YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made [...]

Posted December 23, 2008 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Dispatches. Tags: copyfight, copyright, takedown, YouTomb, youtube. 4 Comments.

I think Richard M. Stallman would agree with xkcd: DRM is evil. It’s bad for both customers and content creators — even Hilary Rosen and Steve Jobs have their doubts about it.

Posted October 15, 2008 by Casey
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Dispatches, Technology. Tags: copyfight, dmca, drm, futureproofing, piracy, xkcd. 2 Comments.

Story: Timbuk2 develops a new line of messenger bags that features fabric made of recycled material (engineered by RootPhi). Some of the fabric contains a symbol that Target lawyers say is their logo. Target lawyers cease and desist Timbuk2.
Thing is, the trademarked Target logo is a roundel, commonly used around the world (easily recognized in [...]

Posted October 18, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Books, Movies, Music, Planes, Trains, & Automobiles. Tags: cease and desist, copyfight, roundel, symbols, target, Timbuk2, trademark. Be the first one.

Marketplace reminds us the storm of RIAA lawsuits began in September 2003. In that time they’ve sued a thousands of people, and most lawyers apparently advise those caught in the madness to simply roll over and take it. But Tanya Andersen, a 41 year old disabled single mother didn’t.
After years of litigation (and mounting [...]

Posted September 19, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Politics & Controversy. Tags: copyfight, dmca, file sharing, lawsuits, madness, p2p, peer 2 peer, RIAA, Tanya Andersen. Be the first one.

A long time ago somebody started the Newtons Around The World gallery, and it came to symbolize the love we Newton users had for the little device as well as our geeky pride.
The trend seemed to continue with iPods Around The World, and now iLounge wants to start a gallery for the iPhone. I was [...]

Posted July 26, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Photoblog, Technology. Tags: copyfight, creative commons, gallery, iphone, iphones around the world, photos, Travel. Be the first one.

From The Chronicle:
Copyright law, a constant thorn in the sides of scholars and researchers, is generating a lot of public discussion this week, thanks in part to a new 10-minute video that parodies the law. “A Fair(y) Use Tale” has been downloaded from YouTube about 145,000 times since it was posted online Friday. The video [...]

Posted May 22, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: copyfight, copyright, disney, Eric Faden, fair use, parody, video. One Comment.

Vonage has been saying Verizon’s patent claims are overly broad for some time, but now people have dug up some prior art.
One of the patents Verizon is complaining about is #6,104,711, what they call an “enhanced internet domain name server.”
In short, it’s all about linking phone numbers to IP numbers, and Jeff Pulver says he [...]

Posted April 23, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Politics & Controversy, Technology. Tags: chilling effect, copyfight, court case, free world dialup, fwd, h.323, innovation, intellectual property, jeff pulver, lawsuit, legal battle, patent, patent infringement, patent law, patents, prior art, underdog, verizon, vonage. Be the first one.

Vonage will be in court again tomorrow defending itself against Verizon’s claims of patent infringement. The innovative VoIP company had lost the trial and was ordered to pay $58 Million in damages in early March, when a jury found them to have violated thee of seven related patents held by Verizon. Vonage appealed of course, [...]

Posted April 23, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property, Politics & Controversy, Technology. Tags: chilling effect, copyfight, court case, innovation, intellectual property, lawsuit, legal battle, patent infringement, patent law, underdog, verizon, vonage. One Comment.

I wrote to C|Net, owner of TechRepublic and Builder.com, asking if I could quote their Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming in an issue of Library Technology Reports journal on open source software for libraries and got the following canned response:
Thank you for your interest in including CNET content on your website. [...] There would be [...]

Posted March 7, 2007 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: Builder.com, copyfight, copyright, fair use, licensing, techrepublic. Be the first one.

People hate DRM. It prevents law abiding folks from enjoying the music and movies they’ve purchased, and it does little to prevent crackers from making illegal copies.

In response, somebody’s created I Hate DRM, “a site dedicated to reclaiming consumer digital rights.”

And on the content creator’s side: Creative Remixes For The People.

Posted April 4, 2006 by Casey Bisson
Categories: Copyrights & Intellectual Property. Tags: artists against copyright, consumer rights, copyfight, copyright, creative remixes for the people, crftp, drm, i hate drm, intellectual property law. One Comment.