3 Count: Legislation Beta

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1: U.S. To Introduce Draconian Anti-Piracy Censorship Bill

First off today, the U.S. is gearing up to introduce new copyright legislation. Known as The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP Act), the bill is a revamped version of the COICA legislation, which failed to pass Congress last year. The bill would not only enable domain seizures, as with COICA, but would also enable the Department of Justice to order search engines and ISPs to block certain domains and order payment processors to stop the flow of money. The legislation, due to be introduced shortly, is bound to be controversial but it is unclear what the prospects for it are at this time.

2: It’s official: Google Unveils Cloud Music Player

Next up today, Google is following in Amazon’s footsteps and has launched a cloud music player of its own. Named Music Beta, Google’s new player will let you upload your music to the cloud and play it on a variety of devices, including Android phones. Google had been in negotiations with the record labels for well over a year but has decided to launch the player without their permission, also the same as Amazon. Initially Music Beta will be an invite-only product, similar to Gmail in its early days, and the first invites are expected to go out today.

3: Twitpic Says Sorry for Copyright Confusion

Finally today, Twitpic, the popular photo sharing service for Twitter, found itself in a copyright scrape as it modified its terms of service, briefly, that would have prevented uploaders from reselling or distributing the images they upload. TwitPic has since apologized for the change and has re-drafted its terms to “clarify” the issue. TwitPic’s terms are now more standard and in line with what other services use when ensuring they have the rights to display and host content online.

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.

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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.

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