COPYCENSE

"The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday moved to the courts to shut
down an operation that secretly installed spyware and adware that could
not be uninstalled from infected machines.

"The FTC’s complaint (.pdf), filed in U.S. District Court for the District of
New Hampshire, accuses Odysseus Marketing and its principal, Walter
Rines, of using the lure of file-sharing software to launch ‘stealthy
downloads’ of spyware."

Ryan Naraine. FTC Targets Illegal Spyware Operation. eWeek. Oct. 5, 2005.

See also:
United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire.Federal Trade Commission, v. Odysseus Marketing, Inc., and Walter Rines. (.pdf) Sept. 21, 2005.

Federal Trade Commission. FTC Seeks to Halt Illegal Spyware Operation. (Press Release.) Oct. 5, 2005.

Federal Trade Commission. Federal
Trade Commission, Plaintiff, v. Odysseus Marketing, Inc., and Walter
Rines, Defendants., United States District Court, District of New
Hampshire. Oct. 5, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“Technology has long been regarded as a realm for the young. Analysts talk about a digital divide between you and the not-so-young. So is a 37-year-old [programmer who has a large music collection which has been transferred to various MP3 players] the exception or the rule?

“Exception, according to the president of Riptopia LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company that converts individual CD collections into digital files. May music listeners older than 30 have thousands of dollars invested in CDs and are reluctant to make the digital transition.”

Dan Eaton. From Beatles to Beyoncé, Listeners Are Going Digital. Columbus Business First. Sept. 30, 2005.

“I’ve just posted the next version of the FEULA, our model Fair End User License Agreement. Both the original beta version and version .90.1 of the FEULA produced a wide range of comments and suggestions from readers, and I think both resulted in some improvements to the draft.

“So the next beta FEULA, version .90.2, is now posted at http://www.gripewiki.com/index.php/FEULA under the EULA category on Gripewiki.com.

The Gripe Line Weblog by Ed Foster. The FEULA Discussion, Part II. (Version .90.2) Sept. 26, 2005.

Commentary by K. Matthew Dames, executive editor.

Here’s what I fear will happen in the Google Print Library Project: the copyright controversies will never go to trial, and instead will be resolved by the parties in a confidential settlement agreement.

Of course, it is easy for me to sit here and pontificate about these issues going to trial and having a judge or jury render judgment: after all, I’m not the party being sued. And it is likely that Google’s legal counsel is urging the company to settle these issues out of court to avoid what I am seeking — a judgment on the merits. An adverse judgment could bring considerable financial risk to the company, diminish the vast reservoir of goodwill it still holds in the information community, sap executive resources, and risk bad publicity. (One could argue that Microsoft still is feeling the effects of its lengthy antitrust trial.) Any smart legal counsel would urge Google to settle this matter.

But is the smart move really the right move here?

Read the rest of this entry »

This interdisciplinary symposium, featuring Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, will explore the relationship between digital access to public cultural information and intellectual property constraints. In recent years, new legal limitations in the United States have affected public access to the materials held in a variety of different open digital library infrastructures, ranging from those of the Library of Congress to Kazaa. As new technological possibilities and laws governing their many uses emerge, it becomes critical to examine the relationship between digital innovation and legal regulation. This symposium seeks to promote a better understanding of the associated impacts of these changes on the local, national and international levels, both now and in the future.

The symposium is hosted by the MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University’s General Libraries. The symposium will be held from 9 AM – 5:30 PM on October 14, 2005, at Gambrell Hall on the Emory University Campus.

Emory University

Free Culture & the Digital Library

October 14, 2005

Emory University,

Gambrell Hall

1301 Clifton Road

Atlanta, GA 30322

USA

This interdisciplinary symposium, featuring Lawrence Lessig and Siva Vaidhyanathan, will explore the relationship between digital access to public cultural information and intellectual property constraints. In recent years, new legal limitations in the United States have affected public access to the materials held in a variety of different open digital library infrastructures, ranging from those of the Library of Congress to Kazaa. As new technological possibilities and laws governing their many uses emerge, it becomes critical to examine the relationship between digital innovation and legal regulation. This symposium seeks to promote a better understanding of the associated impacts of these changes on the local, national and international levels, both now and in the future.

The symposium is hosted by the MetaScholar Initiative of Emory University’s General Libraries. The symposium will be held from 9 AM – 5:30 PM on October 14, 2005, at Gambrell Hall on the Emory University Campus.

Emory University

Free Culture & the Digital Library

October 14, 2005

Emory University,

Gambrell Hall

1301 Clifton Road

Atlanta, GA 30322

USA