Category: Copyright

Simon Hayes on Sharman License Holdings, summarising the positions of the parties: The essence of the industry’s argument was that Sharman could stop illegal file trading on the network, but chose not to do so. Indeed, the music giants argued, it encouraged piracy through advertising and promotion, and had ‘knowledge and awareness of rampant copyright… Read more →

Writes Wayne Arnold for the New York Times, ‘The Australian ruling was broadly consistent with a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in June that the makers of the file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus could be held liable for contributing to the infringement of copyrights. The Supreme Court also rejected the argument that file-sharing… Read more →

According to Natalie Gott from the Associated Press, ‘Blue Macellari wrote the term paper back in 1999 while studying abroad, so the Duke University graduate student didn’t understand why it was on the Internet — or why it was for sale. Last January, Macellari learned from a friend that her paper was posted on Web… Read more →

Wired chimes in on the decision. Whenever discussing an Australian news event, Wired always seem to somehow incorporate the phrase ‘Down Under’ into their titles. Cultural patronisation aside, their comments are much the same as everyone else’s: Wilcox said it had been in the financial interest of Sharman and its partners “to maximize, not minimize,… Read more →

Dan Warne has published a firsthand account of the Sharman Networks trial process. Particularly interesting are his observations when final judgment was handed down by Wilcox J: The finding that six of the ten defendants in the case were responsible for authorized users to infringe copyright infringement through the Kazaa software would have been kinda… Read more →

After a four month wait, it’s here. Peruse the 526 paragraph behemoth for yourself. More comments to follow. Executive summary: (i) despite the fact that the Kazaa website contains warnings against the sharing of copyright files, and an end user licence agreement under which users are made to agree not to infringe copyright, it has… Read more →

According to a columnist at The Age: Publishers had a role in the old world. Their job was to aggregate information and sell it in a digestible form, for which they charged money. But the internet and other technologies made publishers’ roles as information clearing-house irrelevant, outdated, anachronistic and obsolete. The world has changed, but… Read more →

Wendy Seltzer reports on an interesting article in The New York Times on the legal implications of imitation in architecture: While the article takes its cue from a recent lawsuit by an architecture student against the designer of the Freedom Tower, it calls that suit an anomaly. (See the Patry Copyright Blog for more on… Read more →

Jason Schultz comments on a recent decision of the United States Federal Circuit Court of Appeals: ‘Hurray! Justice delayed ends up being justice rendered. Over a year ago, StorageTek managed to convince a district court in Boston to misuse standard copyright law and the DMCA anticompetitively and shut down an independent service vendor who offered… Read more →

The Financial Times is running an interesting editorial about the state of American (and, with the enactment of the United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004 (Cth), Australian) copyright law. Professor Boyle argues (rightly, I think) that current intellectual property protections go beyond what is necessary to promote innovation: Thomas Macaulay told us copyright… Read more →