It is Friday 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 the closure of one of the more important cases in recent copyright history, another potentially coming to a head and several pieces of big news from the UK and all of Europe.

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:

• RealNetworks Settles RealDVD Case
• Google v. Viacom Lawsuit Heading For Summary Judgement?
• Newspapers Prepare to Crackdown on Infringement
• Crown Copyright Changes to Creative Commons
• A Way to Get Fined $12,000 While Speeding
• 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: RealNetworks and Movie Studios Settle Lawsuit Over DVD Copying

First off today, in a rather stunning turn of events, Real Networks has settled its case with the various movie studios that sued it over its RealDVD product. Under the settlement, Real will pay $4.5 million in costs and attorney fees, will drop its appeal on the injunction against selling the product and will refund customers who had purchased it. RealDVD was a product designed to rip DVDs to consumer’s hard drives but the movie studios sues claiming the product violated their copyright by circumventing their DRM on the DVDs.

2: Lords Force Rethink of Government’s Online Piracy Plans

Next up today, the Digital Economy Bill in Britain is undergoing still more changes as a controversial element which would have allowed ministers to make changes to copyright law without legislation is being dropped in favor of giving courts the ability to demand ISPs block certain sites on the Internet. However, the new proposal is not without its controversy as well.

3: Canadian Throne Speech Says Government Will ‘Strengthen’ Copyright

Finally today, Canada’s government took advantage of its annual Throne Speech to announce that it plans to “strengthen” copyright law within the country, this comes as Bill C-61, which adds DMCA-like elements to Canadian copyright law is being debated and has proved very unpopular among many Canadians.

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.

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

1: RealNetworks Appeals Injunction on RealDVD Sales

First off today, Real, the company most famous for its RealPlayer product, is appealing an injunction that is barring it from selling RealDVD, it’s DVD ripping and storage product that the movie studios have launched a legal campaign to block.

According to the movie studios, RealDVD, which allows users to rip DVDs to their hard drive and then store them for future playback, is a violation of their copyrights as it allows users to break the encryption on the DVD itself. RealDVD, however, countered and said that they did not simply break the encryption, but wrapped the ripped DVD in an encryption of its own.

The judge in the case sided with the movie studios, issuing a restraining order barring the sale of the product, an order that Real is now appealing, claiming that the lower judge used an incorrect standard when deciding to impose the injunction.

In addition to RealDVD, Real is also planning to introduce a standalone DVD player that also stores the DVDs on a hard drive for easier playback.

2: Console Modder’s Appeal Tossed in UK Court

UK citizen Christopher Paul Gilham, convicted in 2008 of modifying various video game consoles to play pirated games, has had his appeal tossed.

The appeal centered around the issue of “whether the playing of a counterfeit DVD involves substantial copying of a copyright work.” This was an issue because Gilham did not actual copy or pirate any games, but rather, simply sold and installed the chips that enabled his customers to play such games.

The court ruled that it was irrelevant whether or not the chip stored any substantial elements of the game in its ram, but rather, it was illegal because it copies some copyrightable elements, such as characters and artwork.

Copyright holders welcomed the decision and the clarification and the ruling will likely make it much more difficult for video game console modders in the UK to make a case that their activity is legal.

3: Don`t Jail Illegal Music Sharers: UN Agency

Finally today, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which is a UN agency, has said that jailing file sharers would be counter-productive to correcting the current copyright climate and that it is imperative that alternatives, such as flat rate download licenses, be discussed seriously.

WIPO also warned that the copyright protection for music was “under the most severe stress” though similar problems could come to movies as connection speeds increase.

Though short on solutions, WIPO was quick to condemn all severe punishments for copyright infringement, including the recent Thomas/Tenenbaum rulings in the US and The Pirate Bay convictions in Sweden.

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 is summer so the copyright news has been a little bit slow but that hasn’t kept us down. We’ve still got a great show for you this week with tons of news from around the world.

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

This week’s stories include:

• RealDVD is in REAL Trouble
• Kalaediscape Too
• The Pirate Bay Sale Gets Exciting
• 10,000 Sued for Pirating Porn in South Korea
• The Superman Universe is Divided, Literally
• 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: Court issues preliminary injunction in RealDVD case; solid victory for studios and DVD CCA

First off today, the movie studios have scored a major win in their fight with Real over the RealDVD product. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who is also the judge that famously shut down Napster, has issued a preliminary injunction that extends the temporary injunction barring Real from selling the product.

RealDVD is a DVD copying application that is intended to rip DVDs to a hard drive for later play back. However, DVDs are protected by an encryption known as CSS, which the DVD Copyright Control Association grants licenses for people to use to build DVD players. According to the DVD CCA and several studios, Real’s use of the CSS encryption to make RealDVD is a violation of the license they were granted and the court has agreed.

Strangely, though it deals with issues revolving around the DMCA anti-circumvention clauses, this case itself is largely a licensing dispute, with Real believing it had the right to create a product like RealDVD, where the DVD is not present at playback, but the movie studios, and the court at this point, disagree. However, this is just a preliminary injunction so the judge could reverse this at trial, however, that is unlikely and it is far more probably that Real will appeal this and try their luck elsewhere first.

