From the category archives:

INTERNET LAW

At the intersection of 1709Blog and TorrentFreak, a copyright Trollee asks a San Francisco court to deny copyright protection to adult content.

Not as good as Super Bowl 46 (no Roman numerals for me), but when EFF send their A team (IP Litigator Steven Yuen) to fight trolls, anything can happen.

So, if we deny copyright protection to “pornography”, then we put the courts into the posture of passing on the merits of copyright protection for a much broader category of intellectual work. Is this really the mission of my friends and colleagues at the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

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Copyright mania hits new heights. Watch the RT video and check out the BBC article quoted from here:

“Richard O’Dwyer, 23, set up the TVShack website which US authorities say hosts links to pirated copyrighted films and television programmes. The Sheffield Hallam University student lost his case in a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. If found guilty in a US court he could face up to five years in jail.Mr O’Dwyer’s lawyer, Ben Cooper, indicated during the hearing that he would appeal against the ruling. Mr Cooper said the website did not store copyright material itself and merely directed users to other sites, making it similar to Google. He also argued that his client, who would be the first British citizen to be extradited for such an offence, was being used as a “guinea pig” for copyright law in the US.”

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Key Moments in Social Media and Copyright Law – A Graphic

January 20, 2012
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European Football Pubs Can Country Surf

January 13, 2012

The European Court of Justice ruled earlier this year that a British pub owner could purchase a decoder and rights from a Greek media outlet. The court reasoned as follows: “In its judgement, the court said that attempting to prohibit the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards is “contrary to the freedom to [...]

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Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – Will Supreme Court Review First Sale?

January 4, 2012

We look forward to the brief being filed by PublicKnowledge. As set out by Williams Mullen, the Kirstaeng case is an interesting one: “In John Wiley & Sons, Inc. v. Kirtsaeng, No. 09-4896-cv (2d. Cir. August 15, 2011), the Second Circuit affirmed a district court decision and held that the first sale doctrine does not [...]

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Glory Glory Man United, Fair Use I am Sure

December 29, 2011

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Copyright Threatens Use of Standard and Seminal Medical Tests

December 29, 2011

When the New England Journal of Medicine is worried about the anti-intellectual use of copyright, we all ought to take notice. In a December 29, 2011 article entitled “Copyright and Open Access at the Bedside“, NEJM authors John C. Newman, M.D., Ph.D., and Robin Feldman, J.D. detail the copyright regime ringed around the seminal Mini–Mental [...]

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A Different Take on Ownership of “Corporate” Twitter Followers

December 28, 2011

Our Edinburgh colleague WardBlawg has written a comprehensive post on the pending United States PhoneDog litigation where the company is trying to regain control of its employee’s Twitter account that contains 17,000 followers and was apparently compiled during the employee’s tenure with PhoneDog. Also on the table is $340,000 in claimed damages. More background on [...]

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SOPA May Backfire and Cause Destruction of Copyright Stranglehold

December 17, 2011

Stop Online Piracy Act brought out the big guns against itself in United States Congressional hearings this week. As a member of the United States federal judiciary process, I am embarassed in front of my fellow attorneys in the international community and I apologize on behalf of the sane 99 percent of attorneys who do [...]

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.XXX Domains Cause Chaos with Traditional Brands

December 14, 2011

Full article on BusinessInsider HERE “Understandably, Meetup.com, where Dyson is a director, tried to do the same. Here’s what Dyson told the Senate happened when they tried to buy Meetup.xxx: Meetup has attempted to register Meetup.xxx, but has been told the name has been reserved on the “premium queue” to be auctioned off to the [...]

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