Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: U.S. Top Court Rejects Internet Music Download Case

First off today, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case regarding Internet downloads, letting a lower court ruling that said Internet downloads were not public performances stand. The suit stemmed from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), which sued to have digital downloads declared as public performances so they could collect royalties, potentially in the tens of millions, on digital sales for songwriters and composers. The Appeals Court, however, ruled that downloads don’t meet the criteria for a public performance and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case without comment, letting the ruling stand.

2: Supreme Court to Consider Whether Congress Can Restore Copyright

Next up today, the Supreme Court will hear a case that pits teachers, conductors and other content users against the U.S. government. At issue is whether Congress can take works out of the public domain once they have been placed there. The suit stems from treaties and copyright extensions that removed works from the public domain and placed them under copyright protection again, works including “Peter and the Wolf” and Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Number 17″. If they win their case, these works could be placed back into the public domain and be eligible for use by all without paying a fee.

3: Mac clone maker may take fight with Apple to Supreme Court

Finally today, Mac clone maker Psystar has announced that they are prepared to take their case to the Supreme Court. Psystar has been involved with litigation over Apple, which sued them claiming that Psystar’s making of Mac clones, computers running Apple’s OSX operating system though not made by Apple, was a violation of Apple’s OSX license. Apple won both in the lower court and on appeal, the courts agreeing that it was a license violation and shooting down Psystar’s claim of copyright abuse, but Psystar’s lawyers say they are prepared to appeal to the Supreme Court if needed.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Government Reintroduces Copyright Legislation

First off today, Canada’s Industry Minister, Christian Paradis, has re-introduced controversial copyright legislation that will, if passed, add DMCA-like protections against the circumvention of digital locks. The law also legalizes certain forms of format-shifting, such as recording a TV show, that are currently outlawed. The legislation is widely expected to pass now that conservatives hold a majority in the House of Commons.

2: Is Amazon’s Silk browser a copyright pirate?

Next up today, Amazon yesterday introduced its new “Kindle Fire” tablet, which comes with a new mobile browser named “Silk”. The browser uses backend caching by Amazon’s cloud network in order to speed up mobile browsing though many are wondering if Amazon’s caching of copyrighted content in this manner could violate copyright law. Most caching is deemed to be legal but some fear Amazon’s system goes a bit too far beyond the norm, especially with its predictive page loading technology, which anticipates your next page click an pre-loads the content.

3: Mac Software Limits Don’t Violate Copyright

Finally today, Psystar, the apple clone maker that was sued by Apple back in 2009, lost its appeal to the 9th Circuit. Psystar had claimed that Apple was misusing copyright by limiting its license of OSX for use only on Apple products. However, the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously that no such misuse took place and that Apple had not attempted to stifle creativity or competition. The ruling affirms a permanent injunction barring Psystar from selling computers with OSX installed.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

1: Psystar Appeals Injunction, Destroys Copies of Mac Cloning Tool

First off today, Psystar, the Mac clone maker sued by Apple and forced to stop sales due to an injunction, has filed an appeal against that injunction and has said that it has destroyed all but one copy of its Rebel EFI program, an application that allows users to install OSX on non-Apple machines, a violation of the OSes terms. Psystar has also indicated that it will sell computers with Linux in the future instead of OSX or Windows.

2: Apple App Store Has Lost $450 Million To Piracy

Next up today, while speaking of Apple, a report on Wall Street 24/7 says that Apple has lost an estimated $140 million due to app store piracy on jailbroken phones and developers have lost more than twice as much. Some developers have also reported having over 90% piracy rates of their apps and many expensive ones are frequent top downloads on mainstream piracy sites.

3: Tweet Tweet: Can I Copyright That?

Finally today, law.com has an interesting article about tweets and copyright that states while a tweet can be copyrightable, it is impractical to enforce such rights, at least in the U.S. Furthermore, it says that tweetbacks, and other such systems, are not a form of scraping as they obey the terms of Twitter’s API, which users already agreed to.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

As we bring an end to the year 2009, we close the book not just on one of the most interesting years in copyright but also one of the most interesting decades.

