Posts Tagged ‘copyright’

Your life will some day end; ACTA will live on

// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) isn’t just another secret treaty—it’s a way of life. If ACTA passes in anything like its current form, it will create an entirely new international secretariat to administer and extend the agreement. Knowledge Ecology International got its hands on more of the leaked ACTA text this week , including a chapter on “Institutional Arrangements” that has not leaked before. The chapter makes clear that ACTA will be far more than a standard trade agreement; it appears to be nothing less than an attempt to make a new international institution that will handle some of the duties of groups like the WTO and WIPO. Read the comments on this post

Google reportedly to part ways with China on April 10

// March 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

April 10: General Robert E. Lee’s last address to Confederate troops, the Titanic’s departure from Southampton, England, my friend Jake’s birthday, and now, Google’s rumored pull-out date in China. The company is preparing to announce its decision as soon as March 22, according to an anonymous source speaking to the China Business News, though it likely won’t be the end of the company’s operations in the region. The newspaper’s source, quoted by Bloomberg , said that Google’s Chinese staff will find out what their options are on March 22 as well. Previously, Google had told them that they could either move to the US to work at Google’s headquarters or that they could work for Google’s Asia-Pacific business. Chinese officials have been warning Google’s partners to continue censoring search results in the event that the company decides to either open the floodgates on taboo topics or pull out altogether. Though some believe Google has already begun to let some results leak through, it seems as if the official decision has not yet been made. Google will continue its Asia-Pacific operations, even if Google.cn ends up going away. Read the comments on this post

Viacom: "Fair use works for us," unlikely to sue bloggers

// March 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Viacom is unlikely to sue bloggers for posting their own clips of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report , contrary to reports floating around on the Internet. The company clarified its position to Ars on Thursday, noting that it tries to be as permissive as possible when it comes to fair use and that individual bloggers have never been on the studio’s radar. The confusion began when the Hollywood Reporter ran a story on Wednesday titled “Viacom will sue bloggers who post unauthorized ‘Daily Show’ clips,” quoting Viacom spokesperson Tony Fox. “Yes, we intend to do so,” Fox was quoted saying. “My feeling is if (websites) are making money on our copyrighted content, then that is a problem.” We reached out to Viacom’s VP of PR Jeremy Zweig to confirm whether this position was true. After all, as numerous parties have pointed out, both  The Daily Show and The Colbert Report make liberal use of clips from other networks that undoubtedly fall under fair use, and it seemed as if Viacom was willing to go after the little guy in order to ensure that no one got a single penny of revenue except for Viacom. This, however, was not the case. Read the comments on this post

Microsoft Pink phone reportedly exists, coming to Verizon

// March 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Pink, the long rumored Microsoft-branded (but not Microsoft-manufactured) phone(s) that features premium mobile services ( think Zune ) and has also been referred to as Zune phone, is all but officially confirmed now, thanks to leaked third-party marketing materials obtained by Gizmodo . Microsoft did not announce anything regarding the device when it showed off Windows Phone 7 Series , but these documents lay out a promotional plan for Pink in detail, and while they don’t talk about specs or software details, they do shed some light on the upcoming mobile phone. Just as rumored  in September 2009 , Pink will arrive on Verizon. Furthermore, Verizon is a launch partner for Pink (a joint Microsoft/Verizon launch is possible), and while exclusivity is likely, another carrier isn’t completely out of the question. Previous rumors talked about a codenamed Turtle and a codenamed Pure, but only the former is mentioned in the documents. Turtle (pictured above), is reportedly “squircle” in shape, and includes a microphone at the bottom of its slide-out keyboard, which is meant to be open when being used as a phone. Last but not least, social networking will play a big part on the phone, just as with Windows Phone 7 Series. Remember the analyst who said earlier this year that a Zune Phone was coming soon ? She predicted it would arrive this month, would have 720p HD video capabilities, at least a 5MP camera, and that it would run Windows Mobile 7.0. She also claimed that the next version of Microsoft’s mobile OS would include premium mobile services, including a Zune video store and music subscription and purchasing services, an interface similar to the Zune HD UI, and could include social networking apps like Xbox Live, Facebook, and Twitter. She got the details about Windows Mobile 7.0 pretty darn close, so now let’s see if she gets the Pink parts correct. Gizmodo, however, says that it doesn’t look like it has Windows Mobile 7.0 on it for two reasons: the interface looks different and Turtle doesn’t look like it has the minimum hardware requirements to be part of the Windows Phone 7 Series. We’re not so quick to rule out Windows Mobile 7.0 as Pink’s mobile OS. Firstly, we’ve heard before that Pink would be built on top of Windows Mobile 7.0. Secondly, we still don’t know the specs for the third chassis , so it’s entirely possible that Turtle has those requirements and can still be under the Windows Phone 7 Series branding. It would be a huge shame—not to mention very stupid—if Microsoft decided its own phone wasn’t a Windows Phone 7 device. Read the comments on this post

