In less than two weeks, jailbreaking your phone, your tablet or gaming console could become a crime. If the exemption to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act expires, what you do to your devices will again be covered under copyright law. More »
On January 12, UK company New English Teas found itself on the receiving end of a judgement passed by the Patents County Court. Its crime? Snapping an image of one of London’s iconic red buses against the backdrop of the House of Parliament and altering it to look pretty much like the photo above. Despite the snap otherwise being a completely original work, the court ruled it as copyright infringement. More »
This morning, a link to this fantastic article about copyright by Courtney Love popped up in my Facebook feed. It was published back in 2000, at a time before iTunes, when Metallica was fighting to destroy Napster, and yet it appears to be one of the most sobering, informative and logical contributions to the argument about copyright. More »
You’ve got to be kidding me. The US Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Congress can remove works from the public domain and re-copyright them in order to bring the the pieces into compliance with international copyright schemes. Yeah, because that doesn’t run completely against the spirit of copyright law or anything. More »
In early 2011, the FBI contacted New Zealand police. It wasn’t a casual call to catch up on international policing issues – the FBI wanted the New Zealand police force’s help in bringing down what it claimed was a “Mega Conspiracy”. Today, all that came to a head, as Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom was one of four people arrested for copyright infringement and conspiracy, with three others still at large. More »
The feds shut down Megaupload today, and the RIAA is juiced. In a statement released after the DOJ killed Megaupload. The RIAA celebrated victory by with a hearty diatribe vilifying Megaupload. More »
We reported that Universal had seemingly inappropriately tried to pull the Mega Song video from YouTube. Now, in a leaked court filing, it claims to have a deal with Google that allows it to censor any video it damn well likes. More »
First, there was iiNet vs AFACT. Then there was Apple vs Samsung. And now, it seems the next big lawsuit around technology is going to be Optus taking on the AFL and NRL around its time-shift streaming service, TV Now. More »
In a perfect world, copyright owners would actively encourage people to enjoy watching or listening to their products on multiple platforms through multiple devices, all for a reasonable cost. But this world ain’t perfect. More »
