Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP

Fair Dealing by Giulia Forsythe (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP

Copyright

Flushed Away

The AP is reporting that the FBI arrested a U.S. man for uploading a copy of the flim Flushed Away.  His source – not camcording but rather an Oscar screener copy (yes, someone apparently thought Flushed Away merited an Academy Award). 

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February 23, 2007 3 comments News

Puretracks Launches DRM-Free Music

Puretracks, a major Canadian online music seller, has just launched DRM-free music for some of its music titles.  While the major label music remains locked behind Windows-based DRM, Puretracks is offering 50,000 titles in clean MP3 format.  Participating labels include some of Canada's leading indie labels such as Nettwerk and […]

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February 21, 2007 22 comments News

Canadian Copyright Law in Verse

Government policy makers have long talked about simplifying the Copyright Act. I don't think this is what they have in mind, but it is very clever.

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February 21, 2007 Comments are Disabled News

U.S. Copyright Lobby Out of Touch With the Rest of the World

Given that it has been picked up by Slashdot, BoingBoing, and Wired, I'm a bit behind in pointing to a column (BBC version, homepage version) I wrote for the BBC on the recent IIPA intellectual property protection submission to the USTR.  The column picks up on many of the points I made in a posting about the submission last week.  In the column I argue that what is most noteworthy about the IIPA effort is that dozens of countries – indeed most of the major global economies in the developed and developing world – are subjected to criticism.  The IIPA recommendations are designed to highlight the inadequacies of IP protection around the world, yet the lobby group ultimately shines the spotlight on how U.S. copyright policy has become out-of-touch and isolated from much of the rest of the globe.

The IIPA criticisms fall into three broad categories.  

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February 20, 2007 7 comments Columns

U.S. Copyright Lobby Out of Touch With the Rest of the World

Appeared on the BBC on February 20, 2007 as US Copyright Lobby Out-Of-Touch The International Intellectual Property Alliance, an association that brings together U.S. lobby groups representing the movie, music, software, and publisher industries, last week delivered its annual submission to the U.S. government featuring its views on the inadequacy […]

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February 20, 2007 4 comments Columns Archive