"The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s."

Long article assaulting the DGA's stance on CleanFlicks. "No one is talking about smashing the original. At worst, people are altering reproductions. You wouldn't want to send people to jail for smashing reproductions of Michelangelo's David, would you?"

"Not content to have total control over copyrighted material, the cartel has persuaded Congress to keep extending copyright terms. The companies that wail about 'stealing' have themselves hijacked billions of dollars worth of literature, music and film from you and me. The public domain hasn't grown lately, and that's a betrayal of everyone but the tiny group of mega-companies that owns copyrights to old classics."

"The plan is based on some fairly obvious ideas. Above all, it says the agency must 'go back to the basics' and process patent applications without mistakes, or redundant or unnecessary work."

"New York promotions/technology company DownloadCard has sued Vivendi Universal's music division, charging theft of its anti-piracy technology, trade secrets and ideas."

"Media companies must put less emphasis on protecting digital content and instead find ways to make money from digital music and movies if they hope to beat back copyright pirates who threaten their businesses, according to a study released on Wednesday from KPMG."

"Frustrated by the continuing presence of free music on the Internet, the recording industry asked for Congress' blessing on Thursday to gum up the online networks they blame for slowing their sales."

"Having reached its nirvana, the [record] industry lost control of distribution and ever since has been looking for ways of turning off the internet tap - until it finds a way of using the pipeline to make money."

"Webcasters would gain a six-month reprieve from controversial new copyright fees under a bill introduced in Congress late Thursday."

"A California congressman on Thursday defended his proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. But Rep. Howard L. Berman indicated he might rewrite part of the bill to more plainly outlaw hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users."

"During the first congressional hearing on the bill, Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Howard Coble, R-N.C., denounced critics' 'scare tactics' and said their proposal was a modest plan that had been carefully crafted to reduce piracy on peer-to-peer networks."

"Language that members of Congress added to an appropriations bill that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday would make it easier for professors to use more kinds of copyrighted works in online courses."

"A three-year hunt by the major record labels to make someone pay for the rampant digital piracy on Napster might ultimately lead them to one of their own. Several labels and music publishers are debating whether to sue German media powerhouse Bertelsmann, owner of the BMG label, for allegedly helping Napster Inc. users infringe song copyrights."

Felten analyzes one of the approaches suggested by MediaDefender in their congressional testimony.

"H.R. 5211 is well intended to stem the flow of illegal file trading, but it goes way beyond what is necessary to permit the content industries to engage in the type of non-invasive self-help described above."

"To be sure, writers and artists need and deserve continued copyright protection. But Eldred's legions of backers maintain that the framers of our constitution never intended to extend that protection to the grandchildren of writers and artists."

"A Supreme Court ruling against the CTEA would be the first major victory for digital-rights activists, who want more books, music, and images to enter the public domain. And it would be a grand defeat for corporations, which claim they would forfeit billions in lost revenues."

Cringely advocates DMCA civil disobedience. "But it isn't enough to just threaten to vote against your Congressman. To make the system really change we have to work it to death by all becoming criminals."

"Evidence is mounting that cracking down on software copyright infringement may not be good for business. Case study: Microsoft in China."

"Technology companies and consumer groups accuse Hollywood of running a de facto content monopoly, controlling films so tightly that piracy is often the only way to distribute them digitally."

Can shrink-wrap contracts prohibit reverse engineering? "In its recent opinion in Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said yes. The result may be a substantial decrease in competition in the markets for computer software - a sector that is immensely important to the American economy."

"On Thursday, a coalition of artists and labels will start running print, radio and TV ads featuring dozens of major recording stars who compare file swapping with stealing."

Long, insightful article on the CleanFlicks controversy. "In fact, what Ms. Coolidge [president of the Director's Guild of America] is claiming is not the right to prevent alteration of a work, but the right to control how an individual experiences and interacts with a work."

Review of Windows Media Player 9. "Does the world really want Microsoft dictating multimedia formats to the Internet and entertainment industries? In the end, I suspect Media Player 9's success may depend less on its many innovations than on the public's willingness to surrender so much gatekeeping authority to the Windows juggernaut."

"The music industry is launching a star-studded advertising campaign, using artists such as Britney Spears and Stevie Wonder to tout its most recent anti-piracy effort."