When January 1, 2000 came about there was a great deal of uncertainty about the future of copyright. The DMCA had just became law a few years prior and the lawsuit between the RIAA and Napster was just starting to make headlines. There was clearly a war brewing but no one was sure where it would lead.

The 2000s were the decade of that war. From the opening bell to an ongoing conflict today, the Web grew up to a point where copyright industries could no longer ignore it and they began to fight back as well as embrace it.

It was a decade of copyright conflict, as well as new ideas and new technology. Looking back on it, it is almost impossible to pick the ten biggest stories, especially since history is yet to decide what is most important, but I decided to make a run at it nonetheless.

With that in mind, here is my top ten copyright stories of the past ten years…

10. Apple Sues Psystar

In July of 2008 Apple sued a small Florida-based company called Psystar for copyright infringement. Psystar was the maker of so-called Hackintosh systems, non-Apple computers with OSX pre-installed, which is against Apple’s user license for OSX. Psystar countersued claiming, among other things, copyright misuse.

The two sides engaged in a very bitter lawsuit (technically two lawsuits as there was a separate one for OSX Snow Leopard and Leopard) but the tide quickly turned against Psystar as temporary restraining order barred Psystar from selling its clones and that order was, in turn, recently made permanent.

Psystar and Apple did partially settle their differences but there are question surrounding Psystar’s latest product, Rebel EFI, which allows home users to install OSX on Psystar machines.

Apple hasn’t taken a real stance on this program yet, but other clone makers use a similar process without any intervention from Apple.

9. SCO Tries to Kill Linux

In 2003 SCO sued IBM for $1 billion claiming the company had infringed its copyrights by putting code from its Unix operating system into Linux. These claims, however, have remained largely unproven even after over six years of legal wrangling.

The case, however, has moved like a soap opera. SCO and IBM exchanged their lawsuits and SCO also filed suits against Autozone and DaimlerChrysler, two Linux users. However, Novell eventually jumped in and sued SCO claiming that SCO did not own the rights to the Unix code they were alleging was infringed. According to Novell, who sold SCO the code in a previous deal, SCO did not purchase the rights to the code in the contract.

The district court seemed to agree and, in August 2007, ruled that Novell owned the code in question. The next month, SCO filed for bankruptcy protection.

However, the case isn’t quite dead yet, an appeals court has ruled that the lower court was hasty in making the determination about Novell’s ownership without a trial. As such, that case has been revived and a win by SCO could, at least in theory, bring the other lawsuits back as well.

Confused? Here’s a great timeline of the events on Wikipedia.

8. UMG and Viacom Take On Veoh and YouTube

In 2007, Viacom captured some big headlines by suing Google and YouTube for $1 billion for copyright infringement. However, a similar suit had already been filed by the record label UMG against the much smaller Veoh and that case was much farther along.

The problem was simple. Though the DMCA was not even ten years old, it was already looking antiquated, meant for a Web that was very different, before sites such as YouTube existed. It was unclear if or how the law would apply to them and copyright holders, frustrated by infringement on video sharing sites, decided to sue and let the courts decide.

In UMG’s case though, the court ruled against them, UMG has promised a swift appeal but the case was made clear that the DMCA safe harbor protections, which protect hosts from being held liable for infringements by their users, apply to sites like Veoh.

However, the YouTube case still may turn out differently as Viacom claims to have found evidence that YouTube had actual knowledge of infringing material and may have even uploaded content themselves. As such, the two cases may provide good tests for how far the safe harbor protections go and, through that, could play a major role in determining the kinds of services that available on the Web in the future.

