Items tagged with Copyright
The fight against illegal file sharing sites took a trip to France to this week as the alleged men in charge of one of France's most popular file sharing links forums have all been arrested. The three men accused of copyright shenanigans ran a site known as Liberty Land, which has been in operation since 2009 and was...
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In early 2010, a brand-new company named Righthaven began cutting deals with newspapers by promising to safeguard their content online. Said protection consists of suing anyone and everything for so-called copyright infringement, even in situations where no sane judge would rule infringement had taken place. Now the tables have turned; Righthaven...
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Here's a silly one to get you smiling on a Saturday. YouTube and parent company Google has been toughening up their copyright laws lately, and if you violate them, you'll now be required to attend "copyright school" and pass a test afterwards before any additional uploads are allowed. It may sound comedic and...
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The British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) released figures for music sales in 2010, sparking a debate over whether or not piracy is playing a role, or at least a significant one. According to BPI, combined 2010 digital and physical album sales declined 7 percent overall in volume to 119.9 million. This, the organization says, is due to illegal...
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Limewire users are going to have to find another way to pirate music and movies download and share legal copies of software, such as Linux distributions and game demos, as well as freely available indie music, because the peer-to-peer service is going belly up by the end of the year. "As a result of our current legal situation, we have no...
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Windows Phone 7 handsets have been out for a few weeks here in the U.S. and now, Fengtao Software wants you to know its DVDFab software supports Windows Phone 7 compatible formats. This means you'll be able to use the company's DVD and Blu-ray ripping tools, DVD Ripper and Blu-ray Ripper, to remove known DVD and Blu-ray protections and rip...
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In the United States, discussions of copyright protection and infringement inevitably revolve around the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. Since it passed twelve years ago, the DMCA has become the weapon of choice for US companies seeking to fairly protect their property as well as institutions attempting to unfairly silence criticism...
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Judge Leonard Davis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, ruled Tuesday that Microsoft can no longer sell Microsoft Word in the United States due to patent infringement. One can imagine Bill Gates having to pick himself off the floor after reading that ruling. Indeed, the ubiquitous software that you probably use every...
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We’re sure many of you have suggestions for how we could change the copyright laws, patent system, and privacy rules in this country. However, we’re guessing not many of you have acted upon it. The Pirate Party in Sweden is doing just that, and they’re gaining some serious support in the process. Heading into the 2009 European Parliament elections,...
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A story in the New York Times had the blogosphere up in arms, but Microsoft indicates we shouldn't believe it. The Times said that Microsoft is working to implement an anti-piracy filter into its Zune media players, which would prevent playback of unauthorized videos.In fact, J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal,...
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Heck, if you're going to write malware, you might as well protect yourself against piracy, and copyright it, right?Professional virus writers are now selling a suite of software on the Internet with an unusual attachment: a detailed licensing agreement that promises penalties for redistributing the malicious code without permission."I just...
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Everyone keeps telling me how smart Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Fresh on the heels of his disastrous foray into datamining with Facebook's Beacon service, he seems to be unclear on the concept of copyright infringement. Hasbro and Mattel, owners of the copyright for the Scrabble word game,...
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Federal financial aid is always an arm-twisting manuever used against colleges, and this is no different. Colleges must, according to Congress, make more of an effort to police their students, or face the "music" (pun intended).New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also "alternatives"...
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Microsoft and Google have been locked together in a corporate struggle of titanic proportions for the past few years, one from which a clear victor has yet to emerge. The battle sprawls from search engines, to office suites, and now the video services are becoming the new focal point of the conflict.On the Google side of the line is the reigning...
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Google has recently announced plans to employ advanced copyright protection technology to thwart unauthorized video posts on YouTube. The company expects to have the filtering software up and running by September. Beck assures us that Google’s new defensive software is as advanced as FBI fingerprinting technology. “The software will enable...
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Google has finally started detailing the specific details of their plan to filter copyrighted material from their video service, YouTube. Hopefully this will appease media giants such as Viacom, who have filed suit against Google.The plan will take effect in September, and will use digital video fingerprinting to help ID copyrighted material....
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