Did People Intentionally Leak Jolie-Pitt Baby Photos?
“After winning the very expensive rights to the first photographs of Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, the editors at People magazine formed a publicity plan.
“Instead, days before their official publication, the pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt cuddling their days-old infant first appeared on Gawker, PerezHilton.com and about two dozen other gossip blