LawFont.com

USA Today has reported that a Yahoo-backed alliance plans to provide digitised copyright material online. Yahoo Inc., along with partners including Adobe Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., the Internet Archive, O’Reilly Media Inc., the University of California, and the University of Toronto, plans to do something similar to the Google-backed initiative that I described in an earlier post.

The difference between the projects is significant. Where Google has, controversially, announced that it will provide excerpts of copyrighted works unless the copyright holders “opt out”, the Open Content Alliance is instead pursuing an “opt in” policy: only when the copyright holder explicitly gives permission will a work be made available. The actual difference between the two approaches is not so great, however. (more…)

You can find his comments here, on Weatherall’s Law, and here, on Michael Geist’s blog.

In Stevens v Sony, the Australian High Court today offered its first view on Australia’s current legal equivalent to the US DMCA. The encounter is an interesting one.

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The High Court of Australia has delivered its highly-anticipated judgment in Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment.

The case considered recent changes to the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) enacted by the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (Cth), which adapted existing copyright laws to certain challenges presented by digital technology. The particular issue addressed by the High Court was whether Eddy Stevens, who sold PlayStation game consoles with modified chips that allowed users to play copies of PlayStation game software not authorised for use with consoles purchased in Australia, had circumvented a “technological protection measure” as defined by seetion 10(1) , and prohibited by section 116A of the Copyright Act.

The short answer to all of this is that the High Court ruled that Stevens did not violate the Copyright Act as contended by Sony. See Kim’s post for further details.

Tim O’Reilly, commentator and head of the excellent O’Reilly technical publishing series, has a fascinating take on the Authors’ Guilde suit against the Google Library Project. See Sarah’s earlier post for additional comment.

Well might they call him ‘uber-copyfighter’. The amazing Michael Geist (and no, I’m not just saying that because I’m currently enjoying his hospitality in Ottawa) has today launched In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law.

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Just found via slashdot an interview with Eric Raymond at ONLamp.com on his keynote speech at a conference in Brazil. Raymond is reported to have said: “We don’t need the GPL anymore. It’s based on the belief that open source software is weak and needs to be protected. Open source would be succeeding faster if the GPL didn’t make lots of people nervous about adopting it.”

Interesting, but I can’t agree. (more…)

In December 2004, Google announced its Library Project — an initiative to index the book collections of Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, and make their content searchable online. As with all things interesting to do with the Net and intellectual property, this project has not been uncontroversial. (more…)

No, I’m not learning Finnish. That is the first line of this highly recommended article on Crikey.com.au – Therese Catanzariti, Australian expat in Finland, on Finnish music with a rather nice segue into Kazaa and private copying issues.

In other IP news and reading this morning:

• Warwick Rothnie on the ever-ongoing (or rather, never-going) iTunes Australia saga. Oh, and Warwick – government comments on where the fair use inquiry was at as at the end of August can be found here.
• The Economist on the digital home and the fundamental importance of open standards and interoperability in getting consumers to shift to new devices.

What else am I reading? (more…)

I hadn’t mentioned this, because it seemed to me so much less important than other current government reviews (on TPMs and copyright exceptions), but Attorney-General’s are running yet another simultaneous review: this one of the appropriate scope of the ISP safe harbour provisions brought in with the FTA Amendments last year. I wasn’t going to blog about this, because it’s pretty clear that AGs do not think it requries wide comment. But now Warwick Rothnie has commentary here, I’ll just note it in passing. (more…)

Some more links to peoples’ comments on Kazaa:

1. a couple of articles are available on Online Opinion: including this piece by Stephen Peach (ARIA), and this piece by Stephen Abood.
2. Michael Madison’s views (University of Pittsburgh) – interesting comments comparing US and Australian approaches to legal development.
3. Phil Tripp’s views are here (Tripp is a music business type person, and runs the website themusic.com.au, a news/commentary portal for music biz)
4. Brendan Scott’s views here (pdf)
5. Ed Felten’s comments on Kazaa are here.
6. Kathy Bowrey’s Comments (and comments on many other digital copyright and ‘piracy’ issues) here.
7. David Starkoff (recommended – don’t agree with him on everything but it’s an interesting view);
8. IPKat (just saying it seems a sensible result. Of course, that’s not the issue – the issue is the reasoning, which is problematic for reasons I’ve outlined and Matt Rimmer has also underlined in his comment on this and Geists’ blog, quoted in Starkoff).

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The decision in the Australian KaZaA case (Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd [2005] FCA 1242) has been published.

The New York Times has also published an article on the decision, and gives a useful history of KaZaA since its launch in 2001.

It is clear that this decision will have implications beyond Australia’s shores. For some detailed comments on the decision, see Kim’s post.

I’ve already put up fairly extensive (albeit initial) comments on Kazaa below. I’m not, of course, the only one to comment on the case: here are some more links:

• Michael Geist on how the Kazaa judgment shows that Australian and Canadian copyright law are moving apart;
• The Australian (news story)
• Copyfight (reporting the story)

It’s not much – but I’ve not yet found all that much apart from news stories.

Let me know if you find more commentary that I should link to here. Also, if there is anyone out there with some comments they want to post, feel free to put them in the comments box or, if that’s just too annoying, email them to me so I can post them direct to the blog.

The Federal Court of Australia has ruled that the developers of peer-to-peer file sharing software infringes copyright in music recordings. Although the decision has not been posted yet, it has been reported on in the Australian press.

Interesting, Justice Wilcox has not ordered for the KaZaA system to be shut down, but for the technology to be modified so that instances of copyright infringement are reduced.

So today, senior Australian Federal Court judge Justice Wilcox handed down his decision in the trial of the Kazaa case. In this case, over 30 applicants – in essence, copyright owners – sued the companies and individuals involved in providing Kazaa software. They alleged all kinds of things, but the essence of the case is this question:

By providing P2P file-sharing software (and through all their other activities), did the respondents (Sharman companies, Altnet companies, and assorted individual directors) authorise the undoubted copyright infringement done by the users of the software?

The result?

• The Sharman companies did authorise infringement. They did not engage in other forms of infringement/illegality alleged by the copyright owners (including direct infringement, conspiracy, misleading conduct under the TPA or unconscionable conduct);
• The directors/head honchos in Sharman are liable for authorising infringement too;
• Some of the other parties avoided liability.

The Australian are calling it ‘The Day the Music Died’ (a bit odd, given that the market has, of course, moved on from the Kazaa system). Below are some initial thoughts.

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