Monthly Archives: September 2011

Friday’s Endnotes – 09/30/11

Terry Hart • September 30, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Make money online by selling pirated content? These sites do — File lockers and linking sites on their own are difficult to hold liable for the rampant infringement they facilitate. But together? “The combination of these two types of sites is like a one-two punch resulting in a knockout. They are both essential for one another [...]

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Polis Seeks to Make Copyright More Complicated and Uncertain

Terry Hart • September 28, 2011 • Posted in Copyright reform • Comments closed

Rep. Jared Polis thinks something must be done about copyright. The freshman second-term Colorado Congressman, who sold his online greeting card company bluemountain.com to Excite@Home for $780 million in 1999, introduced legislation on September 14th that seeks to simplify copyright law regarding sound recordings made before 1972. H.R.2933 — The Sound Recording Simplification Act — is [...]

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Does amateur creativity make copyright obsolete?

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

Techdirt points to a report that Facebook currently hosts 4% of every photograph ever taken in history. Whether that’s an accurate number or not, the social media giant does host a huge amount of photos on its servers. Masnick uses this story to question copyright: What is the real purpose of copyright? Is it only [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 09/23/11

Terry Hart • September 23, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Free speech shouldn’t be a shield for online thieves — Mike McCurry and Mark McKinnon, co-chairmen of Arts+Labs, pen this must read editorial about free speech and copyright. “We are not lukewarm First Amendment advocates. One of us went to jail to protect freedom of the press and the other routinely had to defend this freedom [...]

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Rojadirecta seeks refuge in First Amendment

Terry Hart • September 21, 2011 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

  Puerto 80 Projects has filed its opening brief in its appeal of the Southern District Court of New York’s denial of its petition to release its Rojadirecta domain names — which had been seized by ICE as property used to facilitate criminal copyright infringement — prior to the completion of the civil forfeiture proceeding. [...]

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Sony BMG v Tenenbaum: District Court Erred in Reducing Jury Verdict

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

It’s not about the money. Friday’s First Circuit opinion in Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum is about a lot of things, but what it’s not about — and what will nevertheless get the most attention — is the $675,000 a jury awarded against Joel Tenenbaum for downloading and distributing 30 songs, which the District Court reduced to $67,500, [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 09/16/11

Terry Hart • September 16, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

Senate Judiciary Committee report on PROTECT IP, July 22, 2011: The Committee notes that protecting intellectual property in the form of copyrighted material is not only important to our economy and jobs, but is also important for advancing the goals of the First Amendment. The United States Supreme Court has long held that copyright protection [...]

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Rojadirecta pounds on the table

Terry Hart • September 15, 2011 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

Puerto 80 Projects, the owner of the Rojadirecta domain names seized by the US earlier this year, is currently awaiting the Southern District of New York’s ruling on its motion to dismiss. I took a look at its memorandum of law in support of the motion a few weeks ago. On August 26th, the US filed its own memo [...]

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PROTECT IP: Support for rogue sites legislation continues to grow

Terry Hart • September 13, 2011 • Posted in Copyright news • Comments closed

Last May, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the PROTECT IP Act, which aims to reduce the ability for sites dedicated to infringement to profit from piracy. Now that Congress is back in session, House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith plans to introduce a House version of the bill. In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee released [...]

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Friday’s Endnotes – 09/09/11

Terry Hart • September 9, 2011 • Posted in Friday's Endnotes • Comments closed

The 2011 Music-Sales Boost, By the Numbers — Billboard reports some good news: music sales are up in 2011. Nielsen presented the numbers at a NARM-sponsored webinar and looked at possible causes. One of them: the shutdown of LimeWire late last year. “The spike in sales was immediate, noticeable and lasting.” Great Digital Expectations — The Economist [...]


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