Newzbin: Internet filtering and file-sharing

Has the UK abolished copyright? Analysis of new orphan work legislation

Please, sir, I want some more copyright protection

Has the UK abolished copyright law with the passing of orphan works legislation? I’ll answer quickly with Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: NO.

However, if you listen to some copyright maximalist outlets, and particularly to the photograph lobby, you would believe that all copyright has been abolished [...]

How effective are blocking orders against torrent sites?

The High Court of England and Wales has produced another blocking order for UK Internet service providers (ISPs) against three torrent sites. The action was brought by the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) against the main UK ISPs in order to obtain a blocking order against three torrent indexing sites, namely KAT, H33T, and Fenopy.

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Autores, fotocopias y educación en Costa Rica

Fotocopiadoras “self-service”

Durante los últimos días hemos presenciado un lamentable ataque contra el Congreso y la Fuerza Pública por parte de elementos opuestos al veto presidencial de la Ley 17342 que reforma varios artículos de la legislación vigente de observancia de derechos de propiedad intelectual. El ataque ha sido propiciado por una narrativa que [...]

What’s up with software copyright? Contrasting Oracle v Google and SAS v WPL

For something which has the unequivocal weight of the law behind it, software copyright has had a rather bumpy history in the courts. Once we get past the obvious facts of law, namely that copyright protects source code, the application of such protection has been more difficult. The reason for this is simple: while [...]

More on Pinterest and copyright

Source: google.ca via Andres on Pinterest

It seems like the Pinterest copyright meme refuses to die. Some days ago I wrote a short analysis of what I believed were the main issues in this subject, particularly concentrating on the fair use and DMCA take-down aspects of the question. [...]

ECJ’s Advocate General favours interoperability in Europe

Long-time readers may remember the interesting case of SAS Institute v World Programming (my analysis here), an important software interoperability decision in the UK that got referred to the European Court of Justice. The case sets SAS, one of the biggest business software giants, against a UK software company that created a clone of SAS [...]

When copyright collecting societies act against artists

The modern copyright system owes a lot to collective copyright management. Intellectual property is all about enforcement, but it tends to be expensive and time-consuming endeavour. Collecting agencies offer a system by which copyright enforcement is allocated to a society which represents its associates. When they work as intended, they are a powerful tool that [...]