What happens in Belgium doesn’t necessarily stay in Belgium. Now Google News is facing a Brazilian boycott and France is threatening to copy a German-style tax on excerpting its newspapers. What’s an aggregator to do? Read more at paidContent »
Publishers and manufacturers want to use copyright to stop people selling books or watches from other countries in the US. The Supreme Court is hearing a major case today that will force it to choose between consumers and sellers. Read more at paidContent »
A skirmish between Google and newspapers over crawling of news headlines suggests Latin America’s digital publishing sector is maturing. But can Google keep publishers sweet enough to exploit opportunities in the fast-growing Brazilian market? Read more at paidContent »
A federal court has found that scanning books for search — which Google was doing for a university project called the Hathi Trust — is clearly covered by the “fair use” principle in copyright law, which could help Google in its own lawsuit with the Authors Guild. Read more »
Kim Dotcom’s U.S. lawyer believes that the case against MegaUpload will eventually fall apart, in part because New Zealand’s police violated multiple laws when raiding Dotcom’s residence and arresting him.Dotcom is getting support from the EFF, who is suing on behalf of a MegaUpload user. Read more »
An appeals court granted a stay in the copyright dispute between the Authors Guild and Google so it can review a lower court’s decision to let the class action advance. The literary community is watching to learn if Google’s book scanning will be considered “fair use.” Read more at paidContent »
Moves to allow the digitization of ‘orphan works’ and free up the metadata around 20 million cultural objects will benefit the public and could inspire a new wave of apps and web services. But the underlying motivation is fundamentally political. Read more »
Remember that Hugo Awards live stream that got yanked off Ustream earlier this week just as author Neil Gaiman was delivering his acceptance speech? Ustream blamed Vobile’s content filters for the incident. Now Vobile is shooting back and saying it was all Ustream’s fault. Read more »
South Africa’s government has been urged to get tough with ISPs that refuse to pay royalties and to introduce graduated-response piracy measures against freeloaders, by a report that decries a dysfunctional digital content market. Read more at paidContent »
The long-running copyright lawsuit over Google’s book scanning — in which the Authors Guild is seeking $750 per book — is turning into a procedural snarl as both the case and an appeal go forward at the same time. A new order confirms that the parties are due in court in December. Read more at paidContent »
Aereo, a technology that uses tiny antennas to let people watch TV on the go, has already generated a flurry of lawsuits. Now the man behind Aereo is suing a copycat service for using his name. The disputes highlight disruptions to the traditional TV industry. Read more »
The company doesn’t think it’s a great idea for search engines to have to pay to reproduce headlines and story summaries in their results. But that’s nothing on the crazy earlier draft of this proposed law. Read more »
Judge Denny Chin has allowed a coalition of scholars, librarians and digital activists to file briefs in support of Google as part of the long-running copyright controversy over the company’s book scanning. The ruling will serve to draw further attention to fair use issues. Read more at paidContent »
Google is making changes to its search algorithms that will penalize websites hit with copyright-removal claims, but the company is saying very little about what criteria it will use to determine who gets hit and who doesn’t — can we trust it to make the right decision? Read more »
Intellectual property is about assigning ownership of brands and ideas. Here are some highlights from a gathering of leading thinkers in the field — in an easy to skim format. Read more »
Broadcasters are in a pitched fight with Aereo over whether the TV-streaming service violates copyright. Now, Fox is suing an Aereo copycat called BarryDriller.com. The cases will help define the laws for how we watch TV in coming years. Read more »
Google will tweak its search algorithm to push pirated content further down in search results — a move welcomed by the film and music industries. Read more at paidContent »
Craigslist is no longer asking users for an exclusive rights in their classified ads but it has hardly backed off on an unpopular campaign to shut down popular rivals like PadMapper. Read more »
Recent reports say Google could be on the hook for billions if it loses a long-running copyright case with the Authors Guild. A closer look at the claims, however, show that only a fraction of authors would be eligible to collect. Read more at paidContent »
Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul took to the podium at a Heritage Foundation event last week to talk about tech policy. However, individual rights and less government regulation certainly are important to the future of the internet, there are necessary limits to that freedom. Read more »