7. Perfect 10 Sues Google

In 2004, adult content producer Perfect 10 sued Google over its relatively new image search engine. At issue was Google’s indexing and creation of thumbnails of unauthorized copies of P10′s images. Though the district court ruled against Google on the issue of thumbnail creation, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, to where the case was appealed, ruled that they were a fair use.

The decision has been a touchstone in recent copyright history and has been the basis for much of the advancements in search engines over the past few years. It is also one of the most-cited copyright rulings as it lays down much of the framework for how fair use applies to the Web and where many of the limits are.

Note: Commenter Åsk Dabitch reminded me I omitted the Kelly v. Arriba Soft in talking about the Perfect 10 Case. The Kelly case was a 2002/2003 one that had many of the same facts but dealt with a much smaller search engine. Though it was the first to rule that thumbnails in a search engine were a fair use, elements of the case, such as in-line linking of images, were batted back to the lower court, which was unable to take the case as Arriba Soft had gone out of business. As such, Perfect 10, which was handled by the same court, has really become the definitive fair use case on this topic.

6. The Google Book Search Saga

In 2005 both the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers sued Google over its book search project, which scans and indexes books from various libraries to make them searchable on the Web and also to display relevant snippets.

However, where the Perfect 10 case highlighted Google’s willingness to fight for fair use for everyone, the Google Book Search lawsuit brought an end to the era of Google as the legal champion as Google sought out a controversial settlement that would give them, and only them, the rights to scan and display books.

The first draft of that settlement, which would allow Google to scan and display in copyright but out-of-print books in exchange for a slice of the revenue, was scuttled earlier this year after the Department of Justice filed objected to elements of it. A revised settlement, which offers greater protection for international authors and for authors who can’t be located, was granted preliminary approval and is being commented upon now.

5. The Pirate Bay Saga

Established in 2003, The Pirate Bay has become one of the decades most interesting and most important copyright stories.

Since their founding, they have been sued repeatedly, had their hosting cut several times, been forced to move the site repeatedly as well, they had their host raided and, most importantly, the four founders were convicted of criminal copyright infringement in a joint criminal and civil trial.

Other bittorrent trackers and file sharing services have come and gone but The Pirate Bay has managed to hang on and is still active today. Through a combination of regular relocations to friendly countries, a shadowy organizational structure and solid technology, The Pirate Bay has been able to repeatedly and deliberately thumb the eye of major content creators and still keep the lights on.

Perhaps even more importantly, The Pirate Bay was the inspiration for The Pirate Party, which recently won two seats in the EU Parliament.

4. Three Strikes

The decade saw the war against file sharing heat up and one of the tools that has been repeatedly mentioned as a possibility for curbing such sharing is “three strikes” laws, which would disconnect file sharers after they received two warnings.

France, in many ways, has been at the forefront of this debate, passing a three strikes law only to have it declared unconstitutional as it did not allow judicial oversight. However, the government quickly regrouped and passed a new version of the bill with judicial oversight that has a better chance of surviving constitutional challenges.

New Zealand was also in the middle of this debate beginning in late 2008 with its proposals for section 92a of its copyright code, which would have forced ISPs to ban alleged infringers. After a significant amount of protest, that bill was scrapped and a new draft of it offers more oversight.

However, the issue has been raised in countless countries over the years and may be a part of the ongoing ACTA treaty negotiations. Only time will tell on that front.

3. Grokster Sets a New Standard

One of the most-cited copyright cases of all time has been the 1984 case Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, better known as the Betamax case. The case found that Sony’s Betamax product, which allowed home users to record movies and TV shows, was infringing as it was “capable of substantial noninfringing uses.”

Many were interested to see how the ruling would apply to file sharing networks, including Grokster, which had been sued by movie studios. However, in its 2005 decision, the Supreme Court punted in the issue and created yet another new test, the inducement test, to see if a product or service “induces” users commit copyright infringement. The court ruled against Grokster, which in turn forced the final closure of the service.

