Tech firms craft alternative to anti-piracy bill
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Internet service providers and other technology firms are proposing to soften a bill in Congress that they claim will make them targets of frivolous entertainment industry copyright lawsuits.
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A new program can circumvent the company's safeguards and make the copying of music and videos relatively easy.
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A band of tech companies will present an alternative method for valuing stock options that would provide lower expenses to the companies than legislation currently under review, according to a report published Tuesday.
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After weeks of negotiations, the  U.S. Senate could take action this week on a bill that would  make it easier to sue "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and  LimeWire that allow users to copy music and movies over the  Internet.
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The Senate passes a copyright bill that is not as bad as digital rights activists had feared. The bill drops language that would have banned tech that would have allowed people to skip commercials. By Katie Dean.
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A handful of lawmakers, law professors, and consumer groups have raised objections to a new U.S. copyright bill that could significantly increase the fines for copyright infringement.
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Negotiations for a trade agreement between the U.S. and Australia are raising a ruckus among Aussie digital rights activists. At issue is a plan to enact a law there modeled on the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act. By Patrick Gray.
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The Senate could take action this week on a bill that would make it easier to sue "peer-to-peer" networks like Kazaa and LimeWire.
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A consortium of technology companies hopes to create a common antipiracy language, ending the Babel of copy-proofing technologies that has rendered much digital content and hardware incompatible.
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The British Parliament is considering new legislation that would give ISPs the right to ban users over the downloading of pirated material.
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House of Reps. approve smaller fines in copyright spats A new US law which would reduce the damages to be paid out for patent infringement has been passed by one half of the US legislature. The proposed law was backed by large technology firms and banks but opposed by smaller tech companies and drug companies.â¦
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Should creators insist on copy protection and other technologies to block the unauthorized spread of their works?
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The world's biggest electronics firms are working on systems to stop digital content being pirated.
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(InfoWorld) - Patent reform legislation before the U.S. Congress would kill the value of patents and allow companies from other countries to steal U.S. intellectual property, a group of inventors said Thursday. About 20 inventors and U.S. company executives, visiting Washington, D.C., encouraged Congress to defeatÂ the Patent Reform Act, a version of which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month. The Senate has not yet voted on its version of the bill. The legislation "will weaken the patent system," said Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe. "It will devalue patents. It will be a disincentive for people to invest in the future." Several large tech vendors, including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco, support the legislation, which would allow courts to change they way they assess damages in patent infringement cases. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, and the legislation would allow courts to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The legislation would also allow a new way to challenge patents after they've been granted. Supporters say the bill is needed because patent infringement lawsuits have gotten out of hand. It's too easy for patent holders to sue and collect huge damage awards when a small piece of a tech product is found to infringe, supporters argue. Microsoft this month praised the House passage of the legislation, saying lawmakers voted to "support American innovation and to preserve incentives for progress." But Peter Volanakis, president and COO of Corning, said the legislation would be an invitation for its competitors in Asia to repeatedly challenge his company's patents. "This encourages infringement, plain and simple," he said. "It is much easier to infringe patents with this legislation." The patent reform legislation would also "undermine" Corning's ability to invest in new products, Volanakis added. Steve Perlman, inventor of WebTV and lead developer of Apple's QuickTime, said he was surprised to learn of the legislation when he read of the House passage of the bill. As he's begun to contact lawmakers about his opposition to the legislation, their staffers are "stunned" to hear of tech startups that are opposed to the bill, Perlman said. Small inventors and startups were mostly ignored during hearings on the bill, Perlman added. One of the goals of the bill is to harmonize U.S. patent laws with the rest of the world. But the U.S. now has the best environment for startups and entrepreneurs, Perlman said. "I don't want to have the startup economy they have," he said. "I want the one we have." Perlman, founder and CEO of Rearden, and Kamen, founder of DEKA Research & Development, both said changes to the U.S. patent system are needed. But the legislation largely doesn't address the real needs -- more patent examiners and more money for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, they said. Perlman has a patent he applied for five years ago still awaiting examination, he said. "Let's first make the system we've got today work the way it's supposed to work," Perlman said. Congress should also wait to see the effects of a May 2006 Supreme Court ruling, in which justices overturned the long-held practice of issuing injunctions against infringing products in nearly all patent cases, Perlman said. That ruling should have a large effect on so-called patent trolls, he said. "There already has been a huge change" in U.S. patent law because of the Supreme Court ruling, he said.
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Microsoftâs anti-piracy campaign is getting down to the nitty gritty of sticky labels that affix to PCs and software packaging. The company revealed today itâs cracking down on the illegal use of certificates
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Legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system would hurt innovation and decrease the value of patents, representatives of two tech companies said Wednesday.
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Lawmakers at the Senate have delayed a controversial bill that would make it easier to sue online file-trading networks because there is too much opposition to it.