Tag: COPYRIGHTINFRINGEMENT

BlueBeat, a site that sells streaming music by a range of artists, just settled a federal lawsuit that a bunch of pissed-off record labels had brought against it for selling and streaming Beatles songs. The songs were posted about a year before Apple released them on iTunes and were sold for just $0.25 each. By the time BlueBeat was forced to pull them, more than 67,000 songs had been sold. The ...

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell issued a ruling that would make it easier for copyright holders to obtain personal information on anyone suspected of illegally downloading copyrighted files. The verdict was met with complaints from ISPs and consumer rights groups, with many arguing that it would allow copyright holders to pursue frivolous lawsuits in the hopes of striking ...

On Tuesday, a so-called "master key" crack required to unlock the high-definition, copy-protection (HDCP) codes encrypted on Blu-ray discs began worming its way around the Internet. While many initially doubted the legitimacy of the key, Intel has now confirmed that it is indeed real, effectively declaring open season on Blu-ray copying. "We have tested this published material that was on the ...

Jean-Luc Godard, master of nouvelle vague cinema, has spoken! But not, however, to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has been waiting for Godard to decide whether or not he will show up to receive his honorary Oscar next year. Instead, the elusive French director has come to the aid of a man fined €20,000 (about $25,000) for illegally downloading music. French ...

Remember Joel Tenenbaum, the college student who'd been ordered by a federal jury to pay $675,000 in damages to four record companies, all because he illegally downloaded and shared music? When we first caught wind of this story, we were shocked (and more than a little terrified) to realize that P2P file sharing could wind up costing us such a hefty chunk of cash. But now, the same judge who ...

Readers, this is a sad, sad day for those of you who think movie piracy isn't such a bad thing. Yesterday, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, along with officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, disabled nine domains of websites that had been offering pirated films and TV shows. The crackdown spanned New York, New Jersey, Washington, North Carolina and even the ...

Google dodged a major bullet yesterday, after successfully beating back a billion-dollar copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Viacom. But as YouTube's proud parent celebrated the decision, Viacom insisted that this case is far from over. Arguing before a U.S. District Court in New York, Viacom had been seeking to prove that YouTube was guilty of massive copyright infringement and, in more ...

Now that the dust from the recent U.K. parliamentary elections appears to have settled, the new Liberal Democrat/Tory coalition government has wasted no time in publicizing its new agenda. And, as ArsTechnica reports, major changes may be on the horizon. Today, the new government issued its official unified policy statement (.PDF), which aims to reverse many of the controversial policies of the ...

Few things in life are more annoying than spending 20 minutes scouring the Web for some obscure film clip, only to find out that the golden fleece you've been desperately sniffing around for has been blocked, due to copyright infringement. Party off. Well now, the good folks at NEC have just introduced a sparkling new piece of draconian software that can scan thousands of clips in the blink of an ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/05/03/riaa-can-unmask-anonymous-file-sharers-u-s-court-rules/'; If you've ever been unlucky enough to get caught in the crosshairs of a copyright infringement case, chances are that whoever was pressing charges knew your full name. If you think about it, it's pretty creepy. But, according to a U.S. appeals court, it's completely legal. A recent ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/04/27/twitter-forces-tweet-takedown-of-leaked-the-national-album/'; Jean Pierre Chigne, who runs his own music blog, recently published a post about 'High Violet,' the new album from The National that leaked last week. At the end of the post, he included a link to the album's Amazon pre-order page, as well as a link to MediaFire, where the song 'Afraid ...

Here's a tough one for you. Indie artist and illustrator Hidden Eloise has taken the British boutique stationery store Paperchase to task, claiming that the company stole her whimsical creations and printed them on commercial goods like tote bags and notebooks. Feeling frustrated and stymied, Eloise took to her blog, and then Twitter, creating such a hullabaloo that Paperchase was forced to ...

Everyone and their mama's mama will be tuning in this Sunday for the big game, and to that end, you might be planning a get-together with some buddies involving a few six-packs, snacks and of course, the TV. But is that Super Bowl shindig infringing upon copyright law? That's what one Ars Technica writer wondered aloud after a friend mentioned he couldn't watch the Super Bowl on a TV 55-inches ...

The music industry, as it continues to hemorrhage money, has been on a rampage against pirates and file-sharing sites. Just within the last two months, one woman was ordered to pay roughly $2 million for illegally downloading 24 songs, and a Boston University student was fined $675,000 for "stealing" 30 songs. Industry professionals have apparently now shifted their focus from the music thieves ...

Two years ago a 19-year-old was busted for recording a few seconds of the ending of the 'Transformers' movie, supposedly so that her little brother could see it. There was a lot of public debate, but it certainly seemed like the girl, Jhannet Sejas, was being made a scapegoat. Since then, there have been plenty of other folks prosecuted for similar offenses, but the latest one is a bit more ...