Displaying items by tag: Copyright

Not that long ago I received an email from a reader that asked a simple and valid question; “why do you care about what Apple and Samsung are doing?” Like we said; a simple and valid question, but not one that is simple to answer. The  obvious although inaccurate answer is that it is news and it is news about the consumer electronic world. However, that answer (as we just said) is not the whole truth, it is not even close to the whole truth. The reason it is so difficult to answer is that the real reason has nothing to do with Apple or Samsung. The real reason boils down to a few simple concepts; control, innovation and competition.

The Megaupload case has become an embarrassment for the US Government, but because of their close ties to the MPAA, RIAA and the entertainment industry as a whole they are not able to bow out gracefully at this point. It also seems that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is not going to let them bow out. Instead he has launched a website that is dedicated to “the war for the Internet”. This term is one that has been used in the past to refer to laws like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, TPP, CISPA and many, many more. It is a very interesting battle that is only in its infancy right now and unless things change quickly will only get worse.

For some time we have said that companies that file bad lawsuits or that continue to make obviously incorrect claims in the market should have consequences. Apple is probably one of the worst with their continuous stream of allegations against Google, Samsung,  HTC, LG, and pretty much everyone else that they “slavishly copy” Apple and do not invent their own technology. This has been repeated so often that it is boring and even cursory glance at the any two products (go ahead and pick two) will show significant differences. There is almost no chance of the wide spread consumer confusion that Apple is trying to claim on a daily basis.

As predicted Judge David Harvey (who called the US “The Enemy” in Copyright Law) has stepped down from presiding over the Dotcom extradition case. Yesterday we reported on Harvey’s views of the US Government’s (and entertainment industry’s) efforts to force US copyright laws on foreign countries as a requirement of trade agreements. This move, by the US, has sparked quite a bit of debate including whether the US Trade Rep has the authority to enact these deals without congressional oversight. With ACTA and TPP the USTR has had more meetings with the entertainment industry than with the congressional bodies that are supposed to handle oversight on these treaties.

We have previously reported that the US entertainment industry is trying very hard to push their version of the “law” out to the rest of the world. They have, quite literally, spent billions of dollars lobbying and campaigning to get the laws made in their favor. Now the fact that these laws include exceptionally oppressive measures, remove due process and also make even the most mundane violations into major crimes does not concern them. All they want to do is make sure that they keep control of the content and the money it brings in.

As we reported when they first went into effect the UK and Netherlands’ bans on the Pirate Bay are doing very little to stem the flow of traffic to the popular file sharing search engine. According to a report by the BBC (which cites data from ISPs) the peer to peer traffic is back to around normal about seven days after the event took place. Now, what is interesting here is that The Pirate Bay has very little to do with peer to peer traffic (although it can be argued that Torrents and Magnets are Peer to Peer). It is a small, but vital distinction that the industry seems to forget all the time. Still the entertainment industry in both the UK and the Netherlands still has the wrong idea in mind when they try to view the Pirate Bay as the root of all file sharing.

There are times in the US Legal system when I wished there was a review body that could not only reverse bad decisions, but also levy fines and consequences for bad and obvious prejudicial judgments on the part of our justices in the US. If there were I have a feeling that Judge Lucy Koh would be exceptionally poor right about now. This is due to her recent judgments in granting injunctive relief in favor of Apple despite the lack of sufficient evidence that Apple is being injured or that the devices in question actually violate Apple patents.

There is good news for consumers, but some pretty bad news for content owners as the High Court in the European Union has declared that it is legal for someone to sell their software licenses to another person. The caveat is that they (the original purchaser) must uninstall or otherwise deactivate their copy first. This is sure to annoy many software companies that felt the resale of these items was a violation of their copyright (as it cut them out of the resale).

As we follow the MegaUpload case and by extension the case of Kim Dotcom and six other managers in the company we are finding out more and more about the US governments case against the file sharing site. Yesterday we published a two part article about some of the tactics used in the case that has slid from being active and interesting into a long siege with the US attempting to stop access to both funds and legal representation. Now we are finding out more about the original “evidence” against the corporation and the seven individuals.

Conflict of Interest; it is an interesting term. As an absolute definition it means; “when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other.” As a legal term (as you might imagine) there are multiple meanings with enough ambiguity to keep things interesting. However, to one group of people most notably the MPAA and RIAA it is a way to support and defend their position in the world when they push their lawsuits around the globe. In part two of our look at the MegaUpload case we will dig into how the Content Industry and the DoJ have tried to deny even the right to a defense to MegaUpload.