Free for a Fee

July, 11, 2011

American Internet users, get ready for three strikes “six strikes.” Major US Internet providers—including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable—have just signed on to a voluntary agreement with the movie and music businesses to crack down on online copyright infringers. But they will protect subscriber privacy and they won’t filter or monitor their own networks for infringement. And after the sixth “strike,” you won’t necessarily be “out.”

Much of the scheme mirrors what ISPs do now. Copyright holders will scan the ‘Net for infringement, grabbing suspect IP addresses from peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. If they see your IP address participating in a swarm for, say, Transformers, they will look up that IP address to see which ISP controls it, then fire off a message.

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July 7, 2011

The White House likes the newly announced “six strikes” voluntary agreement announced today between major copyright holders and Internet access providers. That’s no surprise—the US administration helped to broker the deal.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/white-house-we-win-the-future-by-making-isps-into-copyright-enforcers/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The Recording Industry Association of America has appealed a judge’s decision to slash the damages award levied against Jammie Thomas-Rasset for copyright infringement from $1.5 million to $54,000 one month ago. The reduction in the amount of the award spurred the RIAA to question whether certain terms in the Copyright Act were misinterpreted and need further examination—specifically, the word “distribution.”

coverage on reduction

Thomas-Rasset and the RIAA have been fighting the same copyright battle since 2007 over 24 songs she shared over the KaZaA P2P network. At first Thomas-Rasset was ordered by a jury to pay $1.92 million, or $222,000 per song. A second trial ended up with a $1.5 million verdict, which federal judge Michael Davis then slashed to $54,000 total one month ago, saying the higher amount was unconstitutional.

Now the RIAA is appealing the case in the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, saying that the court’s failure to classify Thomas-Rasset’s actions as a “distribution” under 106(3) of the Copyright Act wouldn’t deter her (and others, presumably) from repeating her actions and violating the Copyright Act again. The RIAA is hoping to vacate the jury’s verdict based on the interpretation of “distribution,” which would result in a third trial.

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By Eric Goldman

August 11, 2011

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/08/catching_up_on.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Eric Goldman

Capitol Records, Inc. v. MP3Tunes, LLC, 2011 WL 3667335 (SDNY Aug. 22, 2011).

Background. This case involves MP3Tunes.com and Sideload.com. MP3Tunes is a music storage locker. Small lockers are free, but more storage is available at a price. The system doesn’t store redundant copies; if the system recognizes an identical bit stream coming from a second user, it just records the hashtag. Sideload is a music search engine that lets users find free music on the Internet. (It was also a browser plug-in). If users find a music file they like, they can “sideload” the music file into their MP3Tunes’ locker as a personal archive copy. MP3Tunes’ database tracks the sources of these personally archived files.

Reminder: in case you missed it, I recently caught up on 4 months worth of online copyright rulings, including several addressing the same or similar issues as this case.

Other comments on this ruling: Techdirt, EFF, CNET News.com

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2011/08/mixed_ruling_in.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Steele Hansmeier, the antipiracy law firm that has been routinely hammered by judges in Illinois, is now getting hammered by judges in California. The firm has tried desperately to head off all the common objections to its mass file-sharing lawsuits over online porn, and has even taken to geolocating IP addresses before filing a lawsuit; its Hard Drive Productions case in California only went after 188 IP addresses that appeared to be located in the state. But the firm still had its entire case severed down to a single defendant last week.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/08/bittorrent-users-dont-act-in-concert-so-judge-slashes-mass-p2p-case/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

[Post by Venkat Balasubramani]

Levi Strauss & Co v. Papikian Enterprises, C 10-05051 JSW (N.D. Cal.; Aug. 24, 2011) [pdf]

Facts: Levi Strauss owns trademarks for “Levi’s,” “501” and other terms. It sells its products directly and to authorized retailers but does not sell through “distributors, wholesalers or jobbers.” Retailers are contractually restricted from reselling “first quality merchandise.” Papikian registered several domain names (501USA.com, 550jeans.com, 517jeans.com) through which he offered Levi Strauss products for sale. Levi Strauss grumbled about his use of various Levi Strauss trademarks and how Papikian sold goods to EU residents. The parties engaged in settlement discussions which were not fruitful, and ultimately Levi Strauss brought suit, alleging trademark and cybersquatting claims. Levi Strauss alleged that in response to some of Levi Strauss’s complaints, Papikian made some changes to his website, but at some point along the way, these changes reverted, and Papikian’s website “looked more professional, offered [Levi Strauss] products exclusively, and make more extensive use of [Levi Strauss] trademarks.”

Papikian brought a motion for summary judgment, which the court denies.

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Timothy B. Lee – May 31 2012

The coalition of authors suing to stop Google Book Search scored a key victory on Thursday as the judge overseeing the case ruled that three individual authors and the Author’s Guild could represent the class of all authors whose works had been scanned by Google. Google had sought the opposite result, arguing that including all authors in a single lawsuit would make the case too complex, and that most authors actually supported the scanning project.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/google-dealt-blow-in-book-scanning-lawsuit/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Oracle v. Google

• Larry Ellison’s rose colored glasses: “The jury found that Google infringed”
• Oracle poured millions into failed patent trial, but will fight on
• Oracle v. Google jury foreman reveals: Oracle wasn’t even close
• Oracle v. Google: no patent infringement found
• Oracle v. Google: the road ahead

Oracle’s legal battle to break itself off a chunk of the smartphone market by attacking Android looks dead in the water today, after a federal judge who recently finished presiding over the six-week Oracle v. Google trial ruled that the structure of the Java APIs that Oracle was trying to assert can’t be copyrighted at all.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/05/google-wins-crucial-api-ruling-oracles-case-decimated/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

With the planned settlement between Google and book publishers still on indefinite hold, a legal battle by proxy has started. Google partnered with many libraries at US universities in order to gain access to the works it wants to digitize. Now, several groups that represent book authors have filed suit against those universities, attempting to block both digital lending and an orphaned works project.

The suit is being brought by the Authors’ Guild, its equivalents in Australia, Quebec, and the UK, and a large group of individual authors. Its target: some major US universities, including Michigan, the University of California system, and Cornell. These libraries partnered with Google to get their book digitization efforts off the ground and, in return, Google has provided them with digital copies of the works. These and many other universities have also become involved with the HathiTrust, an organization set up to help them archive and distribute digital works; the HathiTrust is also named as a defendant.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/authors-guild-sues-universities-over-book-digitization-project/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.