Higher ed institutions copyright policy requirement introduced in draft legislation amending Title 20

Copyright policy requirement introduced in draft legislation amending Title 20
Bill summary via THOMAS, passed in Senate 7/24/07, received in House 7/26/07

The extension of the Higher Education Act of 1965 includes proposed changes to section 1092, Institutional and financial assistance information for students (this is a link to the text as it reads now). Adds a new requirement that institutions include copyright policies in the information disseminated annually to students. The text of the proposed addition:
`(P) institutional policies and sanctions related to copyright infringement, including--

`(i) an annual disclosure that explicitly informs students that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material, including unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing, may subject the students to civil and criminal liabilities;

`(ii) a summary of the penalties for violation of Federal copyright laws;

`(iii) a description of the institution's policies with respect to unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing, including disciplinary actions that are taken against students who engage in unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials using the institution's information technology system; and

`(iv) a description of actions that the institution takes to prevent and detect unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material on the institution's information technology system;'

[updated 8/11/07 5:43pmCT to correct House/Senate action dates]

Copycrime bill raises its ugly head, again

Copycrime bill raises its ugly head, again
Electronic Frontier Foundation publication date: 26 July 2007
"Two months ago, the Justice Department floated draft legislation to expand the scope of, and stiffen the penalties for, criminal copyright infringement, and now a related bill has been introduced in the House."

Apple patent for charger DRM

Apple patent for charger DRM
by MAT LU
The Unofficial Apple Weblog, publication date: 21 July 2007
According to the New Scientist, Apple has filed for a patent on a new security measure for mobile devices. Basically, it involves locking a mobile device to a particular charging cable so that if it's stolen, it won't recharge when plugged into another cable.

Readin', Rattin', 'Rithmetic: RIAA wants colleges and universities to do their dirty work

Readin', Rattin', 'Rithmetic: RIAA wants colleges and universities to do their dirty work
by SHERWIN SIY
Public Knowledge, publication date: 20 July 2007
EDUCAUSE points us to this amendment, to be proposed by Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). (EDUCAUSE’s take on the measure is posted below.) It conditions federal money for colleges on colleges putting DRM on their networks and compiling reports on these measures for the Secretary of Education. It also calls for the Secretary to report on which colleges get the most accusations of infringement from copyright holders.

Copyright events at ALA

Among the many excellent programs at the American Library Association Annual Conference this weekend will be these two: 

Legal Challenges to Digitization Projects:  Adopting Orphan Works. This program is scheduled for Sunday, June 24, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm   and will take place at the Renaissance Mayflower Colonial Room.

The speakers are:
Denise Troll Covey, Principal Librarian for Special Projects, Carnegie Mellon University,

Peter B. Hirtle, Intellectual Property Officer and Technology Strategist, Cornell University Library, 

Douglas Knox, Interim Director, Dr. William M. Scholl Center for Family and Community History, the Newberry Library.  

Miriam M. Nisbet, ALA Legislative Counsel. 

AND
Copyright 101: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know But Were Afraid
to Ask

Monday, June 25 at the Marriott
at Metro Center, Rm: Salon D/1:30 - 3:30pm

This is a group poster session covering these topics: 
1. Copyright: A Limited, Statutory Monopoly—Exclusive Rights & Limitations 
2. Interlibrary Loan  
3. Electronic Reserves for Text and Media 
4. International Copyright:  How Does It Work?  
5. Fair Use 101  
6. Preservation & Replacement 
7. Copyright Advisory Network (www.librarycopyright.net) 
8. Copyright Term and the Public Domain 
9. Copyright in the Digital Age:  Developing Resources for Your Academic 
Community 
10.  Retaining Your Copyright: Author’s Rights  

Library Groups Rally for Cablevision

Library Groups Rally for Cablevision
by ANDREA FOSTER
The Wired Campus blog, publication date: 12 June 2007
"The American Library Association denounced the decision. "If the district court's decision is upheld, libraries will not be able to serve their patrons in the most efficient and effective manner possible," Miriam Nisbet, the ALA's legislative counsel, said in a prepared statement Monday."

