San Francisco, April 7, 2011 -- When Hollywood's largest movie studios launched a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Silicon Valley DVD-streaming startup Zediva earlier this week, it looked as they would likely squash the company like a bug. Keep Reading
Investors in internet movie-streaming startup Zediva initially worried about how net neutrality rules could affect its future as a business, but ultimately it's copyright law that might do it in, and doom it as a business model.
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SAN FRANCISCO, March 29, 2011 -- Amazon.com on Tuesday launched a new 'cyberlocker' service that allows music lovers and owners to remotely access their music collections on any device of their choosing. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, March 22, 2011 -- A federal judge in New York City has rejected the expansive amended settlement agreement between Google, U.S. authors and publishers more than a year after the court heard from a wide variety of interested parties in hearings on the fairness of the settlement of a class action lawsuit. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 -- The U.S. Senate on Thursday rebuffed an effort by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. that would have eviscerated the current push to switch the United States' method of awarding patents to one that is in line with the rest of the world's. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, March 1, 2011 -- Top Obama administration officials moved to assuage American inventors' fears Tuesday that a fundamental change being sought in the nation's patent system won't put them at a disadvantage . Keep Reading
Late into the night at the end of November, a text message woke up Waleed A. Gad El Kareem, an open-source web developer in Alexandria, Egypt. The 31-year-old developer had set up an alert to tell him whenever his site Torrent-Finder.com was inaccessible online. "I waited for it to come back, and it didn’t so I called [domain name provider] GoDaddy," he recalled in an interview. "They had no idea about it." Keep Reading
For all of the tough talk coming out of Congress as the United States and China embark on a high profile trade summit today, a confidential memo sent by U.S. Ambassador Jon M. Huntsman at the beginning of 2010 illustrates how the fortunes of the two countries have changed in modern times, and how the leadership of the United States is scrambling for innovative ways to readjust as its economic clout fades. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, November 18th, 2010 -- The U.S. Senate's latest battle plan against intellectual property piracy online could gain traction and be approved by the body's Judiciary Committee Thursday, but a large group of the internet's founding architects are warning that the plan's technical approach would wreak havoc and destabilize the global network. Keep Reading
San Francisco, October 25th, 2010 -- Cablevision Systems on Monday accused Fox Television parent News Corp of violating federal regulations that govern the terms of negotiations underlying business agreements between video distributors and broadcasters. The move sets the stage for a potential intervention by the Federal Communications Commission, or failing that, legislative action in Congress. Keep Reading
The interim chief of the Motion Picture Association of America on Thursday urged lawmakers in Japan to enact new legislation that would mandate the disconnection of illegal file-sharers from their internet connections after being warned about their activities several times. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, October 19th, 2010 -- Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) on Tuesday prodded Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski to take action in the business dispute between Fox Television and Cablevision when he sent over draft legislation that would change the way cable companies and broadcasters arrive at carriage agreements. Keep Reading
As the landmark dispute over retransmission consent fees between Fox and Cablevision threatens to drag on through Tuesday, New York area baseball fans who are also Cablevision subscribers are scrambling to make alternative plans to view or hear the game. One ostensibly legal option they have is to view the Tuesday game between the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies on a new internet television service that retransmits broadcasters' signals over the internet. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, October 14, 2010 -- As expected, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday ordered cable companies to make their programming more accessible to device manufacturers so that consumers have more reasons to buy innovative gadgets that can more seamlessly access cable television programming and content on the web. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, October 5, 2010 -- Global trade negotiators on Tuesday released what they're calling the final draft of a anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that also addresses enforcement measures against intellectual property violations in the digital environment. Keep Reading
San Francisco, September 29, 2010 -- A legislative proposal to allow the US' top cop to seize the web addresses of sites that authorities deem are dedicated to pirating intellectual property bears a remarkable resemblance to a crackdown currently underway in China against online pirates. A bipartisan group of 10 U.S. senators last week introduced legislation that would enable the U.S. Justice Department to render inaccessible Web sites judged to be dedicated to intellectual property infringement. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 28, 2010 — A U.S. rate-setting court’s formula for establishing the fees that Yahoo! and RealNetworks must pay the nation’s dominant music licensing group is fundamentally flawed because it uses inconsistent data sets and because the benchmarks it uses aren’t relevant or comparable, said a U.S. appeals court Tuesday. “The district court… Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21, 2010 -- A bipartisan group of 10 US senators on Monday introduced legislation that would enable the US Justice Department to render inaccessible Web sites judged to be dedicated to intellectual property infringement. The legislation would enable Justice to seek a preliminary injunction against domain name registrars, which would have to suspend access to the domains hosting infringing material, or that are trafficking in infringing material. The legislation would require the US attorney general to notify the federal intellectual property enforcement co-coordinator of the injunctions, and the coordinator would in turn be required to post the names of the suspended sites on a public web site. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 13, 2010 — The U.S. top policy chief in charge of steering and influencing the nation's positions on copyright issues is to retire by the end of the year, the copyright office announced Monday. Marybeth Peters became Register in 1994, which the copyright office said is the second-longest term served by anyone other than the first Register ever Thorvald Solberg. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2010 -- Microsoft on Monday reacted swiftly to a New York Times report that law enforcement authorities are abusing the company's anti-piracy campaign to squelch dissent by unilaterally issuing free licenses to non-profits operating around the world. