U.S. Exports DMCA Down Under
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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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U.S. officials are expected to  announce on Monday a coordinated crackdown on the theft of U.S.  intellectual property such as pirated compact discs and  knockoff auto parts, the Wall Street Journal reported on  Monday,
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Canada has joined China and Russia on the U.S. software, music and movie industries' annual list of countries with the worst record of fighting piracy of copyright goods, an industry coalition said on Monday.
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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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Lawyers for Australia&#39;s recording industry branded the popular Kazaa file-swapping network &quot;an engine of copyright piracy to a degree of magnitude never before seen&quot; as
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&quot;We are very pleased to see the Australian music industry bringing the operators of Kazaa to court. The Australian case claims that Kazaa is violating copyright on a massive scale, misleading its users and
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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 United States is cracking down on the growing trade in counterfeit and pirated goods that costs U.S. businesses hundreds of billions of dollar annually, U.S. government and industry officials said on Monday.
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Taking matters into their own hands Australian TV viewers are waiting longer than ever to view their favourite overseas produced televisions shows, driving them to use BitTorrent and other internet-based peer-to-peer programs to download programmes from overseas, prior to their local broadcast.â¦
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The United States recognized Taiwan and Poland on Tuesday for making better efforts to crack down on pirated and counterfeit goods estimated to cost U.S. companies hundreds of millions of dollar annually, but said more work was needed.
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The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has launched four investigations involving the import of computers or electronic device components, including one based on a complaint that several companies are violating patents on DRAM chips.The USITC also voted to launch an investigation, based on a complaint by IBM, into the import of motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, server computers, bare-bones computers, and routers by Asustek Computer of Taiwan and Asus Computer International of Fremont, Calif.In the DRAM case, Tessera of San Jose, Calif., filed a complaint on Dec. 7 alleging that 18 companies violated its patents for semiconductor chips with a minimized chip package size. Acer and Kingston Technology are among the companies named in Tessera&#39;s complaint.The commission on Friday also announced it has initiated so-called 337 investigations into the import of silicon microphone packages used in mobile phones and semiconductor lasers used in disc drives.In the Tessera complaint, the company accused competitors of violating four semiconductor patents. The company has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, as well as the USITC complaint. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted reexamination requests on two of those patents.Representatives of Acer and Kingston didn&#39;t immediately respond to a request for comments on the USITC investigation.IBM filed a complaint on Dec. 5, asking the USITC to bar Asustek and North American subsidiary Asus Computer International from importing equipment using PC power supplies, cooling fans, and clustering technologies into the United States. IBM accused Asustek of infringing three patents related to those technologies.IBM attempted to reach a licensing agreement with Asustek after a licensing deal expired in December 2004, an IBM spokesman said in December. An Asus spokeswoman didn&#39;t immediately respond to a request for comments.The semiconductor laser complaint covers lasers used in high-definition disc drives. The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Seoul Semiconductor of Korea on Dec. 4, alleging that Nichhia of Japan has violated its patent.In the silicon microphone case, the patented technology covers microphones in several devices, including mobile phones. The complaint, filed by Knowles Electronics of Itasca, Ill., on Dec. 6, alleges that Mems Technology Berhad of Malaysia has violated its patents.The cases will be referred to an administrative law judge, who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing. The judge will make an initial determination as to whether there is a violation of Section 337 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930. That initial determination is subject to review by the USITC.Within 45 days, the commission will set a target date for completing the investigations.
