LawFont.com

I’m probably behind the times on this, but I just found at Groklaw a nice short history of the net, Unix, Linux and all things related — The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin, by Peter H. Salus. I haven’t had time to read it all yet (and it still appears to be a work in progress), but so far it’s an informative read.

The Wall Street Journal has a perceptive piece on how ABC affiliates view TV Downloads. It reports that the president of the association representing ABC’s affiliates “expressed misgivings” about Apple having the right to sell episodes of “Lost” to viewers the day after they are broadcast on ABC. (more…)

You might recall that on 5 September of this year, Justice Wilcox handed down judgment in Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd, colloquially known as the Kazaa case. It’s all about whether Sharman and others authorised infringement of copyright occurring over the Kazaa network. Wilcox J held that they did. I commented on the case at the time.

Were you wondering what had happened in the case? Whether it was on appeal? What was being done about the orders, at the time, requiring Sharman to make adjustments to their technology with a view to reducing the level of infringement occurring via the Kazaa network?

Well, thanks to the wonders of the Federal Court’s eCourt facilities, we can find out. (more…)

So they launch a video iPod. And The Australian headline notes, ‘Nothing on new iPod’. Warwick Rothnie talks about it here.

Rather, the headline should probably be, ‘Nothing new on iPod’. According to news reports, the device will play video you create yourself. So, my guess would be, it plays unprotected formats.

And we all know what happens when a device plays unprotected formats. Like, say, the iPod does with, say, mp3s. Right? Or am I wrong about this? Is there anything on this iPod which will prevent people playing, say, tv episodes downloaded from P2P networks or elsewhere?

United States wireless telco Sprint Nextel has filed a suit in Kansas federal court against Vonage , Voiceglo Holdings, and theglobe.com (Voiceglo’s parent), claiming infringement of seven Sprint patents relating to voice over data packet technology, including VoIP. Injuctions against Vonage and Voiceglo, as well as unspecified damages, are being sought.

Vonage and Voiceglo are big business. Vonage is the largest United States independent VoIP service, with over 1 million subscribers, and is thought to be preparing for an IPO. Its service is designed to replace traditional telephones. Voiceglo offers a computer-based system that allows voice calls between computers or from computers to traditional phones, adopting a similar business model to Skype. (more…)

The Svenska antipiratbyrÃ¥n, the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau (a lobby group working against and investigating cases of alleged copyright infringement), has sued an individual for sharing movies online using the DirectConnect file-sharing protocol. The court, which heard the case last week, is expected to deliver a verdict on 25 October. (more…)

Are newspaper headlines protected by copyright?

The Japanese Intellectual Property High Court (a branch court of the Tokyo High Court) has ruled that a small Internet company’s unauthorised use of headlines from Japan’s best-selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, is illegal.

Strangely, although the company, Digital Alliance Corporation, has been ordered to pay about Â¥237,700 (about US$2,000 or A$2,758) to the Yomiuri, and the court said that the use of the headlines was illegal, Judge Tomokatsu Tsukahara noted that as headlines are not mentioned in Japan’s Copyright Law the law is not completely clear, and he did not order Digital Alliance to take down the headlines from its website. Presumably Digital Alliance’s use of the headlines was illegal for a reason other than copyright infringement. (more…)

APC Magazine has a very interesting ‘feature’ today on MIPI, the friendly-sounding but definitely serious enforcement arm of the Australian Record Industry (doesn’t it just make you think it’s the name of a Muppet figure from Sesame Street? Hi, I’m Mippy. Who wants to play a spelling game with me? Can you spell P-I-R-A-C-Y?)

Anyway, name jokes aside, this is a serious report. It deals with the identity of MIPI, copyright enforcement strategy in Australia and likely shifts in that strategy (will we have more criminal enforcement?), and the settlement of the Australian BitTorrent case. (more…)

The Delaware State Supreme Court has held that where a defamation suit is brought against an anonymous blogger, the identification of that blogger cannot be compelled.

In John Doe No. 1 v Patrick Cahill and Julia Cahill, the court also considered the nature of blogs in dismissing the defamation claim. In particular, the court noted that:

Blogs and chat rooms tend to be vehicles for the expression of opinions; by their very nature, they are not a source of facts or data upon which a reasonable person would rely.

The court considered the nature and reliability of Internet communications when evaluating the claim. (more…)

Bit of a round up around the place on the Stevens v Sony ruling by our High Court, which I’ve commented on already: (more…)

Is ICANN’s control of Internet governance at an end? Representatives from the European Union and other countries are lobbying for this to be true. At the recent World Summit of the Information Society, organised by the United Nations in Geneva, several countries argued that the allocation of domain names and similar tasks be run by an international body, rather than by ICANN in conjuction with the US government. Such a change would be a radical shift from the current policy, and it is not altogether clear which option would have the best results. (more…)

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…)

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.

Harvey Danger — whom you may remember from “Flagpole Sitta” — has released their new album for free over the web, and also via bittorrent. Their stated reason:

In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal” file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.

Good luck to them; I hope it works. If I like it, I’ll buy the album: Harvey Danger – Little by Little

Since online auctioneer eBay agreed to purchase Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Skype Technologies for $2.6 billion in cash plus eBay stock, industry analysts have been wondering why. Skype, which allows Internet users wth broadband connections to talk from computer-to-computer anywhere in the world for free, and from computer-to-phone at a deep discount from any rates offered by traditional telecommunications companies, is an example of how VoIP, also called IP telephony or Internet telephony, is revolutionising the telecommunications industry. The focus in the news has been on why an online auctioneer would want to pay this much for a telephony company. Equally interesting are the questions for regulatory policy. (more…)