COPYCENSE

CopyCense Clippings: Week of July 10, 2006.

• Yehuda. The Copyright Code, In Verse. July 7, 2006. Cute, very cute.
• Declan McCullagh. FBI Plans New Net-Tapping Push. News.com. July 7, 2006. See McCullagh’s other story, below, for commentary.
• Martin Davies. Capitalism Encroaches On Virtual Utopia. The Guardian. July 6, 2006. Real intellectual property issues in an imaginary world: just one more thing to vex lawyers and judges.
• Declan McCullagh. Congressional Confusion on Internet Privacy. News.com. July 5, 2006. Why is that politicians are willing to crack down on data brokers for divulging data, but will force ISPs to divulge data to law enforcement? What part of “privacy” don’t they understand?
• Elinor Mills. Google Is Ready to Take Your Order. News.com. July 5, 2006. Google steadily is amassing and leveraging a database of all things digital. Do we want any company — even the “Do No Evil” one — having exclusive domain over our private information?
• Mike Musgrove. France Offers Apple a Loophole. WashingtonPost.com. July 4, 2006. For a while, it really looked like the French government was going to make meaningful strides in unmasking the DRM demon. We should have known better.
• Reuters. Google Says Bill Could Spark Antitrust Fight. News.com. July 4, 2006. Google threatens to file antitrust complaints against Big Telecom if telephone companies abuse additional powers granted to it under a Senate Commerce Committee proposal. Just recently, the press was agog about how Google was being outdone in the strategies and tactics of big business, particularly lobbying and litigation. It seems like the company has grown up rather quickly.
• Marc Kaufman. Petitions to FDA Sometimes Delay Generic Drugs. WashingtonPost.com. July 3, 2006. “The process is paramount”: that’s a paraphrasing of an adage some of us are used to hearing. This story confirms the adage. It should be no surprise that members of Big Pharma have exploited an FDA procedure called citizen petitions to stop or delay generic drugs from entering the marketplace.
• Kim Hart and Sara Kehaulani Goo. Tech Faceoff: Net Neutrality, In the Eye of the Beholder. WashingtonPost.com. July 2, 2006. A simple, but effective piece on “Net Neutrality,” whatever that is (or has come to mean).
• Greg Sandoval. Is YouTube A Flash In the Pan? News.com. June 29, 2006. We are always amazed at how or why comments from so-called “analysts” are significant enough to warrant news coverage. (That we’re commenting on this story suggests we’ve fallen into the same trap.) So let’s get this straight: one guy from one firm (which issues a press release) opines that YouTube will not make money from its video sharing operation, in part because its customer base will not accept advertising. What the report — or at least the report of the report — does not say is how it thinks YouTube will or should make its money. We suppose that will have to wait for another report. While we’re on this topic, we think YouTube’s future is as a sponsored ally of various tentacles of Big Content. YouTube’s biggest problem is the DMCA automatic takedown provision. Allying with Big Content virtually ensures that Big Content won’t sue YouTube out of existence. It also virtually ensures decreasing public utility and inventiveness.
• Anne Broache and Declan McCullagh. Senators Target Net, Phone Taxes. News.com. June 28, 2006. While the cell phone tax moratorium is just a proposal at this point, this movement will spark renewed battles between Congress and the states, as state legislatures increasingly look to tax Web services and commerce as a means of generating revenue.
• Brooks Boliek. Senate Panel Clears Broadcast Flag. Billboard Radio Monitor. June 28, 2006. The Senate Commerce Committee has approved both the broadcast flag and the audio flag, but final passage of either proposal into law remains sketchy, particularly since it is a midterm election year.
• James Kanter. A New Battlefield: Ownership of Ideas. International Herald Tribune. May 1, 2006. Granted, this article is quite old. But given the international debate over “rights” and the legal constructs that govern their access, use, dissemination and reproduction, the issues articulated in the story are timeless.
• Jason Mazzone. Copyfraud. New York University Law Review (via SSRN). 2006. The Copyright Act of 1976 cannot be copyrighted, but it’s astounding how many publishers claim copyright protection for reprinting it. Is such an action a case of copyfraud? The author argues that citizens should be able to bring private lawsuits for such causes of action.

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