Recently in copyright Category

The Pirate Bay, which is one of the more popular BitTorrent tracking sites, is embroiled in yet another legal battle to stay online.

According to TechCrunch UK the Swedish site owners have received over 4000 pages of legal documents.

The Swedish site has a history of fighting legal challenges. That's the most diplomatic way of describing how they view a legal challenge. If you have a read over their legal page you'll get an idea of their views!

It seems that Google is being sued yet again over trademark issues related to adwords, its pay per click search engine marketing service. This time round it's American Airlines that is taking them to court. The full story is over on Eric Goldman's site. One of the questions he raises amused me:

I also wonder if American Airlines itself has ever bought third party trademarks as keywords--plenty of keyword plaintiffs have engaged in such duplicity, and I'd be surprised if American Airlines has run a completely clean shop.

Of course the question that I'd be asking is why didn't American Airlines simply request that the keywords be blocked by Google. They may not act that quickly when smaller fish submit a request, but I would presume that when a big corporate sends one in that they act a bit faster.

Techcrunch's Michael Arrington is reporting that JK Rowlings' publishers are issuing takedown notices to websites that mentioned the bit torrent story. So now if you mention that a file is available on bit torrent without even linking to it you get a takedown notice? I do not like copyright infringement and have every intention of buying a copy of the new Harry Potter book this weekend, but I find the publisher's attitude to be laughable.

Copyright theft is wrong. I've been a victim, so has Donncha and Krystian. (to name but a few!) However, just because some people are being naughty doesn't mean that you can accuse people randomly of infringing rights. A story on Techcrunch this evening shows how wrong the guardians can be at times. Scouta received a DMCA notice for a video that was uploaded by the rights holder! According to techcrunch the notice isn't even compliant with the act, as it does not state where the original content maybe found. I sent Google a DMCA notice following on from my content theft issues and the instructions are crystal clear:

. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.legal.com/legal_page.html") or other information sufficient to specify the copyrighted work being infringed (for example, "The copyrighted work at issue is the “Touch Not This Cat” by Dudley Smith, published by Smith Publishing, ISBN #0123456789"). 2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above. FOR WEB SEARCH, YOU MUST IDENTIFY EACH SEARCH RESULT THAT DIRECTLY LINKS TO A WEB PAGE THAT ALLEGEDLY CONTAINS INFRINGING MATERIAL. This requires you to provide (a) the search query that you used, and (b) the URL for each allegedly infringing search result. For example, suppose (hypothetically) that you conducted a search on google.com using the query "google", and found that the third and fourth results directly link to a web page that you believe infringes the copyrighted text you identified in item #1 above. In this case, you would provide the following information: Search Query: google Infringing Web Pages: www.infringingwebsite.com directory.infringingwebsite.com If you are sending a large number of URLs in one removal request, please also send an electronic copy of the notice to removals@google.com. 3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Google to contact you (email address is preferred). 4. Provide information, if possible, sufficient to permit Google to notify the owner/administrator of the allegedly infringing webpage or other content (email address is preferred). 5. Include the following statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law." 6. Include the following statement: "I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed."

Source So now even if you own the rights you run the risk of being sent take down notices? It's a bit like the abuse reports we've been getting for sites we don't even host!