The Grokster ruling is now almost always cited along with Betamax and it created another test that inventors, including Web developers, have to be aware of when creating new products that interact with copyrighted works.

2. The RIAA Lawsuits

In September of 2003 the RIAA sued over 250 alleged files sharers for copyright infringement, marking the first time that individual file sharers had been sued by the organization. Since then, the RIAA has filed tens of thousands of such lawsuits, the majority of which have been settled before ever reaching a courtroom, usually for a few thousand dollars, but two have made it all the way to a verdict, the Joel Tenenbaum case and the Jammie Thomas case.

Though all three of the trials (the Jammie Thomas case was tried twice) were major victories for the RIAA in the court, resulting in large damage awards, the effort has failed to curtail illegal file sharing at all. As a result, the RIAA announced it would stop suing individuals, though it has been finishing up cases already in progress, and focus instead on working with ISPs to cut off file sharers from the Web.

However, as of today, that effort has produced no significant fruit other than offers to pass on infringement notices.

1. Napster Shuts Down

In 2001, as part of a lawsuit by the RIAA (though the Metallica one was far more publicized), Napster was forced to close their doors, after an injunction was filed against them. The lawsuit, which began in 1999, marked the beginning of the public’s awareness of copyright issues on the Web, the shutdown, marked the beginning of the copyright fight.

Though Napster itself would be reincarnated many times, including most recently as a legitimate music service that was purchased by Best Buy, its mark as the first widely-known file sharing network, and first such closure, remains with us today.

Almost any story on this list or that took place in the 2000s can be traced back to this one incident. Its closure paved the way for the slew of file sharing services that came after it, including The Pirate Bay, as well as the new file sharing technologies that have replaced it, including bittorrent.

In many ways, this moment defined the decade.

Honorable Mentions

Really fast, here are a few stories I seriously considered for inclusion but decided against for one reason or another:

1. Radiohead and Trent Reznor Give Away Music – Could be the beginning of new business models for music.
2. Remote DVR Ruled Legal – Cablevision wins its fight to remotely host DVR content.
3. iTunes Store Launches – Another critical business element.
4. DRM Debacles/Death of DRM -Many stories to choose from.
5. Many, Many More…

Bottom Line

The 2000s were a very busy decade for copyright news. The Web grew up a lot during the decade but copyright issues played a very critical role in many of the growing pains it encountered along the way.

My hope for the 10s is that it can be the decade where we stop the fighting and start working on solutions, where copyright holders, users and intermediaries work together to create sustainable business models for the new digital world.

Though it has been an ugly decade for the copyright wars, with the battle lines drawn, it may be easier to start negotiating and finding common ground. It’s obvious that this is an emotional issue that affects people personally and financially very deeply, that makes it all the more important we treat these issues with respect and work with one another to find good answers.

There is no magic bullet, any solution will need a combination of law, technology and business savvy to make it work, but if we are willing to work with one another, it can happen.

It is Monday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

It was a busy week for copyright news last week as copyright holders, courts and judges begin to wind down for the year and clean off their plates for the holidays and the new year. However, not all of the action was in the courtroom, with plenty going on in Congress and even a really good blog storm.

All in all, there were thirteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our “Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Apple Gets Injunction vs. Psystar
• Plurk Accuses Microsoft of Plagiarism
• Electronics Makers Sued Over GPL Violations
• Vimeo is Sued by EMI over Lip Dubs
• George Lucas Had One Very Frustrating Day
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

1: Game Over for Mac Clone Maker Psystar

First off today, Mac clone maker Psystar has now been given a permanent injunction against selling computers with Apple’s OSX operating system pre-installed, finalizing a temporary one handed down earlier and putting an end to this case, or at least this element of it.

Psystar was sued for making and selling “hackintosh” systems that included OSX but were not official Apple products, something Apple’s license with OSX prohibits. The two had reached a partial settlement more recently where Psystar agreed to stop selling computers with OSX preinstalled but, with this injunction filed, it appears the issue was moot.