Commentary from Gary Shapiro. "The pervasive theme of copyspeak is that downloading from the Internet is both illegal and immoral. It is neither. No doubt this era's rapid shift to digital technology is changing the rules of the game--there is little doubt that some use the benefits of technology to make and distribute unauthorized copies for personal financial gain in clear violation of copyright law."

"Although the movie industry has lobbied federal legislators to pass the so-called Hollings Bill--which would require technology manufacturers to embed copy-control technologies in future products, an effort that many technology leaders oppose--Valenti insisted that there's no war between the two camps."

"The row centres on a demand from the music industry for £100,000 in lost revenues after it claimed easyInternetCafe allowed people to burn music onto CDs."

"Despite an ongoing American copyright-infringement lawsuit, the Australian company has so far evaded the international recording industry's attempts to shut down Kazaa by setting up operations around the globe. It has offices in the United States, the South Pacific island nation Vanuatu and the Netherlands."

"California's two most prominent and powerful industries -- Silicon Valley and Hollywood -- are at war in Washington. At stake is something bigger than either of them: consumers' ability to bend the personal computer and a host of other digital devices to the uses they crave -- retrieving and recording copyrighted music, movies and television from the Internet."

"This draft legislation is a welcome, critical and helpful step toward driving the digital television transition."

"The biggest danger to Hollywood's intellectual property is not Internet video piracy nor the intractable problems of encryption and digital rights management (DRM), but Hollywood itself, according to a panel of experts convened here by the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) and chaired by Brad Hunt, chief technology officer of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)."

"This marks the second hearing to look into alleged underpayment of artist royalties by record labels. Artist representatives claim that as a result of underpayments, it has become the 'industry standard' for artists to audit record companies to ascertain how much they are owed [...]."

"So in this sense it's a showcase for the anti-copying DRM capabilities of WMP. Participants will have their players upgraded to a DRM-capable minimum, and will of necessity have it turned on in order to listen to the preview."

"Once Intertainer got its service operating nationally in October, after rollouts in smaller markets, the studios either canceled the agreements or insisted on keeping 60 percent of the revenue. They also demanded big up-front fees, the suit says. The result, Intertainer said, was that for a typical Universal Studios movie, Intertainer would owe the studio more than $180 each time a consumer ordered one of its movies even though the rental fee would be $3.99."

"Recently, more than a few music fans who were diehard advocates of swapping songs illegally through Napster and its clones have found themselves doing something they never would have predicted: subscribing to Internet services that abide by copyright laws and paying for the music they download." EMusic offers unrestricted access to songs and has 60,000 subscribers.

"Representative Howard Berman (D-California) has drafted a bill that would exempt copyright owners from computer-fraud laws if they fight back using measures such as 'interdiction, decoy, redirection, file-blocking, and spoofing.' Some might call it vigilantism. Berman calls it 'technological self-help.'" Berman notes that his bill is "less draconian" than the CBDTPA.

"In the latest attack on the entertainment industry's attempts to control its online destiny, a company called Intertainer Inc., which has had the most success winning licenses to distribute movies online, filed an antitrust suit against film units of AOL Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp. and Vivendi Universal SA." Microsoft, Intel, and Sony are all investors in Intertainer.

"The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold hearings today on a bill intended to spur the development of digital television. It would render most current televisions obsolete by 2007 and require the Federal Communications Commission to support copy-protection technology designed to prevent consumers from copying and redistributing digital television programs."

4' 33" might be copyrighted by John Cage, but Mike Batt has copyrighted all other silent durations from 1 second to 10 minutes. "'I couldn't get four minutes and thirty-three seconds, obviously, but I got everything else,' he said. He is proudest of two of his registered copyrights: four minutes and thirty-two seconds and four minutes and thirty-four seconds. 'If there's ever a Cage performance where they come in a second shorter or longer, then it's mine,' he said."

"The Consumer Federation of America finds that digital television (DTV) policies being advanced by the Federal Communications Commission and some in Congress are anti-consumer and will do little to speed the transition to DTV."

The Internet Archive is no longer displaying content from a major anti-Scientology site. "So, while Lawmeme doesn't know all the details of Scientology's request to the Internet Archive, especially the extent of websites removed, we do know that the Internet Archive is blocking all archived versions of one of Scientology's leading critics and the main target in the Google Affair, Xenu.net."