A court filing provides new details about how Google scanned 20 million books and its reasons for doing so. The new facts come at a time when the long running case between Google and the Authors Guild is heading to an end game. Read more at paidContent »
A video site that lets users bookmark and share embedded videos from other websites doesn’t commit copyright infringement – and just watching a stream of a video that someone else has uploaded isn’t infringing either: That’s the gist of a court decision in favor of myVidster. Read more »
Craigslist this week told users that it can use the classifieds they post as the basis for lawsuits against other sites. The claim appears weak from a legal standpoint and even worse from a public relations one. Read more »
Apple’s legal tactics are as carefully designed as its products. Here’s a look at Apple’s distinct efforts to wrap its gadgets in a legal forcefield and drive away competitors. Read more »
Internet censorship is once again in the news after a federal judge posited a proposed Washington law aiming to prevent child prostitution is likely unconstitutional under the Communications Decency Act. A bigger question is why free speech still reigns online except when copyright is involved. Read more »
The Associated Press continues to evolve from a news service to a broader, one-stop shop for a broad variety of content. AP now has audio offerings thanks to a new alliance with indie music licensor Audiosocket. Read more at paidContent »
France’s Supreme Court has set aside a critical piracy ruling won by Google in 2011, leaving the door open to the search giant being forced to censor some of its autocomplete listings to prevent copyright infringement and piracy. Read more »
Only a handful of very large software and entertainment associations are permitted to use the official FBI logo to warn consumers about the perils of piracy. Until now, that is. Read more at paidContent »
The European Commission proposed a law on Wednesday to pave the way for easier digital distribution. Prominent musicians, however, immediately slammed the proposal, saying it fails to fix problems of inefficiency and embezzlement. Read more at paidContent »
Peter Sunde, co-founder and former spokesperson of The Pirate Bay, doesn’t want to go to jail. In a plea for clemency filed this week, he argued that the case against him was full of irregularities. Sunde also shared a few more details about The Video Bay. Read more »
The U.S. government continues to try and extradite British college student Richard O’Dwyer for simply linking to copyright-infringing files, on a site located in the UK. If they are successful, it could change the way we think about some of the fundamental underpinnings of the web. Read more »
Twitter released its first-ever transparency report on Monday, which provides statistics on the number of times governments and individuals requested data on Twitter users or made takedown requests under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act during the first half of 2012. Read more »
Having learned a lesson from the backlash its peers in Congress endured recently, the White House is trying, presumably, to develop an anti-piracy strategy that’s actually sane. On Monday, it announced an open call for comments on a new IP strategy. Read more »
Under new proposals from the British media regulator Ofcom, internet providers will start sending warning letters to those accused of illegal filesharing in 18 months — and will be forced to handed people’s data over to copyright holders after three successive hits. Read more »
In an act of childishness worthy of his championship players, a minority owner of the Miami Heat NBA team has filed a copyright suit against a blogger for posting a photo of him. He is also suing Google for refusing to take the photo down. Read more at paidContent »
In a victory for Comcast, a federal judge in Chicago quashed four subpoenas that would have let a porn studio identify hundreds of subscribers accused of using torrent technology to share videos. Read more at paidContent »
The Pirate Bay’s co-founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij mounted a last-ditch effort to overturn a prison sentence against them Wednesday, appealing to the European Court of Human Rights. The step comes after the duo exhausted all legal remedies within Sweden. Read more »
In a move that suggests Google is coming to see itself as a content owner, the company is threatening legal action against sites that let users strip audio from YouTube videos and play them as stand-alone audio clips. Read more at paidContent »
The world is safe for developers who use Java interfaces in designing Android smartphones. Read more »
In a major development in the long-running case over Google’s unauthorized book-scanning, a federal judge ruled today that groups representing authors and photographers could go forward with a class action. Read more at paidContent »