However, the case is not totally resolved. Psystar still distributes a product called Rebel EFI that customers can use to install OSX on their computer. It is unclear if this is covered by the injunction, the judge, however, indicated that Psystar is in a gray area with it saying that “Whether Rebel EFI violates the terms of the injunction set forth in this order is a factual issue more appropriate for a contempt action.”

Psystar had stopped selling computers with OSX sometime earlier this month, switching instead to selling plain systems with Rebel EFI. Psystar, however still has until December 31 to comply with the order.

2: Vimeo Accused Of Copyright Infringement For Encouraging Lip Dubs

Video-sharing site Vimeo is on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the record label EMI, which accuses the site of encouraging users to make “lip dub” videos where they pretend to sing popular songs, including those by EMI artists. EMI alleges that Vimeo not only hosts the lip dub videos, but encourages and instructs its users on how to make them.

The legal issues are murky in this case. Though safe harbor protection normally prevents sites such as Vimeo from being held responsible for infringement by users, if it can be showed they had “actual knowledge” of the infringement, they can lose those protections. Likewise, the Grokster ruling says that companies who “induce” infringement can be held liable.

However, there is also an issue as to whether or not lip dub videos are infringing or are a fair use.

Vimeo has not responded but you can rest assured I will be following this lawsuit very carefully.

3: FBI Makes Arrest in ‘Wolverine’ Uploading Case

Finally today, the FBI, after a lengthy investigation, has made an arrest in the leak of the latest Wolverine movie, which was leaked onto file sharing networks and viewed some 4.1 million times before reaching theaters.

Gilberto Sanchez, from Bronx, NY, was arrested Wednesday morning. An unsealed grand jury indictment accuses Sanchez of uploading the video to the site Megaupload under the names “theSkilled1″ and “SkillyGilly” but it is unclear how he obtained a copy of the film and if he was the source of the leak.

If convicted, Sanchez faces up to three years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 or two times the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater.

Wolverine went on to do very well at the box office, grossing almost $375 million in ticket sales. Fox, the studio behind the film, has expressed support for the actions of the FBI and the FBI Los Angeles field office, which is leading the investigation, has not ruled out more arrests.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

It is Monday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

After two weeks off for the holidays we’re now back with a full slate of copyright news, in particular news about Mininova, Psystar and Google Book Search. In addition to those tales, we have two stories revolving around the “Twilight” series and several stories from the international front, including impending legislation in the UK and Spain.

All in all, there were thirteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our “Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Mininova Goes “Legit”
• Apple and Psystar Reach a Partial Settlement
• Court Refuses to Shut Down OpenBittorrent
• “Twilight” Author Sees Plagiarism Suit Dismissed
• Are Musician Royalty Statements Fantasy?
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

Got any suggestions for the 3 Count. Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Apple, Psystar Strike Deal in Copyright Case

First off today, court rivals Apple and Psystar have reached a partial settlement in their battle. Psystar, a computer maker, had been selling “Hackintosh” computers with Apple’s OSX preinstalled on them in violation of Apple’s license, which limits OSX only to Apple computers. Apple sued Psystar and, even though the company only used legitimately purchased copies of OSX, was successful in at least one case as the court found Psystar liable for violating the license and the DMCA due to their circumvention of Apple’s copy protection.

The two sides have reached a partial agreement in their suit. Psystar has agreed to stop preinstalling OSX on their computers and pay an undisclosed amount of damages once appeals are exhausted. This follows a request for an injunction against Psystar that would shutter the company completely and order them to pay $2.1 million in damages.

However, this isn’t the end for Psystar nor their selling of computers with OSX as an option. Psystar has hinted in court filings that they are shifting the responsibility of installing OSX from themselves to the user and are now looking to bundle Rebel RFI, a $50 utility the company made, to help users install OSX on their Psystar-purchased machines.

