It’s week two in the Knitting Wars (or Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Copyright). I have been surprised by the level of interest this is generating in the blogosphere, it has been ORGd, EFFd and BoingBoinged, it has also been picked up by the knitting community (I did Read more…
The good people at the Open Rights Group forwarded me an email they received from a Doctor Who fan that goes by the screen name Mazzmatazz, who has allowed me to tell his/her story. But beware, this is a scary tale of copyright abuse that will have you hiding behind Read more…
I was surprised to find this story on the front page of Saturday’s Guardian because it shows the growing importance of copyright questions in the mainstream press. However, I was less impressed with the article’s content. The headline tells us that “Polish priests threatened with jail for plagiarising sermons”. Quite Read more…
I have been following with interest the ongoing litigation between one Joanne Kathleen Rowling and Steven Vander Ark (a Rowlingian name if I ever saw one), the maker of the Harry Potter Lexicon, but until now I have been silent as the intricacies of American Fair Use are as much Read more…
(via Out-Law). The Music Business Group, which brings together all of the collective music industry associations, has issued its Response to UK IPO consultation on copyright exceptions. Just when you think that the music industry cannot sink any lower, they go and surprise you with documents like these. Amongst the Read more…
(via Philippe Aigrain) There has been a bit of an overload on the three-strikes proposals these last few weeks, but I think that this is really important. The European Parliament voted last Wednesday on report A6-0063/2008 on Cultural industries in Europe. The report originally looked the the average pro-copyright industry Read more…
Much virtual ink has been spent discussing the latest attempt to shift liability for illegal file-sharing back to the intermediaries. UK ISPs are said to be in negotiation with the British Phonographic Industry in order to turn them into enforcers. ISPs are supposed to disconnect illegal file-sharers after other disciplinary Read more…
The latest instalment of a concerted campaign by the IFPI in trying to curb online infringement of their music has arrived (they are trying to attack ISPs). This has been building up in the last few months, as I believe that the bright sparks at the RIAA and the IFPI Read more…
Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology are at war with the Internet in a case that proves the uneasy relationship between the believers of Xenu and cyberspace, an ongoing battle that has been waged for over a decade (see this, this and this). Those familiar with digital copyright may Read more…
(via Oscar Monezuma) Peru and Chile have been involved in all sorts of disputes over te years, including war, territorial claims, football, and most importantly, pisco. Now a Peruvian woman has added to the often friendly animosity between the two countries by obtaining IP rights in Chile over “la marinera”, Read more…