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People who received MP3 players as holiday gifts may want to steer clear of some Web sites that claim to offer legal music but don&#39;t have licensing agreements with major music labels, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) said.CDT, a consumer rights group, has published a list of more than 30 MP3 download sites that don&#39;t have licensing deals with major U.S. music labels. The sites, which charge between $20 and $35 for subscriptions, say they offer music from artists signed to the major labels, CDT said.Consumers should be aware of the sites on the list because in some cases, they may simply provide subscribers popular peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software that&#39;s otherwise free, said David Sohn, CDT&#39;s senior policy counsel. And customers using P-to-P software to trade unauthorized music files could face lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), he said.&quot;People might get the false impression of what they paid for was legal,&quot; Sohn said. &quot;If you pay $25, you might think that $25 goes to compensate the rights holder.&quot;The CDT tried to contact the operators of each site on its MP3 warning list. In each case, the site operators did not respond.Several of the sites on the list seem to be run by the same people -- they have similar designs and make similar claims. In many cases, the sites are registered outside the U.S., Sohn said.Some of the sites hedge their claims of being legal in small print. For example, AllCoolMusic.com, which says it offers 12 billion files, includes a disclaimer at the bottom of its front page: &quot;Today, there are 240 million users trading MP3s on legal file-sharing networks. Sharing is not illegal as long as you obey all relevant copyright laws. Sharing copyrighted material, without permission to do so, is illegal. Purchasing a membership in AllCoolMusic.com does not give you license to download or upload copyrighted material. AllCoolMusic.com implores you to respect all copyright laws.&quot;AllCoolMusic didn&#39;t respond to CDT&#39;s letter, and there&#39;s no contact information readily available on the site.In March 2005, CDT filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against two Web sites claiming their music and video downloads were 100 percent legal.The FTC filed a complaint in U.S. court against one of the Web sites, mp3downloadcity.com, obtained an injunction, and eventually reached a settlement with the Web site operator in May 2006. The settlement required the site to refund customers.The RIAA has focused its lawsuits on P-to-P users that share music with others, not those that simply download music from P-to-P networks. However, if subscribers to these sites would opt to share their music on the P-to-P software some of the sites provide, that could expose them to lawsuits, Sohn said.In many cases, users of the sites are &quot;getting less than you pay for,&quot; he said.
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If US ignores our laws can we ignore theirs? House of Cards Antigua and Barbuda - a nation of 70,000 in an area roughly half the size of San Francisco - has formally requested that the WTO allow it to suspend its intellectual property obligations to the United States, AP reports.â¦
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The Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) will seek to negotiate a voluntary anticounterfeiting trade agreement with several major trading partners, the office said Tuesday.The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will focus countries on anticounterfeiting efforts, including international cooperation, best practices for fighting piracy, and developing strong legal frameworks for fighting piracy, USTR said in a news release.&quot;Global counterfeiting and piracy steal billions of dollars from workers, artists, and entrepreneurs each year and jeopardize the health and safety of citizens across the world,&quot; Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement.The action earned the USTR praise from several companies and groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America and Microsoft.Developing international protections against counterfeiting and piracy is &quot;key to protecting innovation and ensuring that the global economy continues to grow unfettered by [intellectual property] theft,&quot; Jack Krumholtz, Microsoft&#39;s managing director of federal government affairs, said in a statement.Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, also applauded the USTR announcement.&quot;Intellectual property thieves aren&#39;t just stealing American ideas, they&#39;re stealing dollars from U.S. businesses and stealing jobs out from under U.S. workers,&quot; Baucus said in a statement. &quot;And the problem of intellectual property theft is rampant worldwide.&quot;The trade agreement would complement the work of President George Bush&#39;s administration to encourage other countries through the World Trade Organization to enforce intellectual-property rights, the USTR said. But the ACTA would set a higher benchmark for intellectual-property enforcement that countries can join voluntarily, USTR said.
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Two more defendants have pleaded guilty to charges of criminal copyright infringement for selling counterfeit software with a retail value of nearly US$6 million on eBay Inc., the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
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Ashcroft takes federal enforcement action taken against criminal copyright piracy on peer-to-peer networks. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Assistant Attorney General Christopher A. Wray, and US Attorney for
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The major motion picture studios launched an international offensive against online piracy on Tuesday as their lobbying arm announced scores of lawsuits on four continents and criminal actions in three countries against people operating servers on computer networks BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect networks.