Copyright Silliness on Campus

Copyright Silliness on Campus
by FRED VON LOHMANN
Washington Post, publication date: 6 June 2007
"The House committees responsible for copyright and education wrote a joint letter May 1 scolding the presidents of 19 major American universities, demanding that each school respond to a six-page questionnaire detailing steps it has taken to curtail illegal music and movie file-sharing on campus. One of the questions -- 'Does your institution expel violating students?' -- shows just how out-of-control the futile battle against campus downloading has become."

Google rejects Viacom's copyright claims

Google rejects Viacom's copyright claims
by JEREMY KIRK
Macworld UK, publication date: 2 May 2007
"A cornerstone of Google's defense will be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which has safe harbour provisions that relieve carriers and hosting providers from responsibility for copyright offences as long as they remove the material.

'By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Viacom's complaint threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment, and political and artistic expression,' Google said in its response."

Lawyers: The True Beneficiaries of Copyright Law

Lawyers: The True Beneficiaries of Copyright Law
by ELIOT VAN BUSKIRK
Epicenter (Wired blogs), publication date: 2 May 2007
"The executive told me that between regional coding issues, copyright protection such as HD-DVD, the webcasting royalty rate debate, and everything else going on with copyright these days, the best thing to study right now would be copyright law, because it's going to take a whole generation of lawyers to unravel this mess."

Copyright and scientific papers

Galactic Interactions : Copyright and scientific papers
by ROB KNOP
Galactic Interactions (Science blogs), publication date: 1 May 2007
"Scientists do not need, and indeed should not have, exclusive (or any) control over who can copy their papers, and who can make derivative works of their papers.

The very progress of science is based on derivative works! It is absolutely essential that somebody else who attempts to reproduce your experiment be able to publish results that you don't like if those are the results they have. Standard copyright, however, gives the copyright holders of a paper at least a plausible legal basis on which to challenge the publication of a paper that attempts to reproduce the results— clearly a derivative work!"

EU presses China for 'results' in WTO talks over copyright piracy

EU presses China for 'results' in WTO talks over copyright piracy

EUbusiness, publication date: 2 May 2007
"Commission spokesman Peter Power said the EU had joined the US case against China at the World Trade Organisation as an observer, as several other countries had done."

SPARC Open Access Newsletter issue #109

SPARC Open Access Newsletter issue #109
by PETER SUBER
SPARC Open Access Newsletter, publication date: 2 May 2007
"There is a rising awareness of intellectual property issues in the general public, rising impatience with unbalanced copyright laws, and rising support for remedies by governments (legislation) and individuals (CC licenses). Copyright laws are still grotesquely unbalanced, and powerful corporations who benefit from the imbalance are fighting to insure that the laws are not revised in the right direction any time soon. But in most countries an aroused public is ready to fight to insure that they are not revised in the wrong direction either, something we haven't seen in the entire history of intellectual property law.

However, this only guarantees that the content industry will have a fight, not that users and consumers will win. Just last week (April 25) we lost the first-reading vote in the EU parliament on the Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2). But at least there was significant opposition and the bill has not yet been adopted.

...

Some lazy students believe that if something is not free online, then it's not worth reading. This has never been true. However, it's gradually becoming true and those who want it to become true can accelerate the process. Those who want to live in a world where all peer-reviewed journal literature is free online are themselves growing in numbers and will soon have the power in universities, libraries, learned societies, publishers, funding agencies, and governments to bring it about. "

Geeks Will Not Be Silenced: Breaking: Digg Riot in Full Effect Over Pulled HD-DVD Key Story

Geeks Will Not Be Silenced: Breaking: Digg Riot in Full Effect Over Pulled HD-DVD Key Story
by MATT BUCHANAN
Gizmodo, publication date: 2 May 2007
"The power of Web 2.0 is in full effect over at Digg, where users are revolting over Digg's decision to pull a story (that netted over 15,000 diggs) and reportedly boot a user for posting the HD-DVD AACS Processing Key number, which would allow someone to crack the copy protection on an HD-DVD."

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:"