marvel at how swiftly information can be exchanged via the Internet. But they also would be alarmed, I believe, to see ordinary citizens using this extraordinary technology in growing numbers to shoplift copyrighted intellectual property. The Founders possessed, after all, a keen understanding of the threat this type of theft poses to a free society. Property rights are not a novel concept. After some deliberation, our constitutional Framers signaled how important it was to protect intellectual property by instilling the concept in our nation's charter in Article 1,...

Last week, Google announced an ambitious new plan to start converting millions of books into digital files in partnership with several major libraries, including the New York Public Library and the libraries at Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. This is a logical step for Google, which says its mission "is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." The idea of making books available online is not new, but this plan represents an enormous shift in scale, so enormous that if it is carried out successfully, it may redefine the nature of the Internet and the university....

Do you like fast-forwarding through commercials on a television program you’ve recorded? How much do you like it? Enough to go to jail if you’re caught doing it? If a new copyright and intellectual property omnibus bill sitting on Congress’s desk passes, that may be the choice you'll face. How can this be possible? Because language that makes fast-forwarding through commercials illegal—no doubt inserted at the behest of lobbyists for the advertising industry—was inserted into a bill that would allow people to fast forward past objectionable sections of a recorded movie (and I bet you already thought that was OK)....

Today’s DUmmie FUnnies is a SPECIAL EDITION featuring the pissed off ringleader of all DUmmies---Skinner himself. I hope you excuse the brevity of this edition of the DUmmie FUnnies but I think we need to devote this whole special edition analyzing Skinner and his threats to the DUmmie Funnies. You can see Skinner’s angry post in yesterday’s DUmmie FUnnies HERE. Obviously the poor fellow is upset that he and his fellow DUmmies are being turned into laughingstocks by the DUmmie FUnnies. Also note his extreme fear of a DUmmie FUnnies book. So is this REALLY Skinner of the DUmmies? Judging...

In a closely watched case involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal court has ruled that a small North Carolina company can continue selling a chip that makes it possible to use refilled toner cartridges in Lexmark printers. ...

Could someone help me with a question about Fair Use? If you record (audio or video) excerpts from news shows, can they be inserted into weblog posts as reference? What I mean is, if I had a sentence such as: John Doe at CNN was interviewing Jane Q, and Jane said "xxx". Could I link xxx to an audio or video clip and replay it like that, without any copyright or intellectual property difficulties. I assume it's probably ok, but also wondered how much you could use, for instance could I record an entire interview and just make it available...

The recording industry is testing technology that would prevent consumers from making copies of CD "burns," a piracy defense that could put some significant new restrictions on legally purchased music. Tools under review by the major labels would limit the number of backups that could be made from ordinary compact discs and prevent copied, or "burned," versions from being used to create further copies, according to Macrovision and SunnComm International, rivals that are developing competing versions of the digital rights management (DRM) software. SunnComm said a version of its new "secure burning" technology is already being tested by BMG Music...

Congress has taken a step toward revising the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has attracted extensive criticism over the past six years. A House of Representatives subcommittee convened Wednesday for the first hearing devoted to a proposal to defang the DMCA, a 1998 law that broadly restricts bypassing copy-protection technologies used in DVDs, a few music CDs and some software programs. Called the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act, the amendments are backed by librarians, liberal consumer groups and some technology firms. But they're bitterly opposed by the entertainment industry, including Hollywood, major record labels and the Business Software Alliance. "It...

<p>Received another letter from Gannett Publications, publisher of USAToday, and several other newspapers. Due to contractual arrangements they have with third-party content providers, they have denied our request to allow posting of excerpts. They will only allow the posting of titles and links.</p>

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review. Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations. Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall....

In the wake of the RIAA campaign, and increasingly aggressive tactics to defend Intellectual property by other companies, Reuters news service announced that it will use Fast Search & Transfer's (FAST) software to enforce it's IP rights. No more fair use -- even with factual content? [my intro, read Sean's article at internews.com]

How the Current Congressional Database Protection Bill Would Go Beyond Current Law, and Why It is Unconstitutional and Misguided Recently, a bill seeking to establish special legal protection for databases was reported to the House floor for consideration. The bill, HR 3261, is called the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (DCIMA). If enacted into law, the DCIMA would create civil liability for anyone who, without authorization, makes available in commerce to others a substantial part of the information contained in another person's qualifying database. Qualifying databases must be "generated, gathered, or maintained through a substantial expenditure of...

Subject: Kerry/Fonda image February 23, 2004 VIA EMAIL AND U.S. MAIL Jim Robinson www.freerepublic.com P.O. Box 9771 Fresno, CA 93794 USA RE: www.freerepublic.com Matter ID: 14-0486/John Kerry/Jane Fonda Image Dear Jim Robinson: Corbis is one of the largest digital image licensing companies in the world. All of the images in Corbis’ collection are subject to federal and international copyright protection. Indeed, all of the works found on the www.corbis.com web site bear appropriate copyright notices. Furthermore, we have a responsibility to our photographers to protect their intellectual property and pursue any possible cases of improper use. It has recently come...

