I like to read history, including historical fiction, so I was happy when a friend turned me on to George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire, a four-volume-and-counting pastiche of Medieval Europe/Roman Frontier/Golden Horde, with a soupcon of magic and a few dragons thrown in, centered on sympathetic good/bad characters and realistically [...]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week announced that it had taken action against 82 websites “engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods and copyrighted works.” “Action” means that ICE shut them down by getting a judicial order seizing the domain names under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2323 and associated laws, which [...]

Last Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review Tiffany v. eBay, in which the issue, as stated in the legalese of certiorari petitions, was: Whether, under the doctrine of contributory trademark infringement, a defendant can be held liable for operating a marketplace that it knows is used to sell substantial quantities of goods that infringe [...]

Many in the blogosphere and advocacy groups are up in arms about Viacom and other television networks blocking Google from accessing their content on Google TV. But there are many good justifications for this because content needs to be supported by commercial entities and because Google is getting a taste of its own medicine.

An interesting Broadband Breakfast is coming up on December 14 – a session on China and IP with Fuli Chen, Intellectual Property Rights Attache for the Chinese Embassy to the United States, plus other panelists. The event is free – details and registration at the link. Dragon image by Wendy Piersall.

Today is the last day to respond to the Department of Commerce Notice of Inquiry on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Internet Economy (Oct. 5, 2010), asking for comment on “the challenges of protecting copyrighted works online and the relationship between copyright law and innovation in the Internet economy,” as inputs to a [...]

Next Friday, Senate Judiciary has on its agenda consideration of S.3804, Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which was introduced by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) joined by a bipartisan collection of 17 co-sponsors, including Tom Coburn (R-OK); Orrin Hatch (R-UT); Charles Schumer ( D-NY); Dianne Feintstein (D-CA); and Lindsay Graham (R-SC). The bill is not [...]

Google CEO Eric Schmit slams network TV for blocking Google TV from accessing that content, but Google blocking of Syabas from YouTube makes him a hypocrite.  I’m not suggesting that Google is wrong to exercise control over YouTube and I’m a firm believer that content creators own their creations, but that right extends to all other content [...]

One of the themes of the Free Culture Movement, especially its variant called open source software, is the idea of “the community,” which eschews the claims of property rights in the name of collective achievement, and rewards its members in the form of accolades and reputation.  Indeed, Harvard’s Yochai Benkler made his academic bones with [...]

Last week Larry Lessig challenged the World Intellectual Property Organization to take the lead in overhauling current copyright law. Lessig believes the current system has failed at providing both the protection and guidelines for creative professionals, scientific research, and amateurs alike.