Managing Rights Management

Kindle Orwellian Bruhaha Revisited

As noted yesterday, Amazon had deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm and issued a credit to purchasers. In an Information Week article, EFF attorney Fred Von Lohmann considers the Kindle EULA: The incident, he said, highlighted the gap in understanding about rights in the digital world and... Read more →

MiniTrue: Orwell Unperson

The Ministry of Truth to Records Department: George Orwell unperson; revise immediately. Doubleplusbad 1984 and Animal Farm down "memory hole." This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had... Read more →

DRM: Control or Opportunity? The Views of Leading Trade Associations

More than 800 comments have been submitted to the FTC in advance of hearings on the impact of DRM on consumers. Four of the major copyright industry trade associations have jointly submitted useful comments. The four are the the Association of American Publishers ("AAP'),the Entertainment Sofware Association ("'ESA"), Motion Picture... Read more →

How To DRM? Byteshield's FTC Submission

ByteShield, the San Francisco-based software and game DRM company, submitted comments in advance of the FTC's hearing on DRM and the consumer. Submitted by CEO Jan Samzelius, the document provides a terrific list of DRM features, functions, and capabilities that would probably delight game and software publishers and provide a... Read more →

The CCIA On Interoperability and DRM

As noted, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a public hearing in Seattle on DRM and it's impact on consumers. More than 800 submissions were received, including several from various vendors and trade associations. Among the latter submitting written comments from the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade... Read more →

FTC DRM Workshop Draws 700 Comments

As noted here, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a public workshop in March on Digital Rights Management in Seattle. At least 700 comments have been file with the commission and have been made available to the public here. A preponderance of comments seem to have been submitted by individuals.... Read more →

Apple Drops DRM, Norway Drops Law Suit

CNet and other outlets report that Norway's consumer watchdog is dropping legal action against Apple now that music from iTunes will be without DRM protection. The legal action complained that Apple's FairPlay DRM prevented tracks purchased from Apple could not be played on non-Apple devices. Norway's consumer ombudsman, Bjoern Erik... Read more →

Hearing In RIAA Copyright Case Postponed - RIAA Appeals

The hearing previously scheduled for today in the RIAA instigated law suit against Joel Tennebaum (Sony BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum) has been postponed to allow the RIAA to appeal Judge Nancy Gertner's decision to allow the hearing to be webcast. Read more →

FTC Publishes Proposed Topic List For March DRM Town Hall Discussion

The Federal Trade Commission has now published a list of proposed topics for the DRM Town Hall to be held (and webcast) on March 25 in Seattle. The topic outline is both broad and detailed and worth reviewing. The legal section proposes these topics: Legal Landscape of DRM: The Copyright... Read more →

Hearing In RIAA Copyright Case To Be Televised

The Boston Globe reports that Federal District Court Judge Nancy Gertner has agreed to allow next week's hearing in the RIAA's copyright suit against BU student Joel Tenenbaum to be televised. Tennebaum's legal defense team includes Harvard Law School professor Charles Nessom. [Judge Gertner] dismissed as "specious" the recording industry's... Read more →

FTC Solicits Comments on DRM

The Federal Trade Commission is soliciting comments on Digital Rights Management technologies. The solicitation is in advance of a FTC Town Hall to address Digital Rights Management Technologies which is scheduled to take place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle. Digital rights management (DRM) refers to technologies typically used by... Read more →

RIAA Stops Suing Consumers - Not!

The NYTimes and other outlets reported that the RIAA is ending its lawsuits individual music downloaders. Not so, says Slashdot: According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claims that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits "for months"; according to the Wall Street Journal report the RIAA... Read more →

CNET: The RIAA's Letter to ISPs

cnet.com has obtained a copy of letters sent by the RIAA to ISPs regarding P2P downloading of music files. Please bear in mind that this letter serves as an official notice to you that this network user may be liable for the illegal activity occurring on your network. This letter... Read more →

Judge postpones hearing in key RIAA lawsuit

CNet reports that a hearing regarding the RIAA initiated copyright infringement suit in Rhode Island federal court against Joel Tenenbaum has been postponed until January 6. As reported here and elsewhere, Harvard professor Charles Nesson and Law School students have intervened in Massachusetts Federal Court to get the copyright law... Read more →

Prof. Charles Nesson: The RIAA’s prosecution of copyright law is unconstitutional

As noted earlier, Prof. Charles Nesson has filed a suit in Boston federal court alleging that the RIAA's copyright enforcement campaign against music downloaders is unconstitutional. Now Mass High Tech has an article by Nesson in which he explains his views. The tension remains that our antiquated legal system has... Read more →

Harvard Professor Fires Back At RIAA

The AP reports that Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson has filed a law suit in Boston federal court challenging on constitutional grounds the RIAA's aggressive legal tactics against individuals. Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets... Read more →

What Does AACS Teach Us About the DMCA?

