Creative Commons sued for deception
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Hey! What's wrong with our Sharecropping license? A Texan family has been handed a harsh lesson in what the Creative Commons "movement" really means for creatives who use its licenses.â¦
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Claims 'deceit, negligent misrepresentation' over CRM deal
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WASHINGTON, December 15: The Motion Picture Association of America has filed suit against more than 100 file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent, Direct Connect and eDonkey, which allow users to download illegal copies of movies and television shows from
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Not all files on peer-to-peer networks are genuine. Here are tips to help you dodge the fakes.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft is suing a group of hackers who apparently gained access to the company's proprietary source code, creating a program that wipes media files clean of file-sharing restrictions. The suit, which Microsoft filed last Friday in a district court in Seattle, Washington, gives only a nickname for the ringleader, "viodentia," who is one of 10 "John Does" whom Microsoft believes are responsible for breaking its Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Last month, a program calledÂ FairUse4WM surfacedÂ that removed the DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology from Windows Media 10 and 11 files. Many major download services, such as Napster, use Windows DRM, and its removal would allow the files to be copied without restriction or uploaded to file-sharing networks. Microsoft is suing for copyright infringement, since FairUse4WM uses code from the company's Windows Media software development kit version 9.5, a toolset used by software developers to build applications. Microsoft said the hackers have caused it more than $75,000 in losses. It is seeking a permanent injunction against the defendants and compensation. In a separate document filed with the court, Microsoft said the defendants have gone to substantial lengths to hide their identities. It asked for extra time to issue subpoenas to e-mail service providers, to track down some e-mail addresses linked to the individuals, to help it to identify them. The hackers have proved enduring foes for Microsoft. Soon after FairUse4WM was released, Microsoft issued an update to its DRM software, making the hacking program ineffective. The hackers responded less than a day later by updating FairUse4WM again. Their efforts are unlikely to affect the growth of legitimate download services, however, since content providers are aware that no DRM is unbreakable, analysts said. "I think in the long term it's not going to deal Microsoft any crushing blow, but it's certainly an irritant for them," said Jonathan Arber, research analyst for Ovum in London. Technology companies will have to make it too hard for hackers to break the DRM, a leap that could be difficult considering any update to the DRM technology would still have to be compatible with hardware in the market, said Paul Jackson, principal analyst at Forrester Research. Additionally, frequent software updates tend to alienate users, he said. "Itâs a question of highly determined hackers desperate to prove their moxie, versus a corporation that can't release updates every 10 minutes because that annoys people," Jackson said.
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The company's antipiracy software adds a "yellow state" for times when it just can't tell if software is genuine.Image: A 'maybe pirate'
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Music fans are miffed about a court decision that says musicians must get permission to sample tunes even if the remix bears no resemblance to the original. An activist group is sponsoring a remix project based upon the clip in question. By Katie Dean.
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There's been a mostly fantastic discussion about fair use in this neighborhood for the last few days.  It started when a photograph of Lane Hartwell's was used in a video spoof of the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire."  The first I heard of this was in a Twitter post of hers where she said she was turning off access to her entire Flickr collection because this picture was used without permission. A series of communications with the people who did the video resulted in the video being taken down. Later Mike Arrington, who is a lawyer, wrote a piece saying she didn't have right on her side, and that the video's use of her picture was probably fair use. I found Mike's piece compelling. Others took offense. It thought it was a useful part of the discussion. I understand Ms Hartwell's point of view. I hate it when people copy a whole post of mine and paste it into theirs. But then I grab bits of images and put them on my blog and people rarely complain. The blogosphere is built on being loose about copyright and fair use.  I'm doing a deal with a content company and all these issues are coming up. We haven't been able to write a contract that covers all the things they want covered and make it possible for me to do what I need to do, and they want my product to work. It's a real mess we're in. Bloggers are supposed to be radicals when it comes to fair use and copyright, but that generalization doesn't work with many creative people. Hartwell's position in some ways is like the RIAA or MPAA, who bloggers often dismiss as clueless. How can we have it both ways? How can some defend her position yet not defend the entertainment industry? There's a lot to discuss here, and a lot of the discussion on the blogs has been informative and respectful. Not all of it, but to an unusually high degree.  So, I am interested in doing an in person "flash conference" on the subject of fair use in a few weeks. I'd say next week if it weren't Christmas. Most conferences are so boring. I want to do a conf on a hot subject when it's still hot in the blogosphere. This may be a good subject for such a quickly organized conference. What do you think of the flash conference idea for this??
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The Web site has been fighting claims that its founder stole the idea. Now another man says he was the creator.
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Lawsuit alleges the software giant unlawfully attempted to eliminate competition from Novell&#39;s WordPerfect and Quattro Pro applications.
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Creative Commons Search Engine Integrated into Firefox 1.0  Creative Commons today unveiled an updated beta version of its search engine, which scours the web for text, images, audio, and video free to re-use on certain terms a search refinement offered by no other company or organization today. Creative Commons&rsquo; announcement coincides ...
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spackbace writes &quot;The notorious, mysterious Source Code Club (SCC) has re-emerged, this time selling source code for a Cisco application in another blatant violation of copyright regulations.
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Being insignificant doesn't make it right A software developer responsible for a copyright infringement described even by the copyright owner as insignificant still broke the law, a court has ruled (pdf). An injunction has been served even though the infringer has stopped using the technology.â¦
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"Copyright officials recommended on Thursday that U.S. law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions."  Which of course applies only to US companies.  Kazaa should be free and clear.  ...  Should have supplied a link.  I'm a BAD blogger!
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"How much do you want to pay for music?" A record label which uses Creative Commons licences and allows consumers to choose how much they pay for music is focusing on streaming music because its downloading business has dipped dramatically.â¦
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Streamcast downcast Another file-sharing software maker has been found guilty of causing copyright infringement. A US judge has said that the Morpheus software produced by StreamCast breaks the law.â¦
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Company sues alleged software piracy ring for selling counterfeit versions of its products, including Norton AntiVirus.