2: Pirate Bay sinks under electric storm

Next up today, The Pirate Bay suffered some downtime yesterday leading to speculation that the recent BREIN court ruling in the Netherlands was the cause. However, that appears to not be the case as the site itself is active again and The Pirate Bay has released a statement blaming the outage on a power failure.

The anti-piracy group BREIN successfully sued The Pirate Bay in the Netherlands, at a trial where no representatives from The Pirate Bay were present, and won an order for the site to block access to Dutch users or face daily fines. However, BREIN has said it will not begin demanding those fines until the 27th, when the site is supposed to be sold to Global Gaming Factory.

3: Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars

Finally today, for those who are interested in rational, civilized copyright debate, I highly recommend that you check out William Patry’s new blog, which he created to promote by the same name. He and former recording industry attorney, Ben Sheffner, who writes the equally great Copyrights and Campaigns blog, are having a friendly back and forth on copyright issues.

Easily one of the best debates on copyright issues as it brings together two of the “smartest men in the room” on copyright issues to argue two very different viewpoints. I can not recommend this read highly enough!

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: Pirate Bay Spokesman Peter Sunde Resigns

First off today, Pirate Bay spokesman and one of the four men convicted at The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden earlier this year, Peter Sunde, has announced his retirement from the site. He said that, “I want to build something new and I want to focus my energy in a different direction. I have projects waiting to be finished, a book is waiting to be finalized and many more books are waiting to be read,” as part of his announcement.

Sunde has been perhaps the most famous name associated with The Pirate Bay, has often gone under the name “Brokep” in his postings.

There is no word on who, if anyone, is scheduled to replace him. However, Global Gaming Factory, a Swedish software development company, is still slated to buy the site by the end of the month, though that deal is, according to recent reports, endangered due to lack of financing.

2: DVD-Ripping Appeal Intersects Real’s Ruling

Next up today, in an interesting “chicken and egg” problem for the legal system, two cases involving DVD ripping are set to collide. In 2007, the DVD-CCA, the organization responsibel for the licensing of the DVD CSS encryption technology sued Kaleidescape, the makers of a server that could rip DVDs to a hard drive and play them back. A lower court ruled that Kaleidescape could sell the technology but an appeal was filed and is due any day.

However, in 2008, Real was sued by Hollywood studios, for the creation of a similar product, RealDVD, that would work as software installed on your computer. Though the two cases are different in many ways, the Kaleidescape being a case in the California courts over a contract dispute and the RealDVD one being a copyright lawsuit in Federal court, they hinge on largely the same thing, does the DVD-CCA license allow ripping for the purpose of making a copy to a hard drive?

A ruling in the Kaleidescape is expected any day now and could drastically affect the RealDVD case, likewise, a finding in the RealDVD case against Real could come back to haunt the ongoing Kaleidescape, likely in an appeal to the Supreme Court of California.

it’s a tangled mess to say the least, but an article well worth reading.

3: Cal State Student Faces 10 Year Prison Term for Playing with Video Games

Finally today, Lloyd Crippen, a student at Cal State, has been arrested and faces up to 10 years of jail time for modifying video game consoles, including PS3s, Wiis and Xbox360s to circumvent the copyright protection built in to the systems, allowing them to play pirated games.

Modifying consoles in this manner, is a violation of the Digitial Millennium Copyright Act anti-circumvention provisions. However, it is unlikely he’ll face the full ten year term.

Modifying consoles, or modding, is a fairly common practice in some circles to allow systems to play out of region games, which also would be a violation. However, it appears that Crippen’s efforts were targeted at circumventing copy protection, not region encoding.

Crippen is expected to make his first appearance in court on Monday.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: Pornographic videos flood YouTube

Yesterday, YouTube was raided by members of the 4Chan message boars, who uploaded score of pornographic clips to the site, many of which were labeled as children’s videos and begin with such content before cutting to graphic content. Some of the affected videos were for music groups among kids, including the Jonas Brothers.

Why would a group of people work tirelessly to expose children to pornography? According to at least one poster it was because “YouTube keeps deleting music”. Whether this is the cause for the entire raid, remains to be seen.

Though YouTube worked quickly to remove the videos, thumbnails for many of them lingered long after the videos were pulled down and were available through a variety of searches. As of this writing, YouTube appears to have eliminated the videos for the most part and searches are working normally.

2: At RealDVD hearing, MPAA says copying DVDs never legal

It appears that Real’s claims about about fair use in the RealDVD case might have a new wrinkle. The MPAA has requested an estoppel ruling form the judge in the case that would bar Real from arguing fair use in the case. The reason? Real had argued the exact opposite about ten years ago in a similar case and won on those grounds.

The previous case dealt with Streambox VCR, a product that allowed the downloading and storing of Real’s streaming music and video, saying in part that, “The DMCA does not have a fair use exception allowing individuals to circumvent access and copy protection measures.”