"A few days ago, I stopped by Valenti's office in Washington, armed with a (digital) voice recorder, following through a promise to present his industry's side of things in this column, which has not been friendly to the MPAA's members and other big media companies."

"A Colorado nonprofit group has won a critical round in a legal fight against the Church of Scientology, raising questions about whether Scientology has a legal right to keep hundreds of documents offline and out of the public eye."

"But for the online services trying to get [to digital music paradise] — chief among them MusicNet, Pressplay and Listen.com — the road to paradise is proving to be more like an intellectual property labyrinth paved with administrative quicksand."

Interesting summary of the DMCA's impact on DVD copying.

"'Ours is less and less a free society,' Lessig says. 'The law is trying to make creativity a regulated industry.'"

"IFPI today announced the introduction of a new, optional logo that record companies may use to inform consumers that a CD incorporates technology to control copying."

"[...] Today the UK Sunday Times newspaper unleashed a neat little trojan that'll upgrade you to Windows Media Player 9, complete with all those lovely facilities to protect 'your' music. If you're not careful, that is."

"In recent months, hackers of all backgrounds have been forced to rethink their practices while facing a roundhouse combination of the DMCA, heightened law enforcement activity and deeper scrutiny by employers. [...] The DMCA has become a favorite legal weapon of the software and media industries to silence critics and security experts, despite exemptions written by the Library of Congress for security research."

"An overhauled version of the popular file-swapping software Kazaa was unleashed Monday on the Internet, with features sure to make record and movie studio executives' blood boil."

AMD's new processor will also support "trusted computing". "AMD's chips will increase the security of those accessing programs and the Internet, says company marketer Patrick Moorhead. But it will also refuse to play certain content if it is not digitally signed by Microsoft or an authorised party."

Tara Sue Grubb vs. Howard Coble: "In the last few weeks, however, something unusual has been happening in sleepy Guilford County; something that may point to a fundamental change in the way Americans -- as participants in online communities -- choose their representatives."

"The Directors Guild of America is suing more than a dozen companies that delete scenes depicting violence, sex and profanity from Hollywood films, saying the process violates federal copyright law."

Gary Shapiro from the CEA: "Digital technology will foster a Renaissance of creativity. It will connect our world and soon allow everyone to have low-cost access to information, entertainment and education. If the play button becomes the pay button, our very ability to raise the world’s standard of living and education will be jeopardized."

"'In order to make Hollywood movie studios more comfortable with digital TV, this bill takes away the benefits consumers are poised to receive from open TV and video standards,' said EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen."

"The U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration established a 'dialog' with consumer groups worried about the impact of proposed digital rights management schemes during a sit-down Tuesday, but don't expect big changes in the agency's position on the need for DRM."

"After spending a year in closed-door sessions with industry leaders, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana) released a draft of his long-awaited DTV bill. The controversial measure calls for the adoption of a broadcast flag, an end to analog television compatibility and increased cable interoperability."

"BayTSP is paid anywhere from $200 to $50,000 per month by owners of intellectual property -- primarily software companies, movie studios, and record companies -- to find who is illegally copying, distributing, or helping to distribute without permission their intellectual property."

"Standard televisions and VCRs would become obsolete by [2006] as the new, high-definition signals could only be picked up by digital TVs and recording devices with built-in antipiracy features, according to Tauzin's draft bill."

"[...] Delegates at the In The City industry conference in Manchester were told that new technology could make CDs copy-proof without alienating listeners."

" To the companies involved in selling these altered versions [of movies] — or software that does the altering for you — the question is one of consumer choice. 'We leave it entirely up to consumers where their comfort level lies,' said Breck Rice, a founder of the Utah company Trilogy Studios, whose MovieMask software can filter out potentially offensive passages. 'People get to choose for themselves.'"

EFF's press release on Tauzin's bill.

A draft of the White House's security report is "a love letter to the so-called 'trusted computing' that is another expression for locked-down computing, the entertainment and software cartel's dream world where they tell us precisely what we may do with the technology we've purchased, all in the name of protecting copyright owners' business models."

On the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act: "As an economic matter, the CTEA amounts to a state giveaway of public domain property, pure and simple."

"A music industry group has proposed a logo to identify CDs that include anti-copying features, saying the feature could help allay consumer concerns over the technology." The logo is optional, however.

