intellectual property
Accusations Fly in Viacom, YouTube Copyright Fight
Google deliberately weakened its copyright compliance standards after it acquired YouTube in 2006 so it “would profit from illegal downloads,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin once said, according to a Friday filing by Viacom in its infringement suit against the company. YouTube, in its own Friday filing and in a blog post , said it was legally immune to copyright infringement claims -– even if it knowingly hosted copyrighted works on its video-sharing site. One reason was that Viacom — which owns MTV, BET, Paramount and other media concerns — had a marketing practice of secretly uploading its own videos to YouTube, some of the same works at issue in the case.
Continue reading »Pink Floyd Beats EMI in Creativity Flap
Pink Floyd prevailed Thursday in a legal brawl with its label when a British judge ordered EMI to stop selling individual downloads of the acid-inspired group’s songs without permission. The artists behind The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall , and other top sellers claimed its decade-old contract with EMI required the band’s music to be sold as an entire album, not as single tracks in which EMI has permitted iTunes to distribute. High Court of Justice Judge Andrew Morritt of London agreed, ruling the 1999 agreement with EMI was crafted to “ preserve the artistic integrity of the albums.” Pink Floyd said its musical craft surrounding concept albums was being misrepresented when sold in singles.
Continue reading »Pink Floyd, EMI Brawl Over iTunes Royalties
Pink Floyd and its label, EMI, are battling over online royalties stemming from a contested clause in their decade-old contract. The developer of “The Dark Side of the Moon” and other top-selling albums claims its contract with EMI requires its music to be sold as an entire album, not single tracks that EMI has permitted iTunes to distribute. The band’s attorney, Robert Howe, told a London Court on Tuesday that “It’s a matter of fact that the defendant has been permitting individual tracks to be downloaded online and that therefore they have been allowing albums not to be sold in their original configuration,” Howe said, Bloomberg News reported .
Continue reading »Senator Demands IP Treaty Details
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) That a U.S. senator must ask a federal agency to share information regarding a proposed and “classified” international anti-counterfeiting accord the government has already disclosed is alarming.
Continue reading »
