Feeding the Reader: New Ways to Monitor Library Regulations and Court Filings for Free

Feeding the Reader: New Ways to Monitor Library Regulations and Court Filings for Free
MARY MINOW interviews Stacy Stern of Justia
LibraryLaw Blog, publication date: 28 April 2007
This is very exciting for anyone who's ever struggled to get their hands on the full text of filings in an important case. Read the court filings for important copyright cases as they happen. Also includes a regulation tracker.
"We are making the federal civil district filings online available for free for the first time. Filings are categorized by state, federal district court and legal practice area, and include the presiding judge and cause of action information for each case. Visitors can subscribe for free to RSS feeds of new cases that meet specific criteria, or to RSS feeds for customized searches. For example, with an RSS feed, visitors can track new Federal Court patent cases, cases that are filed in a specific court or cases filed against a particular company."

Legal Issues and User-Generated Content

Legal Issues and User-Generated Content
via madisonian.net, 27 April 2007
from the linked report: "The group found common points of agreement:
• Participatory video is a vigorous new phenomenon that is promising both for free speech and for new business opportunities; however, it is in its embryonic stages and needs to develop.
• Existing copyright management techniques are either poorly exploited (fair use) or imperiled (section 512).
• Finding successful ways to manage unauthorized use is critical to keeping existing spaces for new opportunities for public expression and for business growth."

Jack Valenti

Jack Valenti
by WILLIAM PATRY
The Patry Copyright Blog, publication date: 27 April 2007
"But no one should mistake that for his real self. He was a gentleman in the old school sense who always kept his word and called it as he saw it. I am deeply honored to have known him. May he rest in peace."

EU Copyright Group Seeks Solutions to Digitisation Roadblocks

EU Copyright Group Seeks Solutions to Digitisation Roadblocks
by DUGIE STANDEFORD
Intellectual Property Watch, publication date: 20 April 2007
"Problems related to digital preservation, orphan works and out-of-print materials must be resolved if European Commission plans to digitise and make accessible Europe’s cultural heritage are to succeed, copyright experts said in an 18 April report."

Ohio U. Restricts File Sharing

Ohio U. Restricts File Sharing
by ELIZABETH REDDEN
Inside Higher Ed, publication date: 26 April 2007
"Ohio University employees will begin monitoring the network Friday for use of such file sharing programs as Ares, Azureus, BitTorrent, BitLord, KaZaA, LimeWire, Shareaza and uTorrent. Any use of peer-to-peer technology under the new policy could result in a loss of Internet access and, upon the second offense, a disciplinary referral — although it’s important to note that the university will be phasing the policy in on a flexible, still undetermined time frame, targeting the biggest users first, according to Sally Linder, a university spokeswoman.

Individuals seeking to use the software for legitimate purposes, such as exchange of data for a research project, must petition for an exemption from the university’s peer-to-peer sharing block, and be ready to explain their specific needs."

Spy Act Only Protects Vendors and Their DRM

Spy Act Only Protects Vendors and Their DRM
by ED FOSTER
InfoWorld, publication date: 24 April 2007
"In other words, it's perfectly OK for basically any vendor you do business with, or maybe thinks you do business with them for that matter, to use any of the deceptive practices the bill prohibits to load spyware on your computer. The company doesn't have to give you notice and it can collect whatever information it thinks necessary to make sure there's no funny business going on. And by the way, another exception provision specifically protects computer manufacturers from any liability for spyware they load on your computer before they send it to you. Of course, the exception for software companies checking to make sure you're an authorized user is the strongest evidence of what this bill is all about. After all, in terms of function, there's not much difference between spyware and DRM. Too bad for Sony this bill wasn't already the law when its rootkit-infected CDs came to light."

