Archive for the 'legal' Category

Can a Number be Copyrighted?

Tuesday, May 1st, 2007

The so-called “Processing Key” that unlocks the heart of every Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disk to date has been published, oddly enough, in a DMCA takedown notice, and is now widely available on the Internet.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 BD
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 [...]

Google Cache Legal

Thursday, January 26th, 2006

This is actually pretty big news
Via digg:
A court has ruled that Google’s cacheing and displaying of millions of web-pages is legal.
read more · digg story
Technorati Tags: Google, cache, legal

Sony halts production of ‘rootkit’ CDs

Saturday, November 12th, 2005

Now that Sony has several lawsuits filed against them, they decided to stop producing CDs with the so-called “rootkit DRM” on them. A little too late Sony!
Sony BMG Music Entertainment said Friday that it will suspend production of CDs with copy-protection technology that has been exploited by virus writers to try to hide their [...]

More on the Sony Rootkit DRM

Thursday, November 10th, 2005

From Slashdot
Lawyers in California have filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony and a second one may be filed today in New York. The lawsuit was filed Nov. 1 in Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles by Vernon, CA. It asks the court to prevent Sony from selling additional CDs protected by the anti-piracy [...]

Sony DRM is worse than you might think

Thursday, November 3rd, 2005

DO NOT BUY CDs from Sony/BMG or Universal.
Apparently, any CD labeled “Contents Enhanced and Protected” actually contains malicious software (a rootkit) which can cause considerable harm to your computer. How bad is the problem? Over 24,000 CDs have this. Rootkits are typically used by hackers, viruses, spyware, etc. to hide [...]

Get Permission to Sing Happy Birthday

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

Ever wonder why restaurants never sing “Happy Birthday” anymore? It’s always some funky variation with clapping involved. Is this to maximize embarrassment? Maybe… it’s more likely that the restaurant owners are afraid of copyright infringement.
Time Warner actually owns the copyright to “Happy Birthday”. If you sing it in a public [...]

String Cheese

Monday, October 17th, 2005

A band called String Cheese actually get it. Instead of sueing consumers, putting DRM on their content which only hurts legitimate consumers, they actually tour! What a novel idea.

Between 1999 and 2003, while much of the music industry struggled with digital piracy and suffered declining sales, String Cheese revenues grew to $14.5 million [...]

RIAA sues XM & Sirius

Thursday, October 6th, 2005

This just makes me angry… Evidently unaware that people can record music off the radio, the RIAA adds XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio to their list of grandmothers and orphans that they are suing.
read more · digg story

Congress to legislate file swapping?

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

This is just ridiculous. A California senator (who I’m sure has had healthy donations from the entertainment industry) has suggested that because file-sharing networks continue to house illegal files, they should be shut down.
From Techdirt:

Her opinion is that she needs to put forth legislation to outlaw these “peer to peers.” Considering what appears to [...]

Eolas Patent Upheld by Court

Wednesday, September 28th, 2005

Via TechDirt:
The Eolas patent on browser plugins was upheld in court. It covers “a system allowing a user of a browser program on a computer connected to an open distributed hypermedia system to access and execute an embedded program object” — basically, a browser plugin. This is a perfect example of ridiculous patents [...]