Weekly IP review (16-20 April)
It’s been again another pretty
interesting week in terms of digital copyright and IP news. Things are moving and one by one copyright
laws start being reviewed, in a general attempt to cope with the fast pace of
the digital age.
The Guardian dedicated a whole 7
days series to the ‘Battle for the internet’, offering some great insights into
the current IP wars, from copyright to patents. http://bit.ly/HJZGzm
A must-read is Google’s
co-founder Sergey Brin controversial opinion on the new “walled gardens” Facebook and Apple, which both control what software can be released on their platforms. Although later in the week Brin claimed that
his views have been distorted, the article remains nonetheless interesting taking
in consideration the scale of information Google itself owns (oh the irony...) http://bit.ly/IMmoVD
The Megaupload saga
continues, as the fate of the huge amount of data remains unknown. The following statement sounds both terrific
and terrifying: “It’s a cache of data roughly equivalent to half of the Library of
Congress and nobody quite knows what to do with it.” http://bit.ly/Jonpzg
Not surprisingly, pirate party
representatives from more than 25 countries agreed at a conference in Prague to
prepare a joint platform and campaign on web freedom for the elections to the
European Parliament in 2014. Looking forward to their communications strategy http://t.co/x15k7RhH
The US Center for Copyright Information (CCI) will
oversee new copyright alert system aiming at discouraging p2p illegal file sharing.
Find out why some of the measures are considered “Orwellian-sounding.” http://t.co/8wLTMJVv
Kiwi file-sharers are being monitored
and warned by their ISP on behalf of the music industry with the so called “3rd
strike” enforcement notice. Find out why the movie industry doesn’t bother to
send the three warnings http://bit.ly/J8IqDt but also who might be the first infringer of
the controversial copyright regime http://bit.ly/IGzW0v .
While trying to renew its copyright
system China has to deal with a lot of criticism both in the country and
beyond, the main fear being that the new proposals remove too many of a
copyright owner’s traditional controls over the works they create, buy or
invest in. http://bit.ly/JbSarR
Film & TV studios
lost a landmark anti-piracy case against ISP iiNET in Australia, the court
deciding that the ISP did not authorize copyright infringement among its
customers. http://bbc.in/I301tb
However, there is
still hope for EU rightsholders, as EU court ruled that Swedish ISP ePhone has to provide the
necessary information to identify alleged pirates. http://t.co/ngrlSNVx
And last but not
least, Google partly lost a copyright infringement suit in Germany, as it doesn’t
do enough to remove illegal content from YouTube http://wapo.st/Jen6bQ