Judge Denies RIAA "Reconsideration" Motion in Capitol v. Foster, Calls Plaintiffs' Counsel "Disingenuous", Motives "Questionable"

Judge Denies RIAA "Reconsideration" Motion in Capitol v. Foster, Calls Plaintiffs' Counsel "Disingenuous", Motives "Questionable"
Recording Industry vs. The People, publication date: 24 April 2007
"The Judge labeled as 'disingenuous' the RIAA's contention that had it not moved to dismiss the case, it could have proved secondary liability on defendant's part:"

Transcripts for Jan 31 Section 108 Study Group roundtable online

Transcripts for Jan 31 Section 108 Study Group roundtable online
Just today realized that the transcripts from the Section 108 Study Group Chicago Roundtable (January 31, 2007) were posted on February 23.

Notice of Roundtable on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty On the Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations

Notice of Roundtable on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty On the Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations
Federal Register, publication date: 12 April 2007
"The United States Copyright Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announce a public roundtable discussion concerning the work at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) on a proposed Treaty on the Protection of the Rights of Broadcasting Organizations. Members of the public are invited to attend and observe the roundtable, or to participate in the roundtable discussion, on the topics outlined in the supplementary information section of this notice"

Recording, movie industries lobby for permission to deceive

Recording, movie industries lobby for permission to deceive
by DAWN C. CHMIELEWSKI and MARC LIFSHER
Los Angeles Times, publication date: 7 April 2007
"The California Senate is considering a bill that would strengthen state privacy laws by banning the use of false statements and other misleading practices to get personal information. The tactic, known as pretexting, created a firestorm of criticism when detectives hired by Hewlett-Packard Co. used it last year to obtain phone records of board members, journalists and critics.

But the Recording Industry Assn. of America and the Motion Picture Assn. of America say they sometimes need to use subterfuge as they pursue bootleggers in flea markets and on the Internet."

MIT Drops DRM-Laden Journal Subscription

MIT Drops DRM-Laden Journal Subscription
MIT Library News, publication date 16 March 2007
"The MIT Libraries have canceled access to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ web-based database of technical papers, rejecting the SAE’s requirement that MIT accept the imposition of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology.

SAE’s DRM technology severely limits use of SAE papers and imposes unnecessary burdens on readers. With this technology, users must download a DRM plugin, Adobe’s “FileOpen,” in order to read SAE papers. This plugin limits use to on-screen viewing and making a single printed copy, and does not work on Linux or Unix platforms".

Another brick in the copyright wall

Another brick in the copyright wall
by STEVE JOHNSON
Chicago Tribune, publication date: 16 March 2007
"Viacom's legal action, undertaken after it and YouTube couldn't come to an agreement, probably signifies the long-simmering copyright question coming to a boil. What the courts may settle is this: Is copyright ownership enduring and inviolate, as old media companies believe? Or is it a more transitory function that technology is overrunning anyway, even as its weakening will ultimately be good for everyone?"

Adobe Steps Back From ALM Precipice

Adobe Steps Back From ALM Precipice
by ED FOSTER
Ed Fosters Gripelog, InfoWorld, publication date: 12 March 2007
"So why did Adobe change its mind? From what I've been hearing from readers, it appears that customers made it clear they weren't going to accept vendor-specific licensing tools. 'From what we've seen, Adobe did a reasonable job in keeping ALM relatively unobtrusive,' wrote one reader after his company had finished its analysis of ALM. 'But there's a slippery slope if we go down that road. What if 18 months from now Adobe's having a bad quarter and needs a quick boost to revenues? Will they hold to the privacy promises they're making now about not giving the sales side your licensing data? So we've told Adobe we won't be moving to 8.0 or any other product that's going to require ALM.'"

Dear Library of Congress...

Dear Library of Congress...
by KAREN SCHNEIDER
ALA TechSource, publication date: 7 March 2007
"It is both ironic and poignant that librarians are still worrying about “bibliographic control,” after ceding so much of the same to the companies that now rent them journal access per annum at usurious rates, digitize their book collections into DRM obscurity, or sell them ponderous, antiquated “management” systems that on close inspection do little more than serve as storehouses for the metadata specific to the formats of bygone eras, bold days when we saw our central roles as defenders and curators of our cultural heritage.



