copyright

MediaMaster is one of many companies worth keeping an eye on, mainly for the potential of having your entire music library available anywhere you go, as long as you've got an Internet connection. Their Facebook app, which went live just a few weeks ago, is a prime example of a great use of the service.

The app lets you set up a huge playlist of music, and serve it up right on your profile in a miniplayer. Anyone who comes by your profile can then get the full quality versions of the tracks streamed in whatever order you set … Read more

ASPEN, Colo.--Microsoft lashed out at Google's YouTube video-sharing site on Tuesday, saying its own Soapbox is far more responsible and doesn't take advantage of "loopholes" in copyright law.

Thomas Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel for copyright, said that unlike YouTube, Microsoft's Soapbox video-sharing site is designed to work in concert with copyright holders and that it represents an effort to be a good corporate citizen. Soapbox uses Audible Magic fingerprinting technology.

In a swipe at Google, which has been sued by Viacom over the presence of numerous copyrighted videos on YouTube, Rubin said … Read more

If you're fond of occasionally circulating the full text of news stories to amuse your workmates, you may be in the clear, copyright law-wise. But systematic copying and blasting of articles for money-making purposes could get you into trouble, as evidenced by the latest settlement reached by an antipiracy trade group.

The Software Information & Industry Association (SIIA) on Thursday announced a $300,000 truce with a California-based market research company called Knowledge Networks over the company's distribution of "press packets" containing copyrighted news articles without permission or licenses. (Here's a PDF of the press release.) … Read more

The answer appears to be a qualified 'Yes.' As reported by VentureCake (discovered via Slashdot), VMware's ESX appears to be derived from Linux in a material way, and has been notified of such over a year ago (and repeatedly since then). Yet it has not disabused the accuser (Christopher Helwig, the Linux SCSI storage maintainer and one of the top 10 contributors to the Linux kernel) of the notion.

If true, VMware has a problem on its hands. But the problem is easily solved by simply abiding by the GPL, and may not involve giving away the crown jewels, as it were. What seems to be at issue is a driver that ESX requires:… Read more

Let's see how funny Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on the witness stand.

The two comedians are apparently being dragged into the copyright fight between their employer and Google. Entertainment conglomerate Viacom, the company behind Stewart's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google earlier in the year, alleging that Google and YouTube encourage users to pirate copyright material.

The two companies entered the names of people they each wish to depose in court, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last … Read more

Bob Tur, the chopper-piloting journalist who was first to file a copyright lawsuit against YouTube, will join a class action suit that is led by England's Premier Soccer League.

Tur, who has accused YouTube of encouraging users to pirate copyright material, is dropping his individual suit against the company.

"I carried the ball against YouTube for a year now," Tur said in a statement. "After careful analysis and consideration, I have concluded that the (Premier League) class action is the most effective way for independent copyright holders to secure the judicial remedies that I am seeking.&… Read more

A group of Japanese entertainment companies is criticizing Google for not doing enough to keep pirated material off YouTube.

The group also said that it wants Google to disclose more details about the technology it plans to use to protect copyright and said the search company was taking too long in unveiling the technology, according to The Associated Press.

"YouTube has to stop how it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service," composer Hideki Matsutake is quoted as saying at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

"… Read more

Look out, modders: federal customs agents have just announced a new crackdown on the smuggling of "illegal" devices that enable gamers to play pirated wares on Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 2 and other consoles.

As part of an ongoing investigation into the sale and distribution of such "circumvention devices," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from 22 offices said they raided businesses, storefronts and residents in 16 states on Wednesday. They reported executing 32 search warrants, but there was no word on whether any arrests were … Read more

Update: I updated this posting to correct my misunderstanding of an ambiguous point in the news release--the ar5k-based OpenBSD driver isn't proprietary.

The Software Freedom Law Center, which provides free legal advice to free and open-source software projects, has declared an open-source project to support Atheros Communications wireless network devices to be free of copyright infringement.

The group--which employs notable attorney and former Free Software Foundation counsel Eben Moglen--performed a confidential comparison of the OpenHAL project and the Atheros HAL software whose functions it attempts to duplicate, the center said Tuesday. The audit was a response to allegations of … Read more