No word yet on where Apple will stand on that, but it seems unlikely that Apple will agree to allow that to continue either, possibly adding yet another lawsuit to the list in the Apple/Psystar war.

2: Mininova Limits its Activities to Content Distribution Service

Next up today, Bittorrent tracker Mininova, second in popularity only to The Pirate Bay, has pulled all infringing torrents off its site and limited its sharing activity to its Content Distribution Service (CDS), thus ending its reign as a pirate haven.

This follows a decision in a Dutch court that prohibited Mininova from hosting torrents for certain titles or similar works. After testing several filtering systems, Mininova has decided that the only way to completely comply is to remove all non-CDS torrents from the site.

Mininova’s CDS system was started in 2007 as a way for producers to quickly distribute their files over the network and has been used by filmmakers and bands alike to distribute their work for free over the Mininova system.

3: AFACT v iiNet: Epic BitTorrent Copyright Case Concludes

Finally today, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and local ISP iiNet have concluded their case. The two sides presented closing arguments last week and have turned the case over to the judge, who is expected to rule some time next month.

The case began after AFACT attempted to have iiNet send notices of copyright infringement to some of its subscribers that AFACT accused of illegally downloading content. iiNet refused, citing several Australian laws that protect them, prompting AFACT to sue.

The case, if ruled in favor of AFACT, could cause a major shift in the responsibilities of ISPs in Australia.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

It is Monday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

It was a busy week for copyright news with at least two stories that came in, quite literally, under the wire including important updates on the Google Book Search settlement and an important ruling in the Apple v. Pystar case. We also have updates on Verizon’s sending out copyright notices to its customers, as well as some theories as to why, and much more copyright-related news.

All in all, there were thirteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our “Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Google, Author’s Guild and Publishers Draft New Settlement
• Apple Scores Major Win in Psystar Case
• Shepard Fairey Gets New Attorneys
• RealNetworks Appeals RealDVD Case
• Bon Jovi and the $400 billion Lawsuit
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

1: Germany: Google book deal violates copyright law

First off today, Germany, or more specifically the deputy director general of the Directorate Commercial and Economic Law in Germany’s Justice Ministry, has ruled that the Google Book Search settlement violates copyright law in Germany.

The settlement, which is between Google, book publishers and the Author’s Guild, allows Google to scan and digitize millions of out-of-print but still in copyright books for inclusion in its book search engine and display, in small snippets on its site. Many countries, including Germany, as well as many companies, including Yahoo! and Microsoft, have opposed the deal on copyright and antitrust grounds.

According to the German court, “The decision of this court with respect to this settlement will have the dramatic and long-range effect of creating a new worldwide copyright regime without any input from those who will be greatly impacted — German authors…”

The time frame for participation or rejection of the settlement ends this week.

2: Mac clone maker sues Apple over Snow Leopard

Next up today, beleaguered “hackintosh” maker Psystar has sued Apple again, this time over its new Snow Leopard operating system.

The lawsuit follows a similar direction to the one that Psystar filed over Apple’s previous OSes, claiming that the company is illegally tying it to Apple hardware via both technical measures and its license agreement. Psystar said it believes it activity of selling customer computers with Apple operating systems is legal, but that Apple is trying to thwart its efforts using copyright as a weapon.

Apple famously sued Psystar for its sale of systems using its OS in 2008. That case, along with this, will likely head to a trial in early 2010.

3: Eircom Pirate Bay Blockade Takes Effect

Finally today, Irish ISP Eircom began its blocking of The Pirate Bay yesterday. The ISP had agreed, in an out-of-court settlement following a lawsuit by Irish rightsholder groups, to block access to the bittorrent tracker. Other ISPs in Ireland are fighting the request.

Users who attempt to access The Pirate Bay via Eircom are given a page that states it’s blocks and offers an explanation as to why.

Eircom has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the record industries to attempt to develop and launch a new music buying service by the end of the year.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.