My Google Alerts filter found a blogicle on the DMCA penned by Zach Powell, a third year law student at the University of Richmond (VA) School of Law (posted semi-anonymously, I have his permission to use his name). Written for Prof. Chris Cotropia's copyright law class blog, Powell posted a... Read more →

Norway Pressures Apple to Drop DRM from iPhone

It's now well understood that DRM is being used to enforce business models by protecting content from being used without authorization or on unauthorized devices. Now Norway is being pressured by consumer advocates to force Apple to open their iTunes platform, so says the Romow Science and Technology Blog. The... Read more →

Blu-ray Player Producers Sued For Patent Infringement

The Patent Prospector blog is reporting that patent assertion company Acacia has filed a patent infringement suit in plaintiff-friendly Eastern (federal) District of Texas. According to the report, defendants named in the suit include Samsung, Best Buy, Denon, Funai, LG, Matsushita, Panasonic, Phillips, Pioneer, and Sharp. Apparently missing is Sony.... Read more →

Selectable Output Control: MPAA, Others Lobby FCC

Ars Technica reports that the MPAA has petitioned the FCC to enable Selectable Output Controls (SOC) on theatrically released movies distributed via cable and satellite prior to their release on DVD. SOC lets video distributors close down analog or digital output on broadcasts, which could be used to force HD... Read more →

How The RIAA Battles Piracy: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

Reuter's Susan Butler wrote an in-depth account of the RIAA.'s efforts to curb piracy that is well worth reading. Whether their efforts will have any long lasting effect is debatable. By all accounts, the music industry is doing well. It's the record / CD business that's broken. The business model... Read more →

Annals of Privacy Protection: The NGS Genographic Project

A friend mentioned contributing DNA to the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project "which is seeking to chart new knowledge about the migratory history of the human species by using sophisticated laboratory and computer analysis of DNA contributed by hundreds of thousands of people from around the world." I got curious... Read more →

M.P.A.A. Accuses Laser Printers of File Sharing Copyright Violations - Really

Brad Stone's NYTimes blog entry describes research conducted by Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor, Michael Piatek a graduate student, and Arvind Krishnamurthy, a research assistant professor, all at the University of Washington. The research was directed toward understanding how the M.P.A.A. identifies those who received nastygrams from the trade association.... Read more →

Supremes Consider Taking MLB Appeal On Fantasy Baseball Licensing Rights

David Savage reports in the L.A. Times that the Supreme Court is considering whether to take an appeal from Major League Baseball concerning licensing rights relating to fantasy baseball. MLB has claimed that it owns the copyrights and thus is exclusively entitled to license baseball names and performance statistics. The... Read more →

MPAA Dangles Early HD VOD Releases - Engadget

Engadget reports that the MPAA is proposing to enable pre-DVD release of HD VOD movies provided that Congress helps plug the analog hole: The MPAA petitioned the FCC earlier this month to lift the existing ban preventing cable and satellite providers from remotely disabling analog outputs on their set-top boxes... Read more →

FTC on DRM-Disclose, Label It, OR Else

Ars Technica reports on a recent Federal Trade Commission report issued nearly 18 months after the conference that spawned it. Regarding DRM, the report says in part: As new, proprietary technologies are introduced, consumers will be faced with noninteroperable products. Despite consumers’ general preference for interoperability, which provides the greatest... Read more →

Comcast Capitulates On Net Neutrality

According to this NYTimes article and other sources, Comcast has said that it will move to application neutral network management and disclose publicly its bandwidth management techniques. Tests by the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (among others) showed that Comcast was disrupting P2P traffic with forged packets. The... Read more →

Ad Blocking Poll: Norton Internet Security

It's not clear whether under copyright law consumers can strip advertising from web pages. One legal theory is that the stripped page is a derivative work. Under copyright law, rightsholders can reserve the right to create derivatives for themselves. As noted, Symantec has dropped the adblocking feature from the 2008... Read more →

Surprise! MPAA Against Net Neutrality

Ya just have to love Variety-speak: "MPAA topper blasts Net neutrality." "This effort is being called by its proponents 'Net neutrality,'" Glickman [MPAA's 'topper"] continued. "It's a clever name. But at the end of the day, there's nothing neutral about this for our customers or for our ability to make... Read more →

The RIAA: What Can Get You Busted

Writing in CNet, Declan McCullagh exposes the kinds of consumer behavior that can bring the unwanted attention of RIAA's sleuths and law suits. This useful article covers shared folders, large collections of tunes, open wireless networks, and choice of P2P applications: The RIAA has focused on copyright infringement on the... Read more →