Is Camcordering Ever Legitimate?
I exchanged emails with Ed Foster regarding the anti-camcordering portion of the ART Act. Ed expressed concerns about the proportionality of criminalizing camcordering, and he has a point. Merely recording a movie is not, by itself, harmful. At worst, camcordering…
Bush Signs Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005
Not surprisingly, Pres. Bush signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 into law today. My critiques on film skipping and new criminal sanctions. UPDATE: Fred von Lohmann offers his characteristically clear-headed perspective on the Family Entertainment and Copyright…
Walmart Foundation Uses Copyright to Curtail Griper
The Walmart Foundation has gone after the gripe site “walmart-foundation.org” using 512(c)(3) notices to take down images that the griper took from walmartfoundation.org. A few observations about this: * copyright is an extremely effective tool against gripers. Using a 512(c)(3)…
Dead Tree Version of Click Fraud–Shorewest Realty v. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel sued for alleged circulation count fraud. UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the Journal-Sentinel has denied the charge. UPDATE #2: July response by the Journal-Sentinel. Then, on August 26, Shorewest alleges that the Journal-Sentinel “reimbursed carriers to buy extra copies of…
Hypertouch Inc. v. Kraft Foods Inc.–New CAN-SPAM Lawsuit
An Internet access provider has sued Kraft Foods under CAN-SPAM and the California anti-spam law. This case is a little unusual because, to date, most CAN-SPAM lawsuits have been against marginal marketers, in many cases who were expected to default….
Patent Act of 2005
Matthew Buchanan of Promote the Progress has assembled some source material regarding the proposed Patent Act of 2005, a surprisingly broad proposal to reform patent law. Among other significant changes, it proposes to scrap the first to invent standard in…
House Passes Trademark Dilution Revision Act
The House has passed the Trademark Dilution Revision Act and sent it to the Senate. The law is pretty sweepingly favorable for trademark owners–not a lot of good news for trademark defendants. UPDATE: The law has passed. My comments on…
PAGERANK!
My blogs finally got PageRank today! (both have a 5). My blogs went live around February 8 and got high-quality in-bound links pretty quickly. Any thoughts about why it took Google 2.5 months to establish the PageRank?
Self-Publishing and the Long Tail
The New York Times runs a lengthy article on self-publishing books. The emergence of self-publishing shops reinforces the Long Tail theory. By reducing the publishing costs, more niche-oriented content can be produced cost-effectively. Thus, self-publishing houses put real pressure on…
Family Movie Act of 2005—Legalizing Technology to Skip Film Parts
This morning I blogged on the criminal law part of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. Now, I’ll discuss the Family Movie Act of 2005, which allows technology to make parts of a film imperceptible (let’s call it film skipping)….