Judge dismisses Universal's Infringement Allegations

Source: http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/06/11. Story forwarded by Alex Lencicki. A federal judge has dismissed a copyright infringement allegations from Universal Music Group (UMG), affirming an eBay seller's right to resell promotional CDs that he buys from secondhand stores. Troy Augusto, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and law firm Keker & Van Nest, was sued by UMG last year in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for 26 auction listings involving promo CDs. At issue was whether the "promotional use only, not for sale" labels on those CDs could trump Augusto's right to resell materials.

In dismissing UMG's lawsuit late Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero ruled that the promo CDs are gifts distributed by UMG, as they are mailed free and unsolicited to thousands of people without any expectation or intention of their return. The first sale doctrine says that once the copyright owner sells or gives away a copy of a CD, DVD, or book, the recipient is entitled to resell that copy without further permission.

Clearly, this ruling impacts the book business.

OiNK, ‘Biggest Pre-Release Pirate Music Site,’ Shut Down

OiNK, reportedly one of the world’s largest sources of pre-release pirated music according to Breitbart, was shut down yesterday by British and Dutch police. The site had a reputation for distributing music weeks ahead of the official launch, with 60 such albums being released online this year. OiNK, run by an unnamed 24-year-old in northeast England town Middlesbrough, had approximately 180,000 members. To join one had to prove they had music to offer, and were required to continuously post music to maintain membership, said the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The site’s Amsterdam-based servers were seized last week.

http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2007/10/23/oink-biggest-pre-release-pirate-music-site-shut-down

College Publishers Reach Settlement in Pirate Case

U.S. college publishers scored another victory yesterday in their fight to keep unauthorized editions of textbooks from being sold over the Internet to American students. Three publishers—John Wiley, Pearson Education and Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning) reached an out-of-court settlement with several defendants the companies charged with selling unauthorized versions of textbooks through such Web sites as ebay.com, amazon.com, abebooks.com and half.com.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6493372.html?nid=2286&source=title&rid=196146212

RIAA Sues Usenet.com, Decries it as Napster, Kazaa

The Recording Industry Association of America is suing usenet.com, decrying it as the next Napster, Kazaa and other peer-to-peer, illicit file-sharing sites. "Defendant provides essentially the same functionality that P2P services such as Napster, Aimster, Grokster and Kazaa did (prior to being enjoined by the federal courts) -- knowingly providing the site and facilities for users to upload and download copyrighted works -- except that defendant goes further than even the P2P services to facilitate and encourage copyright infringement by its users," said the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. "Defendant customizes its service to make it as convenient and seamless as possible for subscribers to distribute and obtain copyrighted music without authorization and without paying for that music." The suit (huge .pdf), comes two weeks after the RIAA won its first pirating jury trial targeting an individual. A Duluth, Minnesota jury ordered Jammie Thomas to pay the RIAA $222,000 for pirating 24 songs on the Kazaa system in 2005. Article

Group of Net, Media Companies Agree on Copyright Guidelines

As reported by the Wall Street Journal > The companies supporting the principles include CBS Corp., Dailymotion, Microsoft Corp., NBC Universal, News Corp.'s Fox and MySpace units, Viacom Inc., Veoh Networks Inc., and Walt Disney Co. Notably absent is Google Inc., which had been in discussions about possibly joining the group. The guidelines are meant to address copyright-related issues that have flared up as user posting of content -- particularly video -- to the Web has boomed.

The agreed-upon principles include using technology to eliminate copyright-infringing content uploaded by users to Web sites, and blocking any infringing material before it is publicly accessible. Google on Monday unveiled technology it has been testing to automate the identification of copyrighted material on its YouTube video-sharing service. It said the technology cannot yet prevent infringing content from being posted initially, though it can pull flagged content off the site "in a matter of a few minutes."

Verdict in First RIAA File-Sharing Jury Trial: Guilty

The first defendant to face a jury trial in the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) over 20,000-lawsuit strong campaign against illegal file-sharing was found guilty on Thursday, and ordered to pay $220,000 in damages. Thirty-year-old Jammie Thomas was found guilty of "willful" copyright infringement, and will pay $9,250 in damages for each of the 24 songs in question, or a total of $220,000, Ars Technica reported.

The copyright infringement lawsuit against Thomas was the first to ever actually go to a jury trial; most of those charged have opted to settle the claims for around $3,000 to $5,000 each. Thomas testified that she was not the Kazaa user "tereastarr," despite using the same handle on e-mail, website logins and at Match.com. Thomas' attorney Brian Toder said during his closing argument that the industry had failed to establish that "this actual human being was behind the keyboard," and that Thomas was "not the person marauding as 'tereastarr'," Wired News reported in its courtroom coverage. Article

Former Ramones Drummer Sues Retailers Over Digital Royalties

The former drummer of the Ramones has filed suit against his music publisher, as well as online retailers iTunes, Wal-Mart and RealNetworks, over the alleged unauthorized distribution of six Ramones songs he wrote between 1983 and 1987, Billboard reported. Former Ramones drummer Richard Reinhardt (aka Richie Ramone) said that no music publishing agreement signed at the time authorized distribution on such digital services. He is seeking over $900,000 in damages and unpaid royalties, and a permanent injunction against the use of the songs in any manner whatsoever.The Ramones songs in question are "Smash You," "Somebody Put Something in My Drink," "Human Kind," "I'm Not Jesus, I Know Better Now" and "(You) Can't Say Anything Nice." Article

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2d6stg (Billboard)
http://tinyurl.com/25fzmw (Pitchfork)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ramones

File-Sharing Search Engine TorrentSpy Bans U.S. Users

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Next Anti-Piracy Crusade: Cell Phone Copies

The motion picture industry is zeroing in on small and increasingly-powerful mobile-phone cameras that might be trained on theater screens. Picture and sound quality lag behind their camcorder big brothers, but the devices offer something a camcorder cannot: stealth. "It's a lot less conspicuous than somebody trying to bring in a camcorder," said Chris Null, editor and publisher of Filmcritic.com. "This is definitely a trend. Everybody has their cell phone at a movie." Article

Judge Rules "Making Available" of songs is Copyright Infringement

A judge has ruled that the "making available" of copyrighted content on a file-sharing network can constitute copyright infringement, in the second such known ruling by a judge hearing a major label's case against an individual file-swapper, according to a post on the Recording Industry vs. The People blog. "It is no defense that a Kazaa user did not directly oversee the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material," the ruling states. The judge awarded $40,500 in damages to Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records. Article

U.S lodges request for formal case against China

The U.S. Trade Representative on Monday lodged a request for a formal case against China at the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Dispute Settlement Body, after months of criticizing the country's handling of piracy of U.S. intellectural property. Article