"After months of making low-key complaints, a consumer electronics maker trade group on Tuesday launched a bitter attack on record labels' and movie studios' anti-piracy campaigns."

"More and more, companies are offering products that are easier to set up but come with restrictive technology. The trade-off has raised concern that a small number of businesses will ultimately control the flow of digital media on the Internet."

"Some subscribers to one of the nation's largest cable systems are unable to make digital recordings of television shows in what the company labeled an unforeseen technological glitch but consumer advocates called a chilling curb on home recording."

"What we have here is a failure to communicate. Intel wants us to believe innovation includes giving the entertainment cartel absolute rights to control copyrighted material. I don't agree."

"Some music companies are indeed considering alternative methods to lure listeners away from downloading pirated songs. Universal, for example, plans to issue a unique code number with each CD copy of Bon Jovi's new album Bounce. This will provide access to a web site with information on priority concert tickets, as well as previously unreleased tracks."

The White House's plan for protecting cyberspace includes "trusted computing" schemes.

"Computer companies, consumer electronics vendors and Hollywood studios have failed to meet a self-imposed deadline for agreeing to a watermarking technology for DVD movies, moving the technology back to the drawing boards once again." An insider claims that the effort "failed largely because 'the computer industry, at the eleventh hour, decided not to support the concept of watermarks.'"

A unique serial number on your CD gives you access to bonus features like the ability to buy tickets before they go on sale to the general public.

"Virtually all software companies have prohibitions against reverse engineering in their shrink-wrap licenses, yet virtually all software companies reverse engineer other products. It's not just a matter of keeping up in the feature wars -- reverse engineering is a necessary tool for interoperability and security purposes. But judges and juries may not understand this, and the consequences of their lack of understanding in this most litigious of societies could be very grave indeed."

The UK's Commission on Intellectual Property Rights agrees that the DMCA is out of balance: "It follows that developing countries, or indeed other developed countries, should not follow the example of the DMCA in forbidding all circumvention of technological protection. In particular, we take the view that legislation such as the DMCA shifts the balance too far in favour of producers of copyright material at the expense of the historic rights of users."

"Music industry lawyer Don Engel, who estimates that labels misreport and underpay artist royalties by 10% to 40%, says industry accounting practices are 'intentionally fraudulent.' Music writer Dave Marsh describes the process as 'an entrenched system whose prowess and conniving makes Enron look like amateur hour.'"

"Writers receiving review copies of two soon-to-be-released albums — Tori Amos's "Scarlet's Walk" and Pearl Jam's "Riot Act" — are finding the CD's already inside Sony Walkman players that have been glued shut. Headphones are also glued into the players, to prevent connecting the Walkman to a recording device."

"Students at the University of Southern California could face a school year without computer access if they are busted swapping movies and music online."

"Judges determine fair use case by case, but technology companies are being asked to develop DRM systems that determine ahead of time what people can and can't do with files. In many cases, there are no precedents for DRM companies to draw from."

Long article about Lessig in the latest Wired. "The Great Liberator Lawrence Lessig helped mount the case against Microsoft. He wrote the book on creative rights in the digital age. Now the cyberlaw star is about to tell the Supreme Court to smash apart the copyright machine."

"Given the slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal customers. Perhaps the real reason for some of the drop in sales was the shutdown of Napster and other crackdowns by the music industry."

"The Internet is being overrun by file-trading thieves, if you believe the entertainment industry. It's ironic, then, that movie companies are now being accused of stealing the technology that powers their online businesses."

"Attorneys for the record labels, movie studios and music publishers trade groups filed papers Monday asking a federal judge for summary judgment, or a ruling against the file-swapping companies before going to a full trial. [...] Also Monday, lawyers for Morpheus' parent company StreamCast Networks asked the judge to rule quickly in their favor, saying that Morpheus had too many legal uses to be shut down in response to illegal file-traders' actions."

"The U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration is making good its promise to host a consumer-focused meeting on digital rights management."

Lessig defends Palladium in Red Herring: concerns about the architecture "obscure something important about how trusted platforms could change the debate about digital rights management (DRM). For, by increasing trust at the ends of the network, Palladium would weaken an argument that Hollywood now pushes: that Congress regulate every machine on the Internet to protect Hollywood's content. Trusted platforms could enable a different kind of DRM--indeed, I would say, a 'better DRM'--one less damaging to innovation and more supportive of content competition."

