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
xkcd’s take on the PirateBay trial. So kids, fire up your torrent clients and start seeding.
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
The PirateBay’s copyright infringement trial has gotten under way in Sweden. The press has been promising that it will be the “internet piracy trial of the decade” (I guess Grokster is chopped liver), but as Mathias Klang astutely points out, the likely result will be an appeal to the Swedish Read more
The Digital Britain parliamentary commission has presented its interim report, which has been met with the usual journalistic brouhaha and bombastic statements. The more progressive media has kept a distrusting tone, while the usual suspects at the Telegraph and the Mail have hailed it as going in the right direction Read more
The economy is tanking, the sky is falling, locusts eat our crops, and zombies roam the streets looking for brains. So why do some of us keep obsessing with Apple’s products and services? It’s the end of the world and I feel fine I guess… Anyway, Apple is set to Read more
Habitual and casual readers may have noticed my love of all things piratical. I’ve been a fan of pirates way before Johnny Depp donned the colourful bandanna and tricorn hat, mostly thanks to the great novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. Granted, pirates have been getting a bad name Read more
… or so it seems for British lawyer firm Davenport Lyons, which has been sending letters on behalf of German gay porn makers to obtain payment from people who download their films through P2P and Torrent sites. But not only are individuals being accused of copyright infringement, stock photography sites Read more
The Wall Street Journal has published an excerpt provocatively named In Defense of Piracy from Lessig’s new book Remix (out tomorrow). It seems like Lessig is still very much involved in the copyfight, highlighting the almost farcical story of Holden Lenz and Prince. One could be forgiven for thinking that Read more
I think that everyone can agree that one of the problems with piracy is that it may have negative effect on some musicians. There is evidence that the music industry has become more reluctant to sign new acts and is relying on old names to stay afloat; and some small Read more