Pub lacks karaoke license, sued for copyright violations
A time-honored bar tradition — singing loudly and badly — has landed a local pub in a lawsuit.
The Bull & Bear Pub in Syracuse’s Hanover Square is being sued for holding karaoke events without a license. The American Society of Compos-ers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) initiated the suit, which was filed June 29 in Syracuse [...]
Pirate Parties on the Rise
The raid on the PirateBay, and the responses in Sweden to the case motivated a lot of pirates around the globe to organize themselves into Pirate Parties.
Indie labels want copyright shift
The UK’s independent music labels want a change in the law so internet service providers (ISPs) become liable for illegal file-sharing by their users.
The Association of Independent Music (Aim) has outlined the plans in a discussion on copyright reform.
Aim is concerned the internet has made it easier for people to share music and breach record [...]
Court say removing sex, profanity from films violates copyright laws
A federal appeals judge says sanitizing movies on D-V-D or V-H-S tape violates U-S copyright laws.
U-S District Judge Richard Matsch (MAYCH) has ruled that editing movies to delete objectionable language, sex and violence is an “illegitimate business” that hurts Hollywood studios and directors who own the movie rights.
Matsch ordered the companies named in the suit, [...]
U.S. may slap China with suit in intellectual-property dispute
In a move that would have broad implications for software, movies, music and pharmaceuticals, the U.S. said Thursday it may sue China as early as this fall for failing to protect intellectual property as required by trade agreements.
The U.S. would bring a trade case against China at the World Trade Organization for violating intellectual-property rights [...]
Bono Asked to Aid Copy-Protection Fight
He’s bent the ear of world leaders on social causes. He’s a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. He’s a rock star. But could the lead singer of U2 also become a front man for a grass-roots campaign seeking to change how the music industry does business?
The Free Software Foundation hopes so.
The Boston-based advocacy group launched an [...]
Audio flags could conflict with fair use
New radio technologies have music industry and radio officials at odds over fair use of audio and video digital transmissions.
The implementation of audio and video flags to block unauthorized distribution and replication could be one solution, experts testified Tuesday before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. However, opponents of the flags say they [...]
Spain Adds ‘Copyright Tax’ to Blank Media
On Thursday, June 22, 2006 the Spanish Congress voted to implement a tax on all blank media, including flash memory sticks, blank cd and dvd-rs, even mobile phones and printers. There is no word on how much this new tax will be, only that the revenues will be collected by the government, and will then [...]
Film critic pleads guilty in movie copyright case
A former freelance film critic for the Boston Herald and past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics is to be sentenced in October after pleading guilty in a San Jose, Calif., court last month to aiding in copyright infringement, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Paul Sherman , 46, of Malden, sold on eBay copies [...]
Education and development on the high seas of copyright infringement
When is a pirate not a pirate? When he’s trying to get an education. Alan Story, Colin Darch and Debora Halbert track the course of the criminalisation of copyright infringement from western bedrooms to the university campuses of the developing world.
“If it is a sin for the poor to steal from the rich, it must [...]
