Archive for the ‘Copyright’ Category
Controversial copyright law rejected by EU parliament
A controversial overhaul of the EU’s copyright law that sparked a fierce debate between internet giants and content creators has been rejected. The proposed rules would have put more responsibility on websites to check for copyright infringements, and forced platforms to pay for linking to news. A slew of high-profile music stars had backed the […]
EU breaks internet, starts wholesale censorship for rich man copyright holders
The problems are huge, not least because the EU will implement an automated content filter, which means that memes will die, but also, if you have the money to spam the system with requests, you can basically kill any content you want with the actual content holder only having a marginal chance of navigating EU […]
EU Copyright law could put end to net memes
Memes, remixes and other user-generated content could disappear online if the EU’s proposed rules on copyright become law, warn experts. Digital rights groups are campaigning against the Copyright Directive, which the European Parliament will vote on later this month. The legislation aims to protect rights-holders in the internet age. But critics say it misunderstands the […]
You can now use your Netflix subscription anywhere in the EU
‘This content is not available in your country’ – a damn annoying message, especially when you’re paying for it. But a new EU regulation means you can now access Netflix, Amazon Prime and other services from any country in Europe, marking an end to boring evenings in hotels watching BBC World News. The European Commission’s […]
Uzi Nissan Spent 8 Years Fighting The Car Company With His Name. He Nearly Lost Everything To Win. The legal system doesn’t work very well if you have no money.
Nissan the car company never really cared who Uzi Nissan was. Then it decided he had something it wanted very much—the website www.nissan.com, which he created for his small retail computer business in 1994—and it sued him for $10 million. When the two Nissans went to war, Uzi Nissan prevailed in the end, but lost […]
Mpeg-2 now patentfree!
This is the list of patents (Attachment 1) covered by the MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License as of January 1, 2018. Under the MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License, royalties are payable for products manufactured or sold in countries with an active MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio Patent at the time of manufacture or sale. Please note that the last […]
Danish man convicted of promoting illegal film service
A Danish man has become the first European to be convicted of taking part in the promotion of an illegal online film site.The 39-year-old man was handed a six-month suspended sentence by an Odense court for promoting the illegal online film streaming service Popcorn Time via his website popcorntime.dk. […] More specifically, the man was […]
The Man from Earth Sequel ‘Pirated’ on The Pirate Bay – By Its Creators
More than a decade ago, Hollywood was struggling to get to grips with the file-sharing phenomenon. Sharing via BitTorrent was painted as a disease that could kill the movie industry, if it was allowed to take hold. Tough action was the only way to defeat it, the suits concluded. In 2007, however, a most unusual […]
Man’s YouTube Video of White Noise Hit With Five Copyright Claims
On Thursday, Tomczak tweeted a screenshot of the complaints that have been lodged against his video, “10 Hours of Low Level White Noise.” The clip is exactly what its title advertises, and the absurdity of someone claiming ownership of a bunch of frequencies with equal intensity playing simultaneously—that’s all white noise is—clearly illustrates just how […]
Gamers Want DMCA Exemption for ‘Abandoned’ Online Games
Several organizations and gaming fans are asking the Copyright Office to make a DMCA circumvention exemption for abandoned online games, to preserve them for future generations. The exemption would allow museums and libraries to offer copies of abandoned online servers, so these games won’t turn to dust. The U.S. Copyright Office is considering whether or […]
EU Paid For Report That Said Piracy Isn’t Harmful — And Tried To Hide Findings
According to Julia Reda’s blog, the only Pirate in the EU Parliament, the European Commission in 2014 paid the Dutch consulting firm Ecorys 360,000 euros (about $428,000) to research the effect piracy had on sales of copyrighted content. The final report was finished in May 2015, but was never published because the report concluded that […]
Holdout ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL forced to censor the web by high court in the name of – money!
The courts in the Hague has forced ISPs to block the Pirate Bay. Surprisinly they haven’t foced a block of Google and Bing, that also link to copyrighted materials. Anyhway, this is on the insistence of BREIN, who – like the RIAA – think they should be getting the income from music so that they […]
NL Court rules fan subtitles on TV and movies are illegal
Subtitle lovers, beware: a court just ruled that making fan subtitles or translations is not protected by the law. A Dutch group called (translated) the Free Subtitles Foundation took anti-piracy group BREIN to court over “fansubbing.” BREIN has previously been active in taking fan subtitles and translations offline, and the Foundation was hoping a Dutch court […]
Ubuntu Torrent Removed from Google for ‘Infringing’ Transformers Movie – OMG! Ubuntu!
Cited in a DMCA takedown request filed against Google on behalf of Paramount Pictures, and spotted by TorrentFreak (and tipped to us by reader ~nonanonymous) is an innocuous link to a 32-bit alternate install image Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. The takedown request seeks to remove links to a number of torrent URLS that are alleged to […]
Warner Brothers reports own site as illegal
Film studio Warner Brothers has asked Google to remove its own website from search results, saying it violates copyright laws. It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as the film database IMDB. The request was submitted on behalf of Warner Brothers […]
All Prior Art – generating patent applications and giving them away, helping kill patent trolls
All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database […]
UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own
Copyright strikes again, with photographers and publishers hit particularly hard. Changes to UK copyright law will soon mean that you may need to take out a licence to photograph classic designer objects even if you own them. That’s the result of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which extends the copyright of artistic objects […]
US Gov wants your 0-day exploits first and free using Wassenaar Arrangement
BSecurity researchers have voiced their concerns in the two weeks since the proposed rules were made public that the U.S. rules definition of intrusion software is too broad, and legitimate vulnerability research and proof-of-concept development will come under regulation. – See more at: https://threatpost.com/bug-bounties-in-crosshairs-of-proposed-us-wassenaar-rules/113204#sthash.cL00eTWJ.dpuf Source: Wassenaar, Bug Bounties and Vulnerability Rewards Programs | Threatpost | […]
The Richard Prince – Suicide Girls Circus
Mooney aka Suicide Girl has her picturers reused by Prince. Prince’s images, which consist of screen shots of other people’s Instagram photos enlarged to 4×5 foot inkjet prints with a single banal comment by Prince, have reportedly sold for $90,000.In response Mooney produced her own prints, identical in every way to Prince’s except for an […]
Apple patents Samsungs Edge screen
Once Apple saw it they went for the patent and yesterday got it. Prior art? Never heard of it. Well done Apple for copying someone else – yet again. And well done the patent system for giving up patents to people who have not rights to them. Yet again. Apple patenteert Samsungs Edge-scherm – Webwereld.
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?
Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under […]
Monkey selfie at heart of copyright controversy
A photographer who set up a load of cameras in the wild can’t get pictures of a monkey removed from Wikipedia, as the monkey pressed the shutter. Wikipedia argues that this means that nobody owns the copyright. I wonder what the BBC series Earth has to say about this? Wikipedia refuses to delete photo as […]
Twitch TV shows why copyright is ridiculous as it shuts down music in videos
Twitch TV – a gaming TV channel with billions of watchers – will attempt to detect music playing in the background. If a 10 second spell seems to be copyrighted, they will remove the sound for half an hour. I suppose the rationale is that the music companies and the RIAA think this is a […]
