We've seen all sorts of ridiculous claims by performance rights collection societies trying to demand performance rights for things that clearly were not intended as "performances.
In the last few years, there's been a push by some companies to bring back the immensely troubling "hot news doctrine," that appears to violate everything we know about the First Amendment and copyright law.
The entertainment industry always likes to take the digital world and compare it to the physical world as if the two were the same -- often making claims like unauthorized downloading is "just like stealing a CD from a store.
Earlier this week, reader Jorvay sent over the news of how food giant Nestle had massively overreacted to an (admittedly disgusting) anti-Nestle video put together by Greenpeace and posted to YouTube.
The more of ACTA that leaks, the worse it seems. KEI has the details on another portion of ACTA that had not leaked yet, which focuses on setting up new institutions that would manage ACTA after it was implemented.
I had pointed this out in a comment yesterday, but with so many press reports suggesting that Viacom's filing found some sort of "smoking gun" in the YouTube emails concerning founders talking about "stealing" videos, it's worth pointing out that Viacom appears to have taken these quotes totally out of context.
Ah, leave it to The Onion to successfully encapsulate the state of the recording industry with a report that is basically as accurate as most of the reports that come out of the RIAA these days:
The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that the combined revenue brought in by Warner, Sony, EMI, Universal, and countless independent music labels in 2009 totaled $18.
David Herron alerts us to the news that it's finally occurred to the brain trust at Universal Music that, perhaps, CD prices were too high.
Last summer, we wrote about some reports that EA was going to require a constant internet connection for Command & Conquer 4.
There have been plenty of efforts to try to curb "cyberbullying," often through laws that try to make it illegal to be a jerk.
Here's one more point concerning the motions filed in the YouTube case by Google and Viacom. We had mentioned in our analysis that Google highlights the details of Viacom's rather large "stealth marketing" campaign to upload videos to YouTube, but Eric Goldman points out that the practices Google uncovered certainly sound like they cross the line of what the FTC says is legitimate:
YouTube also scored points for its descriptions of Viacom's stealth marketing practices.
While one of ACTA's biggest supporters, Rep. Howard Berman, is now pushing for laws to stop companies aiding in China's censorship, he might want to consider that a better plan would be to back down on ACTA.
Patent system supporters regularly point (slightly misleadingly) to the claim that the patent system gives patent holders the right to exclude others from using their inventions.
We've already written up an analysis of the motions for summary judgment in the Viacom/Google YouTube lawsuit, suggesting that Google's arguments seem stronger.
It's been a while now since ICANN announced plans to open up the top level domain space. While we've questioned for many years the utility of still requiring limited TLDs, ICANN's plan to open up top level domains appeared to be more of a moneygrab than any real attempt at openness.
Michael Scott points us to a rather surprising (given the source) piece in Ad Age asking if copyright is "the buggy whip of the digital age.
Whatever happened to actually competing in the market place? Copycense points us to a recent legal battle between Dixie and Huhtamaki over the design of their disposable coffee cups.
Unfortunately, I can't find who first sent this in, but the site Inieoma recently had an interesting multi-part "discussion" on how independent artists are dealing with the issue of "piracy.
Michael Scott points us to a very interesting analysis of how to different appeals courts have very different interpretations of our federal anti-hacking law.
Ah, the patent wars. As you're probably aware, TiVo spent years fighting a big legal battle with EchoStar/Dish Networks over some patents on DVR technology.