The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that reinstated Parks' false advertising and publicity claims against OutKast and three Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites) units -- LaFace Records, the record producer, and Arista Records and BMG Entertainment, the distributors. Parks made history in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest, which became a defining moment in the civil rights movement, led to a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks. It resulted in the end...

International treaty will force 34 democracies to change copyright, IP laws DVD backups forbidden, P2P file sharers to become felons A REPORT from civil liberties organisation IP Justice claims today that a proposed treaty that will affect the 34 democracies in the Western world will mean wide-ranging changes to domestic laws including intellectual property rights. The organisation said that a draft chapter in the FTTA treaty greatly expands criminal procedures and penalties against IP infringements in North America and the west. A clause of the treaty will mean that non commercial infringers of peer to peer files will be...

To some, ownership of intellectual property rights in cyberspace simply reflect corporate values that treat virtual space no differently than physical space, where private lots and businesses are protected by walls, fences and gates. This article was excerpted from the book, "Digital Dilemmas: Ethical Issues for Online Media Professionals." Robert I. Berkman Posted: 2003-10-01Christopher A. Shumway In addition to enabling users to efficiently trade music and movie files, the Internet also allows users to circulate news content, to which they may attach their own comments. By simply cutting and pasting an article from an online news service to a bulletin...

This article features pages of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. Most of us know that we should exercise proper judgment in quoting stories under the doctrine of fair use and copyright law. However, some media companies seek to control access to their content even further. Some companies contend that simply linking to their stories is illegal. A court in Denmark has actually ruled linking to be illegal. Most companies don't like you linking directly to media files such as pictures, or audio and video clips. In that, they might have a point where there is no attribution and you are simply...

Despite aggressive challenges by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to on-line music suppliers like the defunct Napster, two-thirds of Internet users in the US who copy digital music on-line say they don't care if the music is copyrighted, according to the report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The report, entitled "Music Downloading, File-sharing and Copyright," also found that 27 percent of users who download music files are concerned about copyright, while 6 percent said they don't know enough or don't have a position on the issue. The number of users who share files on-line and...

The Copyright Cage Bars can't have TVs bigger than 55 inches. Teddy bears can't include tape decks. Girl Scouts who sing "Puff, the Magic Dragon" owe royalties. Copyright law needs to change. By Jonathan Zittrain A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO I WAS TALKING WITH A LAW SCHOOL COLLEAGUE about cyberlaw and the people who study it. "I've always wondered," he said, "why all the cyberprofs hate copyright." I don't actually hate copyright, and yet I knew just what he meant. Almost all of us who study and write about the law of cyberspace agree that copyright law is a big...

Federal Court Sides with Bronx Church, Allows Use of School By Jim Brown June 18, 2003 (AgapePress) - A small evangelical church in New York has won a large First Amendment victory. For nine years, the Bronx Household of Faith was barred from meeting for worship services in a New York City public middle school. That all changed recently when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a New York City school board policy that barred religious instruction and worship from school buildings. Jack Roberts, pastor of the Bronx Household of Faith Church, credits the Lord for the...

NY Times-friendly GOGGLE link..... http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/26/technology/26XSUPE.html?ex=1054526400&en=b290ea28eaf7ab1f&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Has Copyright Law Met Its Match?   Access by the disabled provides challenge to controversial DMCA. Elsa Wenzel, Medill News Service Monday, May 19, 2003 Electronic books should be the easiest books for the blind to "read." Software can instantly translate the digital files into sound or Braille.So why can't the 10 million Americans who are blind "read" the latest Michael Crichton thriller or George Pelecanos mystery? A copyright law glitch, thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is the culprit. But fixing it could also be the key to changing the law's restrictions on using digital material. A battle...

CNN: NBC lifted fire footage Broadcasting & Cable2/24/2003 10:00:00 AM   Cable News Network Friday accused NBC of lifting its feed without permission when covering the devastating fire in Providence, R.I. NBC acknowledged using a few seconds of the CNN feed, but said it was done as a "fair use" under copyright doctrine.Footage from CBS and CNN Newsource affiliate WPRI-TV was actually shot inside the inferno from a cameraman shooting a story on nightclub safety.

Columbia Tape Shows Network Competition Email this Story Feb 17, 2:43 PM (ET) By DAVID BAUDER NEW YORK (AP) - During coverage of the space shuttle Columbia's disintegration, the folks in CNN's control room thought the picture they saw on rival Fox News Channel looked familiar. So they tried a little experiment. The producers superimposed a tiny "CNN" logo on the upper left corner of the network's screen as it showed the shuttle breaking into pieces. Blip! The same logo appeared on Fox News Channel. Then they decided to abruptly switch cameras so a picture of correspondent Miles O'Brien appeared....

