The Swedish police has raided and taken offline Subtexter, a website where users upload and exchange fan-made files that can be used by a media player to provide subtitles to popular movies and shows before their translations have been made available by the rights holders. The action was taken at Read more…
Spot the difference. These are the current Terms of Use: “Some of the Instagram Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Instagram Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your Read more…
In a Rogue’s Gallery of copyright legislation, many efforts deserve mention. The DMCA is surely there, together with Japan’s new copyright law, the Digital Economy Act, and Ley Sinde. But a new Panamanian copyright bill is giving those laws a run for their money. The excellent project at Infojustice.org have Read more…
Source: 9gag.com via Andres on Pinterest Pinterest, in case you have not heard, is the latest social network. It is sort of like Tumbler without the social angst and hipster look. Some have described it as “Facebook for women” (because everyone knows that no woman uses FB). Time magazine tells Read more…
(First ear muffs, next headphones?) The British Performing Right Society (PRS) has been in the news recently thanks to its continuing struggle with Google. The PRS is also known for its forceful pursuit of performance fees from an unsuspecting public, such as suing companies whose workers listen to the radio Read more…
This news item has been covered everywhere, but it is worth highlighting. YouTube has decided to blackout all of its official music videos as of yesterday in the UK due to a negotiating failure with the British Performing Right Society (PRS), the collecting agency for British writers and composers. YouTube Read more…
The Guardian has an excellent post on the Amazon Kindle controversy. The Author’s Guild threatened legal action against Amazon because the Kindle’s read-aloud function “is not paying anyone for audio rights”. Neither does my sister when she reads books to my nephews, but I digress. What a sad state of Read more…
Ireland has been suffering a bit of a copyright nightmare recently. Firstly, Eircom was sued by the music industry, and settled out of court conceding that it would implement some form of “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” policy. As Sheldon from BBT would say “It is a sports analogy. Baseball to be precise”. Now Read more…
Neil Gaiman has proved once more that he’s One Of The Good Guys. He has posted an interesting comment about the new Amazon Kindle, and its reading-aloud capabilities. Apparently, his publishers think that this infringes their licensing agreement, as there is a profitable market for audio books. Gaiman says: “When Read more…
The Bad Science copyright chill has seemingly reached an impasse. The offending clip is still not available on the blog, but it can be found in countless websites as bloggers all across the country have started infringing copyright in a show of solidarity for Ben Goldacre. The Streisand Effect Strikes Read more…