COPYCENSE

"Family-friendly technology company ClearPlay on Wednesday gave the official thumbs-up to the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, which sped its way through the House of Representatives and is headed to the Senate.

"The Family Movie Act portion of the bill will allow users to alter movie content for private viewing, a service offered by several companies—ClearPlay the most well-known of the group. It could be a much-needed reprieve for the privately owned Utah company, which has been sued by eight Hollywood studios and the Director’s Guild of America for copyright infringement."

Libe Goad. Bill Could Let Parents Scrub Sex, Violence and More from DVDs. PCMag.com. April 21, 2005.

See also:
H.R.357. Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005.

S.167. Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005.

Ted Bridis. Congress OKs Bill to Strip DVD Movie Smut. USA Today. April 20, 2005.

ClearPlay. The Family Movie Act – Update. February 4, 2005.

The Hon. Orrin Hatch. Hatch Endorses Family Entertainment Act. Jan. 25, 2005.

Editor’s Note: Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah and the ranking Republican on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee (which passes intellectual property legislation), introduced The Family Entertainment Act in the Senate. (The Act will be codified into law as the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act.) Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas introduced the Act in the House.

ClearPlay is a Utah-based company that makes technology that censors sex, violence, and other "objectionable" material from DVDs. The company has been sued for copyright infringement by eight Hollywood studios and the Director’s Guild of America, which claimed that ClearPlay’s technology produced an illegal derivative work of their DVDs. This lawsuit likely would become moot when President Bush signs the bill into law, unless the entertainment industry amends the lawsuit (or files a new action) that seeks to invalidate the law.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology in our New Afternoon Edition. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"On Friday, April 15th, Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor gave his fans a free song, and made it a GarageBand file to boot. "The Hand That Feeds" is an advance single for Nine Inch Nails’ forthcoming album, With Teeth, which is due to be released on May 5th, 2005. The single is currently available from the iTunes Music Store for US$0.99, but the download makes the song free for Mac users who have GarageBand, a part of Apple’s iLife suite.

"Opening the download file requires agreeing to a license that, among other things, allows the user to use or modify any of the sounds in the song for noncommercial purposes. In addition, the license specifies that all of the sounds and recordings in the song belong to Interscope Records, the copyright holder, and are not being transferred."

Bryan Chaffin. Nine Inch Nails Releases Song as GarageBand File For Mac Users. The Mac Observer. April 19th, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology in our New Afternoon Edition. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"A new company officially joined the world of content providers when it chose to launch its premium newsfeed service at the recent Buying and Selling eContent conference.

"Newstex, founded in late 2004 by president Larry Schwartz and CEO Steve Ellis, has announced Content On Demand, which offers full-text newsfeeds to content redistributors and enterprise customers.

"Content sources include branded newswires, newspapers, magazines, financial and business sources, official government feeds, and Weblogs."

Paula J. Hane. Newstex Launches Content On Demand. Information Today. April 18, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Podscope, the new web engine that allows you to keyword search each and every word spoken in a podcast is now live in beta mode. We first reported that Podscope was coming about a week ago.

"At the moment Podscope is searching podcasts from a database of 1000 sites. The page to submit your url is now offline but look for it to return soon."

Gary Price. Podscope Beta Now Available, Keyword Search Podcasts. SearchEngineWatch. April 19, 2005.

See also:
Podcasting News. Podscope Beta Searches Podcast Audio Content. April 18, 2005.

Podscope Blog. Podscope Beta. April 17, 2005.

Gary Price. Podscope: New Search Engine Will Allow You to Keyword Search Every Word Spoken in a Podcast. SearchEngineWatch. April 11, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"The House of Representatives passed copyright legislation on Tuesday that would dole out criminal penalties to those who make unauthorized recordings of films in movie theaters.

"The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (HR357) also would permit technologies that allow users to skip objectionable content in movies viewed at home.

"The bill passed by voice vote and now heads to the president, who is expected to sign it into law. An identical bill (S167) already passed in the Senate earlier this year."

Katie Dean. House OKs Family Copyright Bill. Wired News. April 19, 2005.

See also:
Declan McCullagh. Prison Terms on Tap for ‘Prerelease’ Pirates. News.com. April 19, 2005.

Ted Bridis. Congress OKs Bill to Strip Movie Smut. BusinessWeek Online. April 19, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"The Associated Press will begin charging newspapers and broadcasters to post its stories, photos and other content online, a pricing shift that reflects the growing power of the Internet to lure audiences and advertisers from more established media.

"Most of the 15,000 news outlets that buy AP’s news, sports, business and entertainment coverage have been allowed to ‘re-purpose’ the same material online at no extra cost since 1995. At that time, graphical Web browsers were just beginning to transform the Internet from an esoteric computer network to a mass medium.

"The new pricing policy, effective Jan. 1, begins to shift some of the funding of AP to the growing online market, as technological advances and digital devices are making it ever easier for people to get their news whenever and however they want it."

Associated Press. Associated Press to Impose Online Licensing Fees. SiliconValley.com. April 18, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Having been rebuffed by an ICANN panel, search giant Google brought its battle against Froogles.com to U.S. court.

"Google filed a trademark infringement suit (.pdf) against Richard Wolfe, operator of the relatively tiny Froogles.com, on Monday. The search provider complained that consumers could confuse Wolfe’s bargain-shopping site with Google’s Froogle and even the name Google itself — even though Wolfe had been using the name Froogles since December 2000. Wolfe applied for trademark protection for the name in September 2003."

Susan Kuchinskas. Google Versus Froogles Redux. InternetNews.com. April 18, 2005.

See also:
Loren Baker. Google Files Suit Against Froogles for Trademark Infringment. Search Engine Journal. April 18, 2005.

Mark Harrington. Google Fights for Its Oogle. Sun-Sentinel.com. April 14, 2005.

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Google Inc., v. Richard Wolfe d/b/a Froogles.com. (.pdf) April 8, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.