From Felten: "Every security technology is designed to give somebody more control over something. The key questions are who is getting control, and over what will they be given control. [...] It used to be a given that when somebody talked about securing a computer, that meant giving more control to the computer's owner. Nowadays the term 'security' is more and more applied to measures that take control away from the owner. Whether LaGrande empowers consumers or erodes their control over their property remains to be seen."

"Building some specialized notion of content protection into the processor and its buses is 'early binding' in an extreme form. It makes the whole architecture brittle, and unable to compete for new opportunities, new applications, etc."

Intel's new chip technology, "dubbed LaGrande, could become a factor in a widening debate over how to prevent personal-computer users from unauthorized copying of digital information, such as movies or music. [...] Paul Otellini, Intel’s president and chief operating officer, said the company doesn’t plan to offer any copy protection as part of LaGrande. But he acknowledged that the technology could be a foundation for other companies to do so, possibly working with Microsoft."

"Yahoo and Internet service providers have sided with Verizon Communications in its legal spat with the recording industry over revealing the identity of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate."

"As entertainment companies struggle in court to defend their music and movies against a new generation of digital pirates, one of their biggest challenges is an 18-year-old Supreme Court ruling on a defunct technology."

"Consumer-electronics maker Sonicblue will team with chipmaker Intel to develop a portable video player that can download files from ReplayTV digital video recorders and PCs."

"In the increasingly rancorous dispute between Silicon Valley and Hollywood over how digital media should evolve, Potashner believed in making products first and asking permission from Hollywood later. That perspective is increasingly rare in any startup that makes digital entertainment products, where companies fail not because their products are shoddy, but because they can't afford to defend their right to make them."

"If Microsoft's handling of digital-rights management in its new Media Center PCs is any indication, Redmond is perfectly happy to sell out its customers to keep the entertainment industry happy. [...] The DVDs you burn can only be played on the same machine on which they were recorded."

Lawyers at StreamCast "filed briefs in a Los Angeles federal court asking a judge to rule that distribution of the software does not violate copyright law. Coming to StreamCast's aid is San Francisco-based online non-profit, civil liberties organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) [...]"

"Bracing itself for another potential fight with computer privacy advocates, Intel Corp. said yesterday that its next generation of microchips, due next year, would include anti-piracy features that will protect computers against hackers and viruses while giving digital publishers powerful new tools to control the use of their products."

"Warner Bros. has become the latest studio to offer some of its films for a limited time for download over the Internet."

"A delicate detente is breaking down under pressure from peer-to-peer networks, placing two powerful industries on a collision course that could reshape the legal landscape for online file-swapping."

Insightful responses to Berman's defense of his p2p bill. "This is just unadulterated fear mongering. I think the representative forgot to mention that Osama bin Laden communicates solely through p2p servers he sets up in little Suzy's computer in Omaha."

"An industry push to tighten security on personal computers could be either the salvation of electronic commerce or the bane of consumers, who view the Internet as their digital information playground."

George Allen abandons the Biden bill: "A key Republican senator on Thursday withdrew his support for an anti-piracy bill that would make it a crime to distribute counterfeit authentication features including digital watermarks."

"After years of grumbling that CD prices are too high, music fans are finding at least some relief from the $18 CD as major retailers and some record labels turn to discounts to resuscitate their wheezy business. [...] Two years ago, a Federal Trade Commission inquiry prodded the recording industry to abandon a practice that authorities said was a not-so-subtle attempt at price fixing."

"After a year of draft legislation, proposals, counterproposals, speeches, hearings, behind-the-scenes negotiations, lobbying, and letter-writing, the fight is as fierce as ever. The clash between Hollywood and Silicon Valley over online piracy has now engaged additional players on each side. More important, it has engaged the broader public -- millions of Americans whose lives are becoming more and more intertwined in the digital revolution."

"The recording industry and the nation's largest telephone company are crossing legal swords in what could be a test case of how far big record labels can go to track down computer users who swap music online."

An Adobe spokesperson said that "Agfa has also threatened to pursue its rights to the fonts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the controversial and far-reaching electronic publishing rights measure enacted several years ago. Adobe contends its licensing agreement supersedes the DMCA."

