By , October 11, 2013.

Hood hits Google on guarding intellectual property — Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood continues to work on behalf of creators. His latest efforts concern gaining support from other state attorneys general to solicit greater cooperation from internet giant Google in helping curb infringement.

Samsung Exposed as Top Advertiser on Pirate Sites — Similar to some efforts in the U.S., a group of media companies in Ukraine have started a “Clear Sky” initiative that aims to find solutions to online infringement. One of their first campaigns has been to measure major brand advertising on several popular filesharing sites, and the resulting list has consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung firmly at the top.

The Supreme Court’s New Copyright Case Is Not a Copyright Case — Though arising out of a copyright infringement action, the issue in front of the Supreme Court in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (granted cert last week) actually concerns the equitable doctrine of laches, sort of a common law version of a statute of limitations.

Internet Exploitation, Not Just a Problem For Artists — This post from UK mastering engineer Nick Lewis looks at some of the fallout that an non-sustainable creative ecosystem has beyond the “front-line” creators. “The free market theory is that competition will drive price down, which is good for the consumer. Adam Smith couldn’t possibly have predicted what would happen in the face of intangible, easily copyable assets and hyper-globalisation. The trend towards zero is not good for the consumer in the long-term as the quality of product degrades or disappears altogether along with the skills and supportive infrastructure that go into it.”

The soul of a new machine: Gawker struggles with the slippery slope between viral and true — “If you tell the truth, people might not share it.” If freedom of speech is valued so highly because of it’s truth-seeking function, then should stories like this raise concern?

Copyright’s Role in a Free Press — Speaking of free expression, last week I discussed at the Copyright Alliance Idea/Expression blog a recent story that looked at how resource intensive high-quality investigative journalism continues to be. I argue that it’s important to keep copyright functioning as a mechanism for funding such efforts.

Photofocus Podcast Interview with Terry Hart — I’d also be remiss if I didn’t link to this Photofocus Podcast where I was invited as a guest last month. The topic was recent changes to Facebook’s terms of service that raised concerns among photographers and other creators regarding what Facebook could do with their images once uploaded.

2 Comments

  1. In response to the Mississippi Attn Gen article:

    “[Google] says it responds to requests from copyright owners to remove illegally copied material.”

    Google is lying. Because Google created a commercial business, one single infringement that takes place because Google exists is negligence. Upload to YouTube in 10 minutes, destroy a copyright in 6 hours, enable every YouTube (and other YouTube like sites) videos to be downloaded (See Mozilla’s Video DownloadHelper), and then assert in US Federal Court that “no[] downloads” occur (see Viacom I), copy 20 Million books without permission and then post up to 78% of the content with appended ads (and even claim that there exists a negligence against the author as okay) (See Authors Guild v. Google III).

    Google is protected by Al Gore (Google board member), Barack Obama, and the Democrats (like Harry Reid). Right when 2007 had the Dems in power of the House and Senate, didn’t copyright theft soar beyond belief? It did. The result, physical objects destroyed. In fact, when there is a current “non-negotiation” going on by Obama (who was re-elected by Google) with the press kissing it, Google and Silicon Valley are in serious trouble.

    Oh yes, and we have an even more serious issue. The NSA. If the secret court (FISA) are appointed Federal judges, and then one or more rule in favor of Google in public cases in which it could disrupt the NSA by not knowing the secret case, how do [we] know that they can (or cannot) be recused?

    Thanks.

  2. We live in nothing short of a complete kleptocracy.