Charles Nesson, scourge of the labels, now must pay them

// March 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Joel Tenenbaum, the second P2P defendant to take his case to trial in the US, may never pay the $675,000 judgment currently filed against him—but someone on his legal team will soon be paying something . Judge Nancy Gertner has ruled that both Tenenbaum and his lawyer, Harvard Law’s Charles Nesson, are “jointly and severally liable” for some fees incurred by the RIAA during the trial. The ruling comes after the defense team inexplicably posted the very songs at issue in the case to the Internet, and Nesson posted a public link on his blog for anyone to download them. This behavior prompted a discovery request from the record labels, which wanted to know more about why the defense was now doing the very thing it had been accused of doing in the lawsuit. Nesson didn’t want to tell them. The labels then filed a “motion to compel” the information.The judge sums it all up: [Nesson's] terse response to plaintiffs’ motion to compel merely stated that, in his personal opinion, the plaintiffs’ requests were not relevant to this litigation. As indicated in this Court’s June 16, 2009, order, plaintiffs’ request for information relating to the defense’s unauthorized distribution of the very copyrighted works on which plaintiffs’ claims were based was clearly relevant to such issues as the willfulness of the defendant’s conduct and the amount of damages to be awarded by the jury. Lawyers who win a “motion to compel” are entitled to have their costs for that particular motion reimbursed; it’s a way to keep opposing lawyers from dragging their feet on discovery requests with no good reason. The labels have asked that these fees be paid by the defense, and Gertner on Tuesday agreed. On June 18, 2009, the judge made clear her displeasure with Nesson’s behavior in the case, so this week’s ruling isn’t a surprise. The Court’s indulgence is at an end. Too often, as described below, the important issues in this case have been overshadowed by the tactics of defense counsel: taping opposing counsel without permission (and in violation of the law), posting recordings of court communications and e-mails with potential experts (who have rejected the positions counsel asserts) on the Internet, and now allegedly replicating the acts that are the subject of this lawsuit, namely uploading the copyrighted songs that the Defendant is accused of file-sharing. It also didn’t help that Nesson filed no response to the record label motion against him. The labels have until March 8 to file with the court “an affidavit containing an itemized statement of the expenses they incurred in filing the motion to compel.” Nesson, who took on the Tenenbaum case pro bono , may now being paying out of his own pocket for the privilege of defending Tenenbaum. Read the comments on this post

Beaten and bloodied, Real agrees to settle RealDVD fight

// March 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

The RealDVD soap opera is finally over: RealNetworks has settled its litigation with the movie industry and has agreed to pay out $4.5 million to cover their costs related to the lawsuit. It has been a long and painful fight for the company, and RealNetworks has decided to move on rather than continue dragging it out. Real announced the settlement late Wednesday, noting that it plans to withdraw its appeal to a recent injunction imposed by the courts prohibiting the sale of RealDVD. Additionally, Real plans to suspend its metadata service that provides cover art and other movie info to the existing 2,700 RealDVD users (who we presume to have been beta testers, since RealDVD never got to hit the market). The company has agreed not to sell or distribute any technology that would enable duplication of content protected by Content Scramble System, ARccOS, or RipGuard. Read the comments on this post

Google throws down gauntlet: no more book settlement changes

// February 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Yesterday, the parties involved in the Google book settlement made a series of filings, all of which requested that the Amended Settlement Agreement be ratified in its current form. The last time around, when faced with objections from groups ranging from the US Department of Justice to authors, the parties withdrew their initial settlement in order to make the changes that produced the ASA. Now, faced with many of the same objections from the same exact groups, Google and the plaintiffs have decided they’ve gone as far as they intend to, and will fight for the approval of the ASA. The plaintiffs’ filings largely argue that the ASA meets the needs of the class they represent. As such, their filings focus on the fact that rightsholders will be receiving reasonable payments from Google, and will retain a significant degree of control over the display and sale of the works. In general, these arguments duck the larger legal issues identified by the DoJ and other groups.

Missing funny bone leads to DMCA for Awkward Stock Photos

// February 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

One of the most recent Internet meme trends has been to launch a site of ridiculous, funny, or awkward photos of things and people that are otherwise found in everyday life. You’re probably familiar with some of them: People of Walmart , LATFH , Awkward Family Photos , Regretsy , and so on. Usually these sites become so virally popular that they end up getting book deals, but that’s not the case for one such site. Awkward Stock Photos , a site that featured some of the more questionable pictures found in stock photo databases, received a DMCA notice for the contents of its entire site, despite the fact that it removed no watermarks, linked back to the original stock photo page, and made no money off the venture. Awkward Stock Photos (ASP) was originally born on Facebook as a give-and-take between Mark Hauge and his friends, who encouraged him to start a blog. Once he finally bit the bullet and signed up with Tumblr, ASP became an immediate hit, and Hauge started receiving hundreds of submissions from readers. An Ars reader and graphic designer himself, Hauge was familiar with how finicky some companies can be, so he made sure to try and cover his bases. Or so he thought: “I made sure to only use watermarked photos that I downloaded and re-uploaded to Tumblr (so I wasn’t hotlinking) and then linked them back to their original source,” he told Ars.

Will your big-screen Super Bowl party violate copyright law?

// January 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

An offhand comment the other day by a friend caught my attention—”Did you know that you can’t watch the Super Bowl on a TV screen larger than 55 inches? Yeah, it’s right there in the law.” With the Colts and Saints set to do battle in Super Bowl XLIV, this seemed worth looking into as a public service. Could it be that some of those giant flat panel TV sets now finding their way into US living rooms are actually violating copyright law?

Student-developed games show bright future for industry

// January 31st, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

One of the more interesting aspects of the annual Game Developers Conference is the Independent Games Festival, a showcase for some of the best and brightest people and ideas in the industry. Hidden among the next big indie games is the Student Showcase. Here, 10 student-developed games compete for the top prize and $2,500, and past Showcase winners have gone on to create games like Portal , Flower , and de Blob . This year featured a record 190 entries, and the chosen 10 showcase a bright future for the video game industry. Let’s take a look at what students are bringing to the world of gaming; the breadth of ideas is impressive.

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