COPYCENSE

“I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end of a major era in world history. It may take fifty years, it may take a hundred, but the age of copyright is drawing to a close. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s inevitable. And I say this as the author of two books and over 75 columns like this one, all copyrighted.

“When the photocopier came along, people simply didn’t think it was wrong to copy a few pages out of a book, even though it was against the law and the authors would have preferred that they buy the whole book. So eventually, the Fair Use doctrine evolved with respect to copyright materials. The law changed. It’s now OK to photocopy parts of books for educational, non-commercial use.

“You can see where this is going, can’t you?”

Ernest Adams. The End Of Copyright. Gamasutra. Nov. 28, 2005.

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

“It was Easter Sunday and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.

“Santangelo said she has never downloaded a single song on her computer, but the industry didn’t see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls is among the more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.

“The industry is demanding thousands of dollars to settle the case, but Santangelo, unlike the 3,700 defendants who have already settled, said she will stand on principle and fight the lawsuit.”

Jim Fitzgerald. ‘Internet Illiterate’ Mom Sued Over Music Downloads. WashingtonPost.com. Dec. 26, 2005.

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

“Sony BMG has struck a deal with the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit over copy-restriction software it used in music CDs, according to a settlement document filed at a New York court Wednesday.

“The record label has agreed to compensate buyers of CDs that contained the XCP and MediaMax DRM programs and to provide software utilities to allow consumers to uninstall both types of software from their computer.

“The furor over Sony’s DRM software began at the end of October when a U.S. programmer discovered that XCP software on a Sony music CD had installed copy-restriction software on his computer that was hidden using a rootkit. Antivirus companies later discovered Trojan horses that exploited this software to avoid detection and found that another type of Sony DRM, MediaMax, also posed a security risk.”

Ingrid Marson. Sony Settles ‘Rootkit’ Class Action Lawsuit. News.com. Dec. 29, 2005.

See also:

Lorraine Woellert. Sony BMG Ends A Legal Nightmare. BusinessWeek Online. Jan. 9, 2006.

The Gripe Line Web Log by Ed Foster. Unsettled by the Sony Settlement. Dec. 30, 2005.

Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo, LLP. Sony BMG CD Proposed Class Action Settlement. No date.

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

“Open-source software isn’t a new phenomenon. It has been winding its way through the tech world for decades, starting with Richard Stallman‘s Free Software movement in 1980s. But only in recent years have businesses warmed to the promise of low-cost, openly available software. In fact, open-source programs have become so popular, they now pose a legitimate threat to the established software giants.

“Looking back, 2005 will likely be viewed as a turning point. It was a year when CIOs signed off on open-source projects, a big change from previous years when that happened only after low-level engineers started such projects on their own initiative. BusinessWeek Online paused in the final days of 2005 to poll a dozen experts, investors, early adopters, and entrepreneurs to get their take on the five biggest open-source events of 2005 — as well as what to expect for 2006.”

Sarah Lacy. A Watershed for Open Source. BusinessWeek Online. Jan. 9, 2006.

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