1: BJP, Left threaten to block Copyright Bill

First off today, India’s proposed copyright legislation is already facing a challenge as the BJP and Left parties are threatening to block the bill unless it provides greater protection for the visually impaired. The current bill provides protection for those with physical disabilities to access copyrighted works but those protections do not extend to converting works to digital formats, something the parties would like to see. The parties are concerned that the proposed amendment to the copyright act would deny more than 70 million of access to education and entertainment.

2: Blizzard Sues ‘StarCrack’ Hackers, Promptly Dismisses Suit

Next up today, Blizzard, the company behind both World of Warcraft and Starcraft, filed a suit against John Marshall (A.K.A. “usmc23″) and five other defendants for making “StarCrack” an application that allows playing the StarCraft 2 beta on “rogue” servers. The suit accused the defendants of circumventing protection technology and trafficking in circumvention tools. However, a week later, with no given reason, the suit was dropped. No word if Blizzard plans on refiling the lawsuit at a later date.

3: Newspaper Enlists Startup To Police Web For Copyright Violations

Finally today, a startup named Righthaven has filed suit against five websites, including the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) accusing them of lifting articles from the Las Vegas Review Journal. Both Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review Journal are owned by the same company, Stephens Media, and Righthaven claims to have obtained the rights via that means. Other sites being sued include, according to the article, “blogger Matt Farnham, gambling site MajorWager.com and the company MoneyReign, which allegedly runs the site casinoreign.com.” Righthaven has indicated that more lawsuits are on the way.

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 6 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.

However, there are a lot of other great copyright stories including several candidates for “Weird Story of the Week”.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.