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On Sunday, January 18, 2009 Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed at one of the Inaugaration celebration concerts - specifically at [...]
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The Constable on September 27th, 2008
The Senate approved new Intellectual Property enforcement legislation Friday (the EIPRA bill), with the House of Representatives expected to approve it themselves on Saturday. Missing form the final bill, however, was a controversial provision that would have turned the Justice Department into a free legal service in civil suits for copyright holders.
We’ll post an update when final word comes in from the House (supposedly later today).
The Constable on September 27th, 2008
StereoTune has an article up about a new pay-for-content mp3 site at Soundsbox.com. Just like (the now defunct) allofmp3.com, they are charging a minimal fee per download ($.14 a track here), and just like allofmp3 they are using the Russian ROMS licensing system - which basically ignores all U.S. copyright law and does not pay a single cent to songwriters, artists or copyright holders. This is also the same supposed licensing that (the also illegal) ultimate-guitar.com uses for its guitar tabs.
Even though this is obviously illegal in regards to U.S. copyright law, it is still unlikely the site will be going anywhere anytime soon since it’s not based in the U.S.  It took major intervention, and a threat to not allow Russia into the WTO to get allofmp3 shut down, and they just moved to mp3sparks in the end anyway.
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 26th, 2008
So Muxtape shut down (as we knew it would) due to completely disregarding the RIAA and being unable to come to any agreement with them. Now Favtape is positioned to take its place, but again it’s only a matter of time until this goes the way of the dodo as well.
Unlike Muxtape, Favtape doesn’t host anything itself - but is using Seeqpod instead. Of course, Seeqpod is very likely to get shut down soon for the same reasons services like Grokster got their butts sued - for being a service basically made to allow people to access copyright-protected material. See, Seeqpod is basically a music search engine/player that searches the web for MP3s of specific songs and then loads them in from the host server.
What eventually needs to happen if copyright holders want to keep stopping these services is that it needs to be made very clear that where a file itself is hosted is not the only part of copyright infringement - but building a service to do so is as well. Think of it as murder vs. hiring a hitman - just because someone else does the actual deed doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible at all for making it happen.
The Constable on September 25th, 2008
Ars Technica has an article about a recent letter to Congress from the Department of Justice regarding to Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 (EIPRA). Basically, the wording of the Act made it so the DoJ was responsible for all civil and criminal cases of copyright abuse, thereby putting the burden on the taxpayer to fund such cases (but money won from the cases would go the rights holders).
In our opinion, cases of copyright abuse are clearly legal arguments that can and should go to the courts, and theft is theft (and those cases are mostly criminal), but when it comes to civil suits those really should be on the burden of the individual bringing the suit. After all, if something is worthy of going to court over in an actual lawsuit, it had better be something you are likely to win - which means groups like the RIAA could easily fund such lawsuits.
The article at ArsTechnica has more information on the letter, but it also has quite a bit of opinion inserted in the article as well - so take what you read with a grain of salt, since this is Ars after all.
The Constable on September 25th, 2008
Patents, like copyright, are core pieces of the Intellectual Property puzzle. With the ability to lay exclusive claim to an idea, patents can be extremely dangerous. Still, some sort of system is also necessary in order to encourage people to come up with their own ideas, guaranteeing that as soon as they do so they will not be stolen from them by someone else. The patent system is supposed to encourage the creation of new ideas, but it is now also being abused by some to block new ideas from ever happening through the use of “blocking patents.”
Check out this article from BBC for more information.
Life-saving scientific research is being stifled by a “broken” patent system, according to a new report.
“Blocking patents” are delaying advances in cancer medicine and food crops, says the Canada-based Innovation Partnership, a non-profit consultancy.
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 22nd, 2008
Activision, the publisher behind the Guitar Hero and Call of Duty games, are taking the battle over piracy to the courtroom, reports Edge.
Court filings uncovered by the European news organization allege that New Yorker James R. Strickland has “violated Plaintiff’s exclusive rights of reproduction and distribution” by illicitly copying and distributing Activision’s titles — an act that the firm characterizes as “willful and intentional.”
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 18th, 2008
Recently MXTabs received a fax from Hal Leonard Corporation requesting the removal of songs written by the band Boston, claiming to have an exclusive print agreement with the band, including digital rights. The tabs were displayed on MXTabs through a direct license with the Harry Fox Agency, but due to Hal Leonard’s claim have since been removed.
Our thoughts: It never ceases to amaze me when two companies who are both trying to compete in a legal landscape get on each others’ case.  Here we have the biggest print publisher in the world trying to get tabs removed from the one tab site that’s trying to be legal, when there are literally thousands of other tab sites doing whatever they like - the least of which is Ultimate-Guitar which completely dwarfs the amount of people going to MXTabs or even Hal Leonard’s own web sites.
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 17th, 2008
TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 17th, 2008
Digital Rights Management (DRM) sound pretty innocuous and not something that you would think could be the biggest deal breaker between consumers and the entertainment industry. After all DRM could have meant ways for you to manage all the entertainment media you have paid for.
read more | digg story
The Constable on September 12th, 2008
A recently released study has claims that the current ‘Intellectual Property’ situation in the world is not working well. Driven by a fear of losing out, and bolstered by an attitude that profit is the aim of IP, progress is hampered. Not only by the entertainment industry, also in biotechnology where medicines are sometimes restricted or withheld,
read more | digg story
