COPYCENSE

“Amazon.com’s plan to sell individual pages from books will test whether the online retailer can do for publishing what Apple’s iTunes has done for the recording industry.

“It is a novel idea indeed, or at least little-seen since the days when the writings of Dickens and others were serialized, even if it’s difficult to imagine anyone wanting to buy a great literary works in snippets. I can’t even conceive of buying my coffee-table books — on art, architecture and top golf courses around the world — by the section.”

Bambi Francisco. Launching the ‘Mashup’ Book Genre. MarketWatch. Nov. 7, 2005.

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

From the Grokster home page:

The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners. There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them.

Actually, this characterization is wildly inaccurate. In MGM v. Grokster, the Supreme Court held that any party who distributes a device intending to promote copyright infringement can be held liable for third parties’ actions, even if the device has lawful uses. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s judgment in Grokster’s favor, and sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings. Grokster had sought to have the case dismissed before a federal district court trial; the Supreme Court’s decision in June effectively said that Grokster’s motion for summary judgment would be denied, and that the case should be litigated.

Of course, this is not the interpretation one gets from the message on the Grokster home page, and that is because Big Content now controls the Grokster Web site. And Big Content controls the Grokster Web site because Grokster has settled the case with two divisions of Big Content. (Post-settlement, Grokster’s home page now includes links to the Big Movie and Big Music “informational” Web sites about copyright.)

What remains to be determined is whether Streamcast, a co-defendant with Grokster, also will settle the pending lawsuit it is defending from Big Content. The public relations spin that appears on the Grokster home page does not mention Streamcast.

Dawn C. Chmielewski. Grokster Shut Down, Plans Legal Service. MercuryNews.com. Nov. 8, 2005.

See also:

Matthai Chakko Kuruvila. Hollywood Breathes Sigh of Relief over Grokster’s Demise, Settlement. MercuryNews.com. Nov. 8, 2005.

Supreme Court of the United States. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. (.pdf) June 27, 2005.

EFF Deep Links. Remedying Grokster. July 25, 2005.

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

The web is having a birthday. This month, we will have the 15th anniversary of the creation of the first web page. It is the birthday of Tim Berners-Lee’s amazing idea that there could be a worldwide web, linked not by spider silk but by hypertext links and transfer protocols and uniform resource locators.

There are three things that we need to understand about the web. First, it is more amazing than we think. Second, the conjunction of technologies that made the web successful was extremely unlikely. Third, we probably would not create it, or any technology like it, today. In fact, we would be more likely to cripple it, or declare it illegal.

James Boyle. Web’s Never-To-Be-Repeated Revolution. FT.com. Nov. 2, 2005.

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

“Microsoft Corp. struck a deal Friday with the British Library to scan 100,000 books from its vast collection and make them freely available for reading and searching on the Internet next year.

“The move by the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant is the latest foray into a hotly competitive battle among the leading Internet players over digitizing that old-fashioned favorite, the printed book.”

David A. Vise. Microsoft to Offer 100,000 Books Free Online. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 5, 2005.

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

“Telecommuters employed by a company outside their home state may be at risk of having to pay extra taxes unless Congress adopts a bill protecting them, experts said Tuesday.

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the appeal of a Tennessee computer programmer who claimed that New York was violating his constitutional rights by forcing him to pay taxes on income he earned in his home state while telecommuting.”

Elinor Mills. Telecommuters: Beware the Tax Man. News.com. Nov. 2, 2005.

See also:

New York State Court of Appeals. Huckaby v. New York State Division of Tax Appeals. (.pdf) March 29, 2005.

Teresa M. McAleavy. N.Y. Telecommuter Tax Upheld. NorthJersey.com. Nov. 1, 2005.

ITAC. Annual Survey Shows Americans Are Working from Many Different Locations Outside Their Employer’s Office. (Press Release) Oct. 4, 2005.

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

“At first blush, the Hollywood Undead is your standard-issue metal band.

“Here’s what makes the Hollywood Undead distinctive: It is the first band signed to MySpace Records, part of the social networking Web site where thousands of bands promote their music to millions of teens and twentysomethings.”

Dawn C. Chmielewski. Record Labels Scan Internet for New Stars. The San Jose Mercury News. Nov. 4, 2005.

See also:

Steven Musil. This Week in Online Music. News.com. Nov. 4, 2005.

John Borland. Digital Music’s Move Back to the Web. News.com. Nov. 4, 2005.

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

“The old-school peer-to-peer network iMesh has left the murky world of illegal file swapping behind with the launch of a new service that enables users to share up to 2 million tracks from the four major record labels.

“The New York-based company is charging its 5 million users an a la carte fee of 99 cents to purchase a track, or $6.95 per month to gain unlimited access to the catalog.”

Niall McKay. Peer-to-Peer Goes Legit. Wired News. Nov. 3, 2005.

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