notice
Why we tweaked our copyright notice
A couple of weeks ago, we ran an article on the various overbroad copyright notices one finds in books and on TV sports. You know the sort of thing—”any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited.” The piece focused on a pair of lawyers who had complained about such notices back in 2007, and we wanted to know what had happened with those complaints. The short answer: not much.
Continue reading »Copyright Treaty Is Policy Laundering at Its Finest
The blogosphere is abuzz over an apparently leaked document showing the United States trying to push its controversial DMCA-style notice-and-takedown process on the world. But since Threat Level already lives in the land of the DMCA, we’re more bothered by the fact that the U.S. proposal goes far beyond that 1998 law, and would require Congress to alter the DMCA in a manner even more hostile to consumers.
Continue reading »New Zealand Govt Reveals New “Three-Strikes” Plan
Would still disconnect file-sharers, but power to do so would move from ISPs and copyright holders to the govt’s Copyright Tribunal. Last month I mentioned how the New Zealand govt was slowly resurrecting a “three-strikes” plan to deal with accused file-sharers after deciding to scrap the plan back in March due to public pressure that such a plan would disconnect people without proper proof of copyright infringement. Now the details of the revised proposal have been released by the govt, and despite public demands that Internet disconnection be taken of the table, it still remains.
Continue reading »MediaSentry phuks up in Canada
Ex-RIAA private ‘investigator,’ MediaSentry, bought by SafeNet for cash and stock worth $20 million in 2005, this year fired by the Big 4 extortion unit and then sold to rival MediaDefender at flea-market rates of $136,000 in cash and a promise of another $800,000, turned up in Australia where it was responsible having a student thrown out of his school dormitory . Now it’s operating in Canada. Does anyone know if it’s licensed here?
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