Tag: Copyright
New Zealand Court Hands U.S. a Victory in Kim Dotcom Piracy Case
A year ago, we wrote about the indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia of the executives and founders of Megaupload, one of the leading file-hosting sites on the Web. The charges were copyright infringement through the facilitation of piracy of copyrighted materials, money-laundering, and conspiracy. The site was shuttered after the indictment. The case… Read More
What Lessons Can Be Learned From Tragic Death of An Internet Activist?
There can be no dispute that the death of Aaron Swartz – the Internet activist who took his own life on Friday, January 11 – is tragic. There can also be no dispute that the grief and anger his family feel is very real. The question is what the appropriate focus for that anger should… Read More
D.C. Circuit: Restitution Order Must Involve Victim’s Loss, Not Defendant’s Gain
On November 9, 2012, in a unanimous opinion in United States v. Fair, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the district court had abused its discretion in ordering restitution in the amount of $743,000 in a criminal copyright infringement case. The appeals court vacated the lower court’s restitution order, finding… Read More
China, Other Nations Need to Crack Down on Software Piracy
Reuters recently quoted Tian Lipu, head of China’s State Intellectual Office, complaining about China’s reputation for rampant software piracy. According to Tian, “China is the world’s largest payer for patent rights, for trademark rights, for royalties, and one of the largest for buying real software . . . We pay the most. People rarely talk… Read More
In Effort to Extradite UK Man in Piracy Case, DOJ Is Overreaching
A current anti-piracy case demonstrates the U.S. government’s intent to enforce its copyright laws not just beyond national borders, but beyond the extent of logic. The U.S. Department of Justice has issued an arrest warrant and extradition order for a 24-year-old college student in England who ran a website that contained links to independent websites… Read More
Second Circuit YouTube Ruling Will Have Major Impact for Online-Piracy Debate
What had been touted as a great victory for Google in particular and for “Internet freedom” in general was just dealt a major blow when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court decision in Viacom’s lawsuit against Google and Google-owned YouTube. Viacom, along with the English… Read More
Better Anti-Piracy Bill Introduced in Wake of SOPA, PIPA
We previously wrote about the broad protests over two bills in Congress targeting online copyright infringement – the House’s Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). We were pleased that the protests and other activities were effective in ending efforts to pass those versions of the legislation. The protests… Read More
Indictments of Megaupload Are a Greater Threat to Web Users Than Piracy
In last week’s Megaupload indictment, the U.S. government has raised the debate over copyright infringement on the Web to a whole new level – treating the operators of one of the most popular sites on the Internet as if they were part of organized crime. On January 19, 2012, a federal grand jury in the… Read More
Online Protests Hit Hard Against Anti-Piracy Bills
Organized online protests over two bills in Congress targeting online copyright infringement — the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) — seem to have crippled these bills’ progress and ended their chances of becoming law in their present form. We have previously written about the protests mounting… Read More
Protests Mount Against Proposed Law That Would Cripple the Internet
From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, 2011 was a year of protests. It was capped off with a little-covered (by traditional media) but important protest that will carry on into 2012. We’ll call it the “Pioneers Strike Back” movement of Internet entrepreneurs. The issue is a piece of controversial legislation pending… Read More
IFRAH Law