We have moved from the librarian as information artisan—a professional creating and using tools to manage information—to the librarian as surrogate vendor, facilitating what is essentially the offshoring of thousands of years of information into private hands. "

P2P Downloads Live On Long After Grokster Case

P2P Downloads Live On Long After Grokster Case
Brian Deagon | Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
publication date: 12 March,2007
"Even as the entertainment industry racks up wins in the courts and Congress, efforts to stop Internet users from swapping movies, music and other copyrighted content has proven far more difficult.

On an average day, about 9.3 million people worldwide log onto a software file-sharing services, up from 7 million in 2004, according to research firm Big Champagne, which tracks Internet usage. About a billions songs are traded illegally online per month.

Music sales have fallen 17% from its peak in 2000 of $12.7 billion, a trend the Recording Industry Association of America blames on illegal file swapping.

The Motion Picture Association of America says it lost $2.3 billion to Internet piracy in 2005."

Viacom sues YouTube over copyrights

Viacom sues YouTube over copyrights
By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer | publication date 13 March, 2007
"(AP) Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. is suing YouTube for $1 billion, claiming that the video-sharing site had built a business by using the Internet to 'willfully infringe copyrights on a huge scale.' Other media companies also have major concerns about YouTube, but Viacom's was the first lawsuit filed by a major media owner. Several media companies have reached agreements to supply YouTube with clips, including CBS Corp., General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and the British Broadcasting Corp., but many others remain reluctant to deal with the Web site because of copyright concerns."

Anxious Times for Net Radio

Anxious Times for Net Radio
by JASON FRY
The Wall Street Journal | Real Time, publication date: 12 March 2007
"Net-radio fans are angry, but they shouldn't be too hasty in blasting the Copyright Royalty Board. The real problem is a pair of misguided decisions made by Congress in the 1990s.

Tim Hanrahan and I wrote about this issue nearly five years ago, and it's depressing to see how little has changed. A brief recap: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, building on 1995's Digital Performance Rights in Sounds Recordings Act, said Net-radio firms had to pay performance royalties on songs played in addition to composer royalties on those songs. Terrestrial radio stations pay composer royalties, but they don't pay performance royalties, under the long-established rationale that record labels benefit from the promotional value of songs played on the radio."

Microsoft guns Open XML onto ISO fast track

Microsoft guns Open XML onto ISO fast track
by ERIC LAI
Computerworld, publication date: 12 March 2007
"The International Standards Organization (ISO) agreed Saturday to put Open XML, the document format created and championed by Microsoft Corp., on a fast-track approval process that could see Open XML ratified as an international standard by August.

That’s despite lingering opposition to Open XML by several key voting countries, including some of whom whose governments are moving forward to adopt the alternative Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) format, which the ISO approved as a standard last year."

In Congress's Crosshairs

In Congress's Crosshairs
by ELIZABETH REDDEN and DOUG LEDERMAN
Inside Higher Ed, publication date: 9 March 2007
"Throughout the hearing, members also alluded to the possibility that safe harbor requirements — those minimal standards a college must meet to combat piracy in order to avoid risk of litigation at an institutional level under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act — could be expanded. If that happened, universities could face a bigger burden of responsibility, particularly when it comes to installing technology that could block peer-to-peer file sharing.

College leaders say there’s a good reason why such technology isn’t already commonly in place. Although a new “University Task Force on Requirements for Filtering Networks” has been established to facilitate the development of new filtering technologies, John Vaughn, executive vice president of the Association of American Universities, said that to date, no technology exists that satisfies the three-pronged test. Colleges, Vaughn said, want filtering technology that is cost-effective, protects student privacy, and can discriminate between illegitimate file sharing and legitimate uses of peer-to-peer technology for research and other academic purposes.

"

Policy Makers call for University Internet Filters

Policy Makers call for University Internet Filters
by ALEX CURTIS
Public Knowledge, publication date: 8 March 2007
"Unfortunately, the point of this hearing was less about finding actual solutions to the high-content-demand on university campuses, and more of a “notice of intent” from certain members of the committee to ISPs (commercial or educational) that the content industry intends to drain your safe harbor."