Almost exactly a year ago, Japan changed its laws governing intellectual property by introducing a measure which made illegal downloading a crime punishable with jail time and excessively heavy fines. So far, the effect of the new legislation is slightly perplexing. While there has been a reported decrease in the level of piracy, surprisingly, (or…
DetailsAs of this week on the third of October, the UK Digital Economies act has come into force. The digital economies act introduces stricter regulation aimed to reduce the level of piracy in the UK. In response to the new legislation, the London School of Economics (LSE) has published a fairly controversial article. The fourteen…
DetailsA dozen music artists are facing charges of copyright infringement. The record label which filed the suit, Twilight Records and Syl-Zel Music, claims that the artists in question sampled their song “different strokes”, without their prior permission or consent. The song was initially sung by Sylvester Thompson (aka Syl Johnson) in 1967. The suit involves…
DetailsIn celebration of it’s fifteenth birthday, Google’s search engine function has received criticism from British Members of Parliament. The House of Commons’ culture media and sports committee has accused the Goliath of industry of not pulling its weight in the battle against piracy. Tory MP John Wittingdale, who chairs the committee, has publicly condemned the…
DetailsHotfile, a popular file sharing website, was found guilty late last month of infringing copyright. Hotfile is not an ordinary type of file sharing website. Hotfile is, what the internet community calls, a “cyberlocker”, a type of website where a user can store files online, but the file’s availability to the public is severely limited.…
DetailsLiberation music, an independent Australian record label, bit off more than they could chew when they picked a battle with Lawrence Lessig. Lessig is a world renowned copyright attorney gives lectures around the world on how the law governing intellectual property has yet to adapt to the digital age. Lessig uploads many of these lectures…
DetailsI read a very interesting article by Jesse Brown on Macleans today which brought some very good insight as to the validity of a recent statement made by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Hastings asserted in a press event that since Netflix’s launch in Canada three years ago, piracy from Bittorrent websites has reduced by 50%.…
DetailsVictor Willis is probably best known for being part of the 80s popular song and dance group “The Village People”. One of the Village People’s most popular song was YMCA, if you’ve ever been to any social gathering chances are you’ve heard it. In the early 80s, Willis assigned the lyrical copyright for YMCA, which…
DetailsVimeo is a video sharing website similar to Youtube. However, Vimeo’s unique selling point is that nearly all of its videos are available in a very high quality. Vimeo is in some very hot water after a US district judge ruled that Vimeo may not be able to rely on the “safe harbor” rule to…
DetailsGoogle is well known for working with various organisations around the world to combat piracy. This is despite the fact that recent studies have shown that doing so has very little effect. The process Google goes through is complicated, but the basic premise is as follows: an organisation makes a takedown request; Google reviews it;…
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