You may well feel that last week was
the shortest week in the world (hope you all had a lovely Jubilee weekend), but
the IP world keeps spinning and this is what makes reading this review more
than worthwhile.
A week after disclosing the
copyright infringement data, Google takes the discussion further, declaring
that “We do not want to be building a business
based upon piracy”. YouTube recently announced a new music copyright deal for publishers
that should shed some light on the rights around music on YouTube.
Read more
on MediaPost about YouTube’s
issues that Google thinks they have under control: “We’ve done all we can with
copyright infringement”. Given that
Google always appears in our top of advertisers which place ads next to infringing
content, we would simply reply “REALLY?”
Well, they’re probably just over the moon after winning the patent and
copyright trial with Oracle – ArsTechnica shares a really
insightful interview with two Google attorneys.
Moving away from Google, we found
a really good overview of the US
‘six-strikes’ anti-piracy scheme and how scary this actually is.
When it comes to liability, we weren’t
too surprised that a former BitTorrent
administrator from Sweden was sentenced to one year in prison after found
guilty of copyright infringement and tax and accounting fraud. Read more about
the case here.
If you were thinking
that there is still not enough public debate on digital copyright, you would
probably be pleased to hear that the European Commission launched an EU-wide public consultation on the issue of
online copyright, ahead of possibly introducing new EU-wide rules on the
matter.
On another hand,
broadband provider O2 joined the UK blockade against the Pirate
Bay, the only major ISPs which haven’t cut off access to the pirate site being
BT & Talk Talk. However, unlike Sky which showed open support to the
initiative, for O2 it was more a matter of complying with High Court’s decision
than a voluntary action. How effective
the blockade actually is remains still questionable, taking into account the
various IP-address changes made by the Pirate Bay to work around the restrictions.
And what better way to finish this
review than with some exciting news for the UK creative economy? The Intellectual
Property Office (IPO) and Imperial College published new estimates of investment in the UK's copyright
industries which add
an extra £3 billion to national accounts. This reflects the increased importance of intellectual property in today's
economy. In a digital world characterised by ease of
copying, distributing and making money from the IP of others it becomes vital for rights holders
to invest in protecting the IP they own.