Starting the Conversation on Copyright Issues in a Digital Age — Yesterday, the Department of Commerce held a public meeting to discuss issues it raised in last July’s green paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy. I have a full write up on the panels at the Copyright Alliance site with links to archived video of the event and additional background materials.
Hurd at Content Protection Summit: Google, Corporations Can Help Stop Piracy — Walking Dead Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd said Google and major brands could do more to minimize filesharing and ad-sponsored piracy at a recent event. Said Hurd, “I don’t buy into the philosophy that piracy helps [the business] … It creates a habit and I don’t think it’s something we should encourage.”
Oral Argument in Oracle v. Google: A Setback for Google? — Lee Gessmer has another excellent post covering the appeal in Oracle v. Google. Though it’s rarely wise to predict case outcomes from oral arguments, the judge’s questions did suggest vulnerabilities in Google’s arguments.
MPAA Studios Sent 25 Million DMCAs in Six Months, Only Eight Were Contested — Torrentfreak picks up on a interesting statistic from Bruce Boyden’s recent DMCA paper released by the Center for Protection of Intellectual Property: the Motion Picture Association of America only received 8 counter-notices from the 25 million takedown notices it sent in the past six months. This suggests a nearly 100% accuracy rate.
Review of streaming TV issue urged — SCOTUSBlog reports on Aereo’s rebuttal to the broadcaster’s cert petition, which somewhat unusually urges the Court to review the case even though Aereo won at the Second Circuit. Broadcasters have 10 days to file a reply brief, at which point the Court will consider the petition at its next conference, though that is not likely to be until January due to the holidays.
Silicon Valley Kings Write Half-Assed Outrage Letter to NSA — “It only took half a year for the un-beating heart of America’s tech sector to show any unified opposition to NSA dragnet techniques: ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com is a lazy piece of PR dreck—and about as transparently self-serving as it gets. Of course, companies like Google and AOL—which stay in existence by trading in private information—don’t want competition.”
Legal Theory Lexicon: Consent — A longer version of “permission is a foundation of a free civilization.”
You forgot to mention that HotFile was shutdown and will pay the MPAA $80 Million USD (Fung/IsoHunt has to pay $110 Million). The lawyers for the plaintiffs must have received my computer science brief. Warner Brothers owes me for this—–to see that studio have to defend themselves because of inadequate DMCA Takedown Notices was ridiculous. Not now.
But how much have the credit cards stolen with fees from these sites as financial facilitators, how many lost work, how many businesses folded, how many works that could have made millions ended up making nothing, how many now can’t sell material objects because the competitor were digital copies of material objects? It is catastrophic. How many sites still exist? Why is Google/YouTube with Mozilla (as a goon squad) getting away with this with media like Bloomberg “spike the stories” News still silent?