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Tag Archives: Copyright

First Sale Doctrine

In a 6 to 3, non-ideological and bi-partisan decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the “first sale doctrine”; a decision which will have far reaching implications. The “first sale doctrine” basically says that if you legally buy something, then you own it and can do what you wish with it. It is what allows libraries [...]

That was too easy…

© Matt Bors Way too easy. If you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad, meet ACTA. The fundamental problem is that the movie, recording, drug, and other industries have way more money and political influence than the people who benefit from legitimate fair use. I hope that technology companies, who have been reluctant to exercise [...]

The Irony of Copying

© Daryl Cagle I just couldn’t resist posting (and “stealing”) this ironic comic. But Cagle does have a good point — there are lots of people who depend on licensing intellectual property for their livelihood and they should be protected. The question is what is the best way to do that, and balance their rights [...]

How to fix SOPA/PIPA

© Brian McFadden The real joke is probably going to be on us. At the same time the Internet was protesting SOPA and PIPA, Hollywood was already pivoting to support ACTA, the Anti-Conterfeiting Trade Agreement. The entertainment industry has the money, time, and political power to keep pushing these bills until they get what they [...]

Kill Hollywood

The battle between old media and new media is becoming interesting. Y Combinator, the famous firm that invests in early stage companies, has issued an RFS (Request for Startup) that they are looking to fund companies that can help (in their words) kill Hollywood: Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry [...]

Happy Accident

© Drew Sheneman I can’t blame politicians and corporations for having the desire to control the internet. If they succeed in sneaking these laws past us, we have only ourselves to blame. Interestingly enough, it seems like support for SOPA and PIPA — at least prior to Wednesday — was one of the few things [...]

The Real Piracy

© Jerry Holbert I’d like this comic even better if the money bags sitting behind the Congress character was the money thrown at Congresscritters by lobbyists (like all the money they get from the MPAA, the Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations pushing the SOPA and PIPA bills). To their credit, most Internet companies have [...]

The Day the Internet Died

On Wednesday, several major internet sites are going on strike. So if you try to access Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist, The Oatmeal, Boing Boing, Mozilla, MoveOn, or hundreds of other sites, you may be out of luck. Some sites, including Google, ArsTechnica, TechCrunch, WordPress, and Wired, have a notice on their main page, but will allow [...]

Let He Who Is Without Sin, Download The First File

Everyone downloads copyrighted files. Everyone. A new website tracks what files have been downloaded using bittorrent by you (or any other user, by IP address). Just click on the link, and it will tell you if you (or someone at the same IP address) has been naughty. Now the hypocritical part. The same data has [...]

Government for and by the Corporations

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am a strong Obama supporter. But that doesn’t mean I give him a pass when he makes a mistake, even one as stupid as this one. Obama announced Monday that he is appointing Donald Verrilli to be solicitor general, the government’s top lawyer [...]

Pirates in Glass Houses

I don’t know how many of you know about the new anti-piracy law in France, which takes a “three strikes” approach to copyright infringement. For example, if people in your house are accused of three acts of copyright infringement, your whole household is cut off from the Internet for two months to a year. You [...]

The crazy, upside-down world of digital copyright law

A federal judge has ruled that while consumers have a right to make a backup copy of a DVD for their own personal use, nonetheless, software to actually make that backup copy is illegal. According to US District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel: The court appreciates Real’s argument that a consumer has a right to [...]