"A Chicago federal court judge granted the recording industry's request for an injunction to shutter the file-trading network originally known as Aimster, almost certainly ending the company's short life. The decision came down on the same day Napster quietly closed its doors for good, posting only a series of rotating animations on its website's front door."

"Duke University's law school has received an anonymous $1 million gift to fund advocacy and research aimed at curtailing the recent expansion of copyright law."

"Adobe has asked the court to declare that Adobe's popular Acrobat product does not violate certain provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) as claimed by ITC and Agfa Monotype."

According to Berman's counsel, "under H.R. 5211, a copyright owner who impairs lawful file-trading would not get the benefit of the safe harbor EVEN if that copyright owner had a reasonable basis to believe piracy is taking place." Berman's FAQ is also interesting reading.

"A number of record companies who are members of the Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA) have been granted a preliminary injunction against the Aimster file trading software service that has been judged to have infringed the record companies' copyright."

"The logic of digital rights management is inexorable. Ultimately, you will have to pay for every use you make of content. This is what is happening now. The copyright industry uses legislation and lawyers to create new rights that they can then sell back to the public."

"As the entertainment and technology industries publicly are locking horns over electronic piracy, they privately are moving closer to a consensus that consumer advocates fear may limit how people watch or listen to movies and music. [...] A Microsoft lobbyist said without firm legal guidance on fair use, the decisions belong in the marketplace." Also has interesting quotes from Intel and Cisco at the end of the article.

"Several campaign strategists said the effectiveness of TV spots had been blunted by the ability of voters to fast-forward past annoying hard-edged attacks. They said they were worried that this would become only more problematic with the advent of a new digital recording technology that lets viewers filter out all advertising with a stroke on a keypad."

On the listen4ever.com case: "What could have been one of the most important Internet intellectual property lawsuits ever came and went in less than a week, but someday another lawsuit like it could jeopardize the stability and freedom of cyberspace."

"A bankruptcy judge blocked the sale of Napster Inc. to Bertelsmann AG on Tuesday, killing a deal that might have revived the idled Internet music pioneer as a legitimate music-sharing network. Judge Peter J. Walsh, in Wilmington, Del., cited conflicting loyalties by Napster's top executive."

"Free music-swapping services continue to attract millions of new users despite the recording industry's legal efforts to shutter them, and few consumers are even aware of the handful of pay sites that have emerged over the last year. That's unlikely to change — unless the new sites begin to offer compelling, innovative features that set them apart from the free networks, consumers and analysts say."

"Fearful of consumer backlash, major record labels in the United States have slowed controversial plans for making CDs more difficult to copy, even as tension over online music piracy mounts."

"Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday released additional details about digital entertainment PCs coming for the holidays. But new anti-copying technology could hamper sales, say analysts and potential buyers."

"A federal law that the recording industry is using to unmask a suspected Kazaa music-trader is unconstitutional, a coalition of nonprofit groups said late Friday."

"Copyright in digital media has in a very real sense been rendered obsolete, superseded by new technological anticircumvention rights which some have called 'paracopyright," to distinguish them from the separate right to control reproduction and other discrete uses of a protected work."

"In a term paper for their applied mathematics class last winter, Chen and Schroeder borrowed from environmental studies to conclude that polluting the P2P milieu with phony files is indeed a more effective strategy for the record labels than lawsuits."

"I will argue that the legal question is much more difficult than it may seem at first, because Clean Flicks's practices resemble many long-accepted examples of 'fair use' in important ways."

"What if you wanted to watch Titanic with your family but didn't want everyone to see the scene in which Kate Winslet reveals her bare breasts? You could take it to a Clean Flicks video store and have it edited out. But is that legal? The question has moved from grumblings among Hollywood studios and directors to a controversy that will be decided in court."

"The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed with the ProCD v. Zeidenburg line of cases holding that contracts are not limited by copyright law. In Bowers v. Baystate the court considered a shrink wrap agreement purporting to prevent reverse engineering and disagreed with the lower court's instruction that copyright law limited the contract."

"Sources familiar with the situation told Reuters in July that Napster could be among the first casualties and Bol.com's future was also hanging in the balance."

"Sources close to the company say the timing of any shutoff of funding to Napster would depend in part on US judicial developments."

"In a stunning slap at Hollywood and its ongoing copyright battle with digital swappers, Internet users boldly began trading copies of the latest RINGS on Sunday."