Real, for their part, compared DVDs to CDs, where the copying of the data onto your hard drive (for example, iTunes) is an understood fair use and standard practice.

The judge heard closing arguments on the hearing and did not issue a ruling. That will be handed down at a later date.

3: Wikimedia Foundation to Add Creative Commons License for All Content

Finally today, The Wikimedia Foundation, which includes Wikipedia, has added the Creative Commons BY-SA license to all of their content. Under the current system, existing content will be dual-licensed and new content will be CC-BY-SA licensed only.

The CC license was chosen because of requirements of GFDL, the former license, that made reusing content in Wikipedia difficult. Those requirements included the requirement to copy the full license along with any reuse of the content, which could have hindered many uses of the work.

This change was made possible in November of 2008 when the Free Software Foundation updated the GFDL license to allow double licensing and portability. This decision has not been approved by the board of directors at Wikimedia but was supported by over 75% of all voters in a recent Wikipedia survey.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: Taylor Wessing Global Intellectual Property Index 2009

The law firm Taylor Wessing has released its 2009 Global Intellectual Property Index, which it says “provides an assessment of the best and worst jurisdictions to obtain, exploit, enforce and attack particular types of IP”. The results were not very surprising this year with the United Kingdom taking the top spot, followed by Germany (which moved up one spot) and the United States (which Germany bumped down).

At the bottom of the 24-country list was Brazil, India and China, with China being the worst.

What is most interesting is that most of the countries on the list improved their “rating” since the first study last year, but the United States dropped 11 points, largely due to a “slip” in the patent index. down to 751. Still, that puts it well above China who, despite a 43 point improvement still only had a score of 491. The U.S. is also number one in the copyright index of the study.

2: RealNetworks accuses MPAA of antitrust violations

Next up, the fight between Real and the MPAA has gotten even dirtier as Real has now filed an antitrust complaint against the MPAA. As most probably already know the MPAA sued Real over its RealDVD product, which allowed users to rip DVDs and store them to their hard drives.

According to Real, the MPAA, which is made up of several different studios, conspired to boycott Real after the launch of the RealDVD project, which is currently not available for sale due to a restraining order. The company believes that the MPAA’s members engaed in a “horizontal conspiracy” to blacklist RealNetworks and other Real properties.

Whether this will pan out or not remains to be seen, but others have tried antitrust allegations as part of copyright lawsuits and, typically, have failed. Still, if Real is able to prove a conspiracy, that could change.

3: A Book Author Wonders How to Fight Piracy

Finally today, author Peter Wayner has posted an article on the New York Times site about book piracy and the problems it creates. He feels, as the author of technical textbooks, that the widespread piracy of textbooks has had an overwhelmingly negative impact and cautions that technical books are the “canary” warning other genres since they are typically pirated first.

One interesting point he makes, in a direct attempt to answer Cory Doctorow, is that obscurity is not his enemy. Once his books were pirated, his sales did not go up in any meaningful way. Whether this is unique to him or a broad trend will need more study but it seems to reason that, while piracy may help some authors, for those that write technical books, who are usually obscure even when their books are purchased, it might not.

He also points out that, even as other types of book publishing have seen growth, the tech publishing industry shrank by 8% last year. What exactly this means for books as it relates to piracy remains to be seen.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.

1: French net piracy bill signed off

First off today is the news that everyone has been talking about, the controversial “three strikes” bill passed in France yesterday, passing both houses of the legislature. The bill requires ISPs to disconnect file sharers after they have received three complaints (and been sent two warnings) for copyright infringement.

The bill, which was originally rejected when it was raised earlier, has also been criticized by the EU as a whole, who have refused to back disconnection legislation that does not involve a judge. Other countries will be watching how this law is applied closely as other nations are rumored to be considering similar legislation themselves.

However, most, including the UK, have roundly rejected the idea.

2: RealNetworks continues to develop DVD-copying device

Next up, RealDVD must be very confident in their case against the MPAA over their RealDVD application as the company is continuing to hire engineers for their new DVD player Facet, which rips and stores DVDs on an internal harddrive for easier playback.

RealDVD is a DVD ripping and storage application for computers that functions very similarly to Facet, save that Facet is a device for TVs. However, RealDVD attracted a currently-ongoing lawsuit as the MPAA felt the product was infringing and managed to get a restraining order prohibiting the sale of the product.

The two sides are expected to make closing arguments about lifting the ban later this month.

3: Chrono Trigger fan mod receives Cease-and-Desist letter from Square Enix

Finally today, fans of the Chrono Trigger video games will be very disappointed to know that a fan-made sequel to the game entitled Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes is no more. The game received a cease and desist letter from the makers of Chrono Trigger, Square Enix and the team behind the mod has ceased operations.

What makes this case unusual is that the fan-made mod had been in development since 2004 and was 98% complete according to its makers. Why Square Enix waited until now to file the notice? Where they unaware of the mod until recently or was there some other motive behind waiting until just before the game’s release?

Whatever the reason, the mod is dead now and all that remains are a couple of YouTube clips showing what might have been.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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.