Single Mom Preparing to Fight RIAA
Patricia Santangelo, a single mom of five kids from Wappingers Falls, NY, is fighting the RIAA over a file-sharing lawsuit. She rejected a $7,500 settlement offer and has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. Her defense appears to be…
Interview at Astalavista.com
I was interviewed by Astalavista.com on copyright and adware/spyware issues for their newsletter. Check out some of my loosely-structured latest thoughts on those topics.
Copyright Office Struggles With Copyright Clearances
AP runs a story about “copyright oddities”–interesting historical materials on deposit with the Library of Congress. The oddities include items like a photo of a blood-stained program from Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot and a video of Henry…
Can Congress Provide Copyright Protection to Software?
Aharonian v. Gonzales, No. 04-05190-MHP (N.D. Ca.). This case got some press when it was first filed. The plaintiff’s basic contention is that it is unconstitutional for Congress to provide copyright protection for software. This is a pretty wacky claim,…
Algorithm for Analyzing Liability for Contributing to Copyright Infringement
By John Ottaviani Professor David Post has an interesting article (free subscription required) in the August 3, 2005 issue of the National Law Journal, in which he reviews the “Sony doctrine” of secondary liability for copyright infringement. In Sony, the…
Implications of Grokster Presentation
By John Ottaviani Here are the slides from a presentation I gave Saturday on the “Implications of Grokster” at the American Bar Association meeting in Chicago. The more interesting part of the presentation is toward the end, discussing “what we…
First Camcordering Arrest
As part of its Operation Copycat (a sub-action of Operation Site Down), the DOJ announced the arrest of Curtis Salisbury for two counts of camcordering movies in theaters (“The Perfect Man” on June 21, 2005, and “Bewitched” on June 28,…
Answer in AFP v. Google
Agence France Presse v. Google Inc., Civil Action No. 1:05cv00546 (D.D.C. answer filed May 19, 2005). Following up on my earlier coverage of AFP v. Google over Google News, I have found the answer and put it online. As is…
Misguided CNET Article on Canadian Copyright Law and Caching/Archiving
CNET ran an odd article today entitled “In Canada: Cache a page, go to jail?” The article discusses some proposed changes to Canada’s copyright law that allegedly would make search engine archiving an infringement. It quotes a bunch of intelligent…
Class Action Settlement in Electronic Databases Case–Should I Participate?
In re. Literary Works in Electronic Databases Copyright Litigation, M.D.L. No. 1379 (SDNY). This case involves the republication of print articles in electronic databases like Westlaw and Nexis without authorization (part of the fallout from Tasini and similar cases). The…