Month: January 2003
-
Copyright and Rhetoric
In a much-acclaimed blog posting, Doc Searls writes that the limited-copyright folks are losing the rhetorical battle to the copyright expansionists. I believe Hollywood won because they have successfully repositioned copyright as a property issue. In other words, they successfully urged the world to understand copyright in terms of property. Copyright = property may not…
-
Court Orders Verizon to Reveal Customer's Identity
U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates has ordered Verizon to turn over to the RIAA the identity of a Verizon customer who allegedly used Verizon’s ISP service to infringe copyrights on recorded music. Verizon had argued that they should not be compelled to reveal this information. More to come, once I have had a…
-
More on Court Tossing No-Reviews EULA Clause
The EFF has posted a copy of the New York state court’s ruling in the Network Associates case that I wrote about previously. The court’s ruling makes three main points. (1) The contract clause, which forbids customers from reviewing the product or publishing the results of benchmarking it, is unenforceable. (The court doesn’t expand on…
-
RIAA: ISPs Should Pay For File Sharing
A Reuters story quotes RIAA head Hilary Rosen as saying that ISPs should be held responsible for their users’ file sharing: “We will hold ISPs more accountable,” said Hillary Rosen, chairman and CEO the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in her keynote speech at the Midem music conference on the French Riviera. “Let’s face…
-
Court Throws Out No-Reviews Clause in EULA
A court has thrown out a software contract clause prohibiting customers from publishing reviews of a product, report Matt Richtel at the New York Times and Lisa Bowman at CNet. A New York state court made the ruling in a suit brought by the New York Attorney General’s office. The clause in question says, “The…
-
Siva's Multimedia Blitz
Siva Vaidhyanathan offers a post-Eldred perspective over at Salon. He’s on television tonight too, talking about copyright, on “NOW with Bill Moyers,” airing on most PBS stations at 9:00 PM. Also check out his new blog.
-
Eldred Loses
The Supreme Court has ruled in the Eldred case, upholding the copyright term extension by a 7-2 vote. More later, once I get a chance to read the opinions. majority opinion by Justice Ginsburg; dissent by Justice Stevens; dissent by Justice Breyer
-
When is a Mandate Not a Mandate?
The conventional wisdom is that yesterday’s deal between the RIAA and tech companies includes an agreement to oppose government mandates of DRM such as the Hollings CBDTPA. But look at this sentence from paragraph 6 of the joint statement (italics added): The role of government, if needed at all, should be limited to enforcing compliance…
-
When Is a Regulation Not a Regulation?
Often, when people say they oppose regulation, what they really mean is that they like the regulation we already have and don’t want it changed. By implicitly defining “regulation” to mean changes in regulation, they make anti-regulation rhetoric serve a pro-regulation cause. Yesterday’s statement of principles from the RIAA and some tech companies provides a…
-
Tinkering with American History
In the latest Newsweek, Malcolm Jones reports on the hot new American History textbook, “Inventing America,” by Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Daniel Kevles and Alexander Keyssar. As soon as you start reading the new college textbook “Inventing America,” you wonder just how far the authors are going to go. They promise to tell the…