April 24th 2008
Music giant EMI is demanding that music file storage company MP3tunes turn over all music stored on its servers. Apparently, EMI is demanding this irrespective of who owns, or published, the music. What is unclear is what “hand over” means in this context. Clearly, though, it does mean EMI seeks to violate the privacy and personal […]
April 23rd 2008
Universal Music Group (UMG) is suing Troy Augusto, owner of Roast Beast Music Collectables, who sells promotional CDs on eBay. UMG claims promo CDs are for personal use only and, according to the agreement contained thereon, cannot be redistributed —including being sold, given away, or even thrown away. The discs are usually sent out to […]
March 28th 2008
In December, the World Trade Organization settled a complaint that the US blocked online gambling from Antigua while allowing domestic online gambling. The WTO took the unusual step of allowing the nation the right to violate US copyright protections of software, films, and music. Now Antigua and Barbuda say they’re ready to start ignoring US copyright law. However, […]
March 23rd 2008
At this year’s SXSW Music and Media Conference in Austin, an idea was floated that was supposed to “monetize anarchy” found in the music industry vis-à-vis illegal copying. The idea: a five dollar monthly surcharge on broadband internet service as a royalty for downloading music illegally. This is also known as a “utility model.” But […]
March 22nd 2008
Penn Jillette is the taller, louder half of the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller. He is also a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. Somewhere along the path of being a magician, writer of best-selling books, and producer of a film about a single dirty joke, he developed […]
March 4th 2008
Is the RIAA only about the money, and not the ethical defense of intellectual property rights of artists? It seems the artists the RIAA supposedly represents have seen little or no money as a result of copyright infringement settlements over the years from major entities like Napster and Kazaa. Those settlements are in the neighborhood […]
February 28th 2008
On February 13, 2008, in Connecticut copyright case Atlantic vs. Brennan, the court rejected the RIAA’s request for a default judgment on the grounds of its theory that simply making available copyrighted music that might be illegally copied by some other party is, in fact, infringement. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton ruled that such a […]
February 21st 2008
Verizon apparently believes it’s a bad idea to monitor content that passes through its communications services. This may sound obvious to you and me, but it isn’t to rival AT&T, who is going out of its way to do just that (call it: Your World. Monitored).
February 20th 2008
Arts Technica describes how shifts caused by a death in congress could reshape the legislative terrain for intellectual property law. Rep. Tom Lantos’ (D-CA) death from esophageal cancer leaves an opening at the top of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an opening that appears to be perfectly shaped like Howard Berman (D-CA). Berman is expected […]
January 29th 2008
There’s a lot to be happy about in recent moves by the recording industry to experimentally make music available on an ad-supported “free” basis. Here are three examples of emerging models meeting with dramatically different levels of success.
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