Monthly Archives: May 2011

Anonymous Targets … This Site?

Terry Hart • May 31, 2011 • Posted in Site • Comments closed

On Friday, this site was the target of a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) by a group operating under the umbrella of Anonymous. I first became aware of the attack through a tweet, and a look at my server logs confirmed it. The attack was apparently a part of an operation to protest the [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 05/27/11

Terry Hart • May 27, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Tattoo Copyright — The lawsuit involving the tattoo in the Hangover 2 has generated considerable attention. Though the players involved and the medium of fixation amount for a good deal of the interest, I seem to think the actual legal issues involved are fairly mundane. Marisa Kakoulas, lawyer and self-proclaimed ‘tattoo nerd’, has one of [...]

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Responding to Sellars: Copyright and Content-based Regulations

Terry Hart • May 26, 2011 • Posted in Copyright Criticism • Comments closed

Last week, Andy Sellars responded to a post I had made about the free speech critique of copyright mistake, where I provided his statement that “Copyright itself is a content-based form of regulation: it determines the legality or illegality of speech on the basis of how the speech is expressed,” as an example of why [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 05/20/11

Terry Hart • May 20, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Copyright is Not Dead — Though maybe it will be after tomorrow, what with the world ending and all. Anthony Accardo pens an excellent editorial over at Harvard Business Review. “It would be much easier for content owners to explore innovative suggestions about pricing, distributing free content for promotion, and using distribution technologies such as [...]

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PROTECT IP Act

Terry Hart • May 19, 2011 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

A good bill just got better. On May 12, Senator Patrick Leahy and other Senate Judiciary Committee members introduced the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP Act). The text of the bill is available here. The bill is designed to advance two goals: enhancing the enforcement [...]

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The Free Speech Critique of Copyright Mistake

Terry Hart • May 17, 2011 • Posted in Copyright Criticism • Comments closed

Did you hear that Florida just outlawed sex? This was pointed out by Southern Fried Scientist, after reading of a Florida bill that prohibits “knowing sexual conduct or sexual contact with an animal.” Humans are, after all, animals, so by definition, Florida has just made normal sexual relations a crime. Obviously, that’s not what happened. As [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 05/13/11

Terry Hart • May 13, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Content and Technology is not an Either/or Choice — The Copyright Alliance disputes the framing of efforts to better protect IP rights as a choice betweencopyright and innovation. “The copyright community and the technology sector drive and sustain each other.  They each contribute disproportionately to the wealth of this nation, and both sectors depend on a [...]

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UMG Recordings v. Veoh Networks

Terry Hart • May 12, 2011 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

In the world of current lawsuits dealing with the future of the DMCA, the Viacom and YouTube appeal in the 2nd Circuit may win a popularity contest, but the UMG and Veoh appeal in the 9th will cross the finish line first. The similarities between the two cases are striking. Like YouTube, Veoh had operated [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 5/06/11

Terry Hart • May 6, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

As Trial Begins, Early Results Don’t Look Good for Limewire — This week, record labels and the P2P software company went in front of the jury. Limewire had already been found liable for copyright infringement last year; the trial is focused solely on the amount of damages it is liable for. Courthouse News Service offers [...]

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Who Benefits from Copyright?

Terry Hart • May 5, 2011 • Posted in Copyright Criticism • Comments closed

One of the recurring themes seen in some criticisms of copyright law is that it is weighted too strongly in favor of creators and copyright owners, with the public good taking a back seat. A couple of recent online posts provide examples of this argument. The first is from politician and Swedish Pirate Party founder [...]

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