November 9. That’s the day on which Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers are to submit an amended version of their book settlement, one that addresses concerns that it might give them unfair advantage over other digital libraries or violate copyright laws abroad.
“There’s No Free Lunch–or Free Linux.” That was the title of SCO CEO Darl McBride’s keynote address at the Computer Digital Expo in Las Vegas back in 2003, and it signaled the start of a long legal siege. Earlier that day, SCO announced plans to file suit against a large-scale user of Linux as part of its campaign against the open-source operating system.
Looks like the fireworks have begun early in Mountain View. On Thursday afternoon, the Department of Justice officially notified Google that it is investigating its book deal for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The notification after the jump.
Google’s gone and run afoul of the Department of Justice again. Its interest piqued by the growing outcry over the company’s proposed book-search settlement with authors and publishers, the agency has opened an inquiry.
If Sweden’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive was crafted to scare the hell out of the country’s Internet population, it seems to have had the desired affect. Swedish Internet traffic dropped by a third on Wednesday after the law, which allows copyright holders to force ISPs to divulge the IP addresses of computers sharing copyrighted material, was implemented.
You’ve got to love the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry–if not for its hopelessly antediluvian moniker, then for its we’re-on-a-mission-from-God attitude toward its criminal case against torrent index The Pirate Bay. Just two days into the trial–apparently the hottest ticket in Stockholm right now–and already, half the charges against the Swedish site have been dropped because of the prosecution’s fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the torrent-distributed protocol.
In its last legal salvo against Psystar, Apple suggested the Mac clone maker was backed by a silent third party or two. And at this point it better be, because there’s going to be hell to pay when Apple legal is through with it, regardless of how Psystar revises its original complaint.
Apple legal has some interesting weekend reading ahead of it. Mac clone maker Psystar filed its 54-page countersuit against Apple late Thursday and, as expected, it accuses the company of restraint of trade, unfair competition, and other violations of antitrust law.
Given the option to pull copyrighted material posted to YouTube without their permission or to monetize it with YouTube’s new Content ID system, some 90 percent of copyright owners are choosing the latter. Since it was first announced, Content ID–which allows rights owners to block an infringing clip, leave it be, or grant YouTube permission to sell ads against it–has won some impressive partners, including such media companies as CBS, Universal Music and Electronic Arts.
Looks like Google has updated its arrogance algorithm again. Having dismissed Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement suit over video clips on YouTube as a “mistake,” the company is taking the same tack with a similar suit brought against it by Italian TV company Mediaset SpA.
If Bono is U2’s geopolitical pragmatist, the band’s manager, Paul McGuinness, is its neo-Luddite. At the Music Matters confab in Hong Kong, McGuinness slagged broadband Internet service providers, accusing them of aiding and abetting music piracy while CD sales and royalty payments to musicians plunge.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
Spectacular in the bellowing Russian sailor sense of the word …
“If you spell something wrong on your insurance claim, do you really deserve surgery? I don’t think so …”
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