27
06
2010
Nate Anderson
Ars Technica
June, 2010
Has file-sharing helped society? Looked at from the narrow perspective of existing record labels, the question must seem absurd; profits have dropped sharply in the years since tools like Napster first appeared. But a pair of well-known academics argue peer-to-peer file sharing has weakened copyright in the US… and managed to benefit all of us at the same time.
“Consumer welfare increased substantially due to new technology,” write Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard and Koleman Strumpf of the University of Kansas. “Weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.”
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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/file-sharing-has-weakened-copyrightand-helped-society.ars and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright
26
06
2010
For the last several months, I’ve been covering the tens of thousands of “John Doe” lawsuits brought against accused peer-to-peer movie swappers by the law firm of Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver. With so many developments and so many different cases, it can sometimes be hard for newcomers to the story to get a high-level overview of what’s going on—and why it matters.
Fortunately, National Public Radio’s On the Media is on the case. In this week’s episode, On the Media aired an interview between myself and host Bob Garfield
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The content in this post was found at http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/06/25/05 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright
25
06
2010
This week, the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment for Google in its one billion dollar case against Viacom, finding that YouTube, which is owned by Google, is protected under the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom, along with other plaintiffs, sued YouTube for copyright infringement..
– Theresa Weisenberger
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The content in this post was found at http://jetl.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/google-defeats-viacoms-copyright-case-with-dmca-safe-harbor/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright, Copyright Safe Harbor, DMCA, Fair Use
24
06
2010
“Walking On Eggshells: Borrowing Culture in the Remix Age.” (video)
Elizabeth Stark: Several students in my Intellectual Property in the Digital Age at Yale recently made this kickass Creative Commons-licensed film on remix culture and appropriation. The film features interviews from DJ Earworm, Jonathan Lethem, DJ Ripley, Eclectic Method, Joy Garnett, Michael Cunningham, and others.
“Walking on Eggshells” is a 24-minute documentary about appropriation, creative influence, re-use and intellectual property in the remix age. It is a conversation among various musicians, visual artists, writers and lawyers, all sharing their views on why and how we use and create culture, and how intellectual property law, originally designed to provide people with incentives to create, sometimes hinders creative production far more than it enhances it.
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The content in this post was found at http://bibliolicious.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/walking-on-eggshells-borrowing-culture-in-the-remix-age-video/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright, Fair Use
22
06
2010
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Categories : Copyright, Fair Use
22
06
2010
The US Copyright Group, a business name for the group of Virginia lawyers filing suits against tens of thousands of alleged US peer-to-peer movie downloaders, has been sharply criticized by the EFF and ACLU for suing up to 5,000 anonymous defendants at once. The suits were “improperly joined,” said the groups. At least one of the federal judges overseeing these cases wanted to hear more, telling lawyers from Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver to convince her that all of the anonymous defendants had participated in the same transaction.
Yesterday, lawyer Tom Dunlap tried his hand at the task, filing a 29-page document in the Washington, DC District Court. According to Dunlap, suing 5,000 anonymous users at once is proper because of how BitTorrent works.


The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/p2p-lawyers-tell-judge-suing-5000-does-at-once-is-fine.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright
17
06
2010
LimeWire continues to take a beating from the music industry, as eight members of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) have filed a new lawsuit against the company. The organization announced the lawsuit during its annual meeting in New York, saying that LimeWire facilitated “pervasive online infringement” and that it affected everyone in the music industry.
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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/music-industry-dogpiles-on-limewire-with-new-lawsuit.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright
11
06
2010
For the last several years, the Center for Social Media at American University (directed by Pat Aufderheide) and the Program for Information Justice at the University law school (with which I’m affiliated) have been worked with various groups of practitioners (documentary filmmakers, media literacy educations, on-line video makers, providers of open courseware, dance archives, and others) to devise so-called Statements or Codes of Best Practices in fair use for those communities.
Some information about that effort can be found at http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair_use/. Now, thanks to a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the Association of Research Libraries, we’ll be part of a team devising fair use standards for institutional collections of print and other media in support of teaching and scholarship.
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The content in this post was found at http://chaucer.umuc.edu/blogcip/collectanea/2010/04/best_practices_in_fair_use_com.html and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright, Fair Use
8
06
2010
[Post by Venkat]
Facebook v. Power Ventures, Case No. 5:08-cv-05780 JW (N.D. Cal.) (Facebook Motion) (EFF Amicus Brief)
Facebook and Power Ventures have been locked in a dispute over whether Power Ventures can access Facebook’s website and network outside of Facebook’s authorized developer channels. The dispute yielded an interesting ruling on Power.com’s motion to dismiss. The parties are both seeking summary judgment on the issue of whether Power.com’s conduct violates California Penal Code section 502(c). EFF recently weighed in with an amicus brief which makes the already interesting dispute even more interesting.
The Dispute: Facebook brought Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claims and copyright claims (along with a slew of other claims) against Power.com. Setting aside the peripheral trademark and CAN-SPAM claims, Facebook’s key allegations are that (1) Power.com accessed Facebook’s network “without authorization” in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (and section 502(c), the California computer crime statute); (2) Power.com accessed Facebook’s network in violation of the Facebook terms of use; and (3) Power.com copied the copyrighted portions of the Facebook website in the process of allowing Facebook users to access Facebook through Power.com’s interface. (There’s also an anti-circumvention claim tied to the unauthorized copying claim.) The court denied Power.com’s motion to dismiss. (See coverage of the court’s initial ruling on Power.com’s motion to dismiss from Tom O’Toole, Jeff Neuburger, and Cyberlaw Cases.)
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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2010/05/eff_weighs_in_o.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Copyright, Terms of Service
7
06
2010
The RIAA has asked the federal judge overseeing the LimeWire case to slap a permanent injunction on LimeWire until it can clean up its copyright troubles to the labels’ satisfaction. . . .
LimeWire was found liable for massive copyright infringement a few weeks back. Judge Kimba Wood’s ruling cited internal LimeWire documents showing a knowledge of all the infringement taking place through LimeWire’s software—and little done to stop it.
“In the weeks since this Court’s Order, what has Lime Wire done to try to halt or limit the infringement it has induced?” ask the RIAA lawyers. “The answer, from all appearances, is nothing.”
The RIAA now proposes that the judge shut down the service and forbid LimeWire from distributing its software or running advertising.
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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/riaa-wants-limewire-shut-down-over-rampant-illegal-conduct.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.
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Categories : Copyright