After the copyright smackdown: What next?Don't despair at the Supreme Court's gift to Disney, says one expert. The fight has really only just begun. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress was within its constitutional bounds to extend the duration of all copyrights by 20 years -- up to 70 years beyond the life of the author and potentially infinitely -- many saw the ruling as a knockout blow to the movement to reform copyright. Some on the public interest side are tempted to lament what could be called the "Dred Scott case for culture," unjustifiably locking up...

WASHINGTON (Variety) - Handing the entertainment business an enormous win Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) upheld a 1998 law giving Hollywood nearly a century before having to release copyrighted pictures into the public domain and lose exclusive rights to sell coveted classics. In a 7-2 ruling worth billions to showbiz, the justices said Capitol Hill was perfectly within its rights when it extended the life of copyrighted works by two decades, from 75 to 95 years. Industryites say the ruling provides an important investment incentive, both for future projects and for hundreds of existing works. With...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld longstanding copyrights designed to protect the profits of songs, books and cartoon characters, a huge victory for Disney and other companies. The 7-2 ruling, while not unexpected, was a blow to Internet publishers and others who wanted to make old books available online and use the likenesses of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and other old creations without paying high royalties. Hundreds of thousands of books, movies and songs were close to being released into the public domain when Congress extended the copyright by 20 years in 1998. Justices said the copyright extension,...

European copyright protection is expiring on a collector's trove of 1950's jazz, opera and early rock 'n' roll albums, forcing major American record companies to consider deals with bootleg labels and demand new customs barriers. Already reeling from a stagnant economy and the illegal but widespread downloading of copyrighted music from the Internet, the recording companies will now face a perfectly legal influx of European recordings of popular works. Copyright protection lasts only 50 years in European Union countries, compared with 95 years in the United States, even if the recordings were originally made and released in America. So recordings...

<p>''From text to records to audio and video, the personal computer is the tool that lets users access information in all its forms."</p> <p>Britney Spears wants to teach you about copyright law.</p> <p>"Would you go into a CD store and steal a CD?" the pop star asks in a TV ad that started airing this month. "It's the same thing, people going into the computers and logging on and stealing our music. It's the exact same thing, so why do it?"</p>

The 'fair-use' forces in the copyright fight over digital rights have gotten some help from Capitol Hill. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley, has introduced a bill to make it easier to copy digital works. Lofgren said concerns about securing digital content from illegal copying have 'dramatically altered the balance of copyright law,' a reference to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The bill, labeled the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002, is advertised as a third voice -- that of the consumer -- in a debate between Hollywood and the technology companies, but it is a voice...

WASHINGTON - The battle being waged in Washington over copyright in the digital age ratchets up a notch this week as new legislation is introduced aimed at clarifying consumer rights. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, plans today to introduce the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act," Silicon Valley's response to a host of Hollywood-backed bills tilted in favor of copyright holders. Lofgren's bill would ensure consumers can copy CDs, DVDs and other digital works for personal use, just as they now do with TV shows and audio tapes. "This would not authorize someone taking their digital content and sharing it with...

From the issue dated August 2, 2002 Copyright as Cudgel By SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN Let's pretend that a journal has just published your harshly negative review of a book in your field. In this review, you quote short passages from the book, confident that the long-accepted concept of "fair use" enables you to make even unwelcome use of copyrighted material for purposes of criticism. But a week or so after the electronic version of the review appears on the publication's Web site, the editors inform you that it violates the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and that they are removing...

<p>PALO ALTO, California -- It's a sunny summer day and you pull your CDs from your home stereo, toss them in your bag and head out. In the car, you listen to your music, and when you reach the beach, you slip a CD into a portable boom box.</p>

By Grant Gross Posted: 07/18/2002 at 14:39 EST Advocates trying to speak for regular Internet users were basically told to sit down and shut up during a "public" workshop on digital rights management dominated by IT heavyweights and Big Hollywood at the U.S. Department of Commerce Wednesday. Members of NYLXS and NY for Fair Use mostly had to settle for interjecting comments from the back of the room and distributing a pamphlet called "We are the Stakeholders" and buttons saying "DRM is theft." The meeting's purpose was to discuss the progress of digital rights management -- the process by which...

An Apple dealer has 'confirmed' to the Campaign for Digital Rights (CDR) that attempting to play the latest Celine Dion CD in a new iMac will result in the machine having to be sent for repair. As we reported last month, Celine's latest offering - A New Day Has Come - features copy-protection to prevent it being played and duplicated in a PC, and that same copy-protection was believed to be capable of damaging the PC's firmware. It seems that this is definitely the case, as once the CD is inserted into a new iMac it cannot be removed and...