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 13, 2010 - Back in 2000, Public Enemy's Chuck D proclaimed on Charlie Rose that file-sharing heralded a new era in the music business. "The power is going back to the people," he said. Chuck D was debating Metallica's drummer Lars Ullrich, whose band had filed a lawsuit against Napster. Ullrich told Rose that his main concern was one of control. Fans can't just loot music online, he argued, and besides, file-sharing is wrong because it enriches everyone involved except for the artists themselves. Metallica ultimately settled. But a decade later, Chuck D and Public Enemy are still struggling to build a viable business model out of the "power to the people" motto. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 10, 2010 -- A federal appeals court ruling on Friday could eventually end the huge secondary market that has bloomed online in used books, software, and other forms of media both physical and digital when it said a software company can use its licenses to control the re-sale of their products. The panel of three judges for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously decided that Autodesk's software license trumped the "first sale" doctrine encapsulated in federal law. This appears to give companies more leeway to license more of their products rather than simply selling them and giving up control. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 10, 2010 - The body responsible for managing the world's domain name system named seven new individuals to leadership positions earlier this week. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 9, 2010 -- The European Union might drop out of a global intellectual property enforcement agreement between the United States, Japan and other countries because of too many compromises in the two most recent rounds of negotiations, said the European Union's Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 7, 2010 - U2's band manager Paul McGuinness has once again lit up the debate over who and what's responsible for the decline of the music industry. In the August edition of British GQ, McGuinness declares: "I am convinced that ISPs are not going to help the music and film industry voluntarily. Some things have got to come with the force of legislation." Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 7, 2010 - International trade negotiators have dropped a controversial secondary liability provision regarding online copyright infringement, but still appear to be haggling over the anti-circumvention provisions, a leaked copy of an August version of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement shows. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 3, 2010 -- A widely-circulated report about fake online copyright infringement e-mail notifications from French authorities demanding the payment of fines looks as if it is actually part of an underground misinformation campaign designed to sow confusion, says a US security researcher who looked into the issue for Broadbandbreakfast.com. The "news" about the French phishing scam appears to have originated from an audience member's question in a recent web chat at French financial newspaper site La Tribune with Eric Walter, the general secretary of the French online copyright enforcement agency HADOPI. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, September 2, 2010 - U.S. trade negotiators participating in talks with their European, Japanese and other other global counterparts blocked the online publication of the latest draft of a controversial anti-counterfeiting and piracy agreement after the latest round of meetings this August, according to a report from a European Union policy foundation. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, August 11, 2010 - One of the more unfortunate pop-cultural legacies of Ted Stevens as far as telecommunications policy is concerned is his 2006 comment that the internet is like "a series of tubes." Keep Reading
By all accounts, online piracy of software, movies, and music is on the upswing and becoming ever more sophisticated, but that doesn’t daunt Steven Tepp. Tepp has just joined the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC as its first senior director for internet piracy and counterfeiting. His job will be to lead the Chamber’s efforts to battle the phenomena on behalf of its members. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2010 - iPhone owners can now add applications not approved by Apple, but whether Apple will support jailbroken iPhones is another story. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2010 - The US Copyright Office on Monday addressed many of the longstanding criticisms of a digital-era copyright law when it granted all of the exemptions to the law (under certain circumstances) requested by a flagship digital rights group. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, July 2, 2010 -- US trade representatives say they made progress this week in building consensus on key provisions of a new international intellectual property enforcement agreement -- but not enough to share with the rest of the world. “There was no consensus to release another text," said Nefeterius Akeli McPherson, a USTR spokeswoman in an e-mailed note about this week's discussions over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Lucerne, Switzerland. "There was not sufficient progress at this round to make release of new text meaningful. The issues under discussion are still well reflected in the text that is public now. We hope to make more progress at the next round.” Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, July 1, 2010 --The office of the United States Trade Representative said Thursday that its negotiators had "made progress in building consensus," over specific provisions in a controversial global intellectual property agreement -- but it's unlikely that whatever consensus they reached will be welcomed by all back at home. Keep Reading
A copyright holder can't just randomly rummage around an internet service provider's logs of its customers' online activities in pursuit of those too cheap to pay for their entertainment a group of public interest lawyers are scheduled to argue Wednesday in a D.C. court. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2010 - The office of the United States Trade Representative is standing firm as its negotiators head into a set of week-long negotiations over the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Lucerne, Switzerland. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, June 28, 2010 - Patents are deemed by executives at software and internet start-ups as the least important way of boosting competitive advantage, according to a forthcoming survey of more than a thousand companies by the University of California's Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, June 23, 2010 — YouTube scored a major victory in a bitterly-fought, billion dollar copyright infringement lawsuit Wednesday brought by media giant Viacom when a federal district court judge in Manhattan said that a 1998 law shields YouTube from liability. Keep Reading
SAN FRANCISCO, June, 23, 2010 - A White House official in charge of coordinating the US government's enforcement of intellectual property rights on Tuesday pledged openness in the face of mounting criticism that the Obama administration is engaging in a secretive negotiating process with some of its trading partners as they discuss ways to more strictly enforce those rights both online and at their borders. Keep Reading
WASHINGTON, June 11, 2010 - If you missed Broadbandbreakfast.com's panel session on retransmission consent fees, here's your chance to catch up and re-examine the issues in a complex debate that's been controversial since the enactment of the regime in the 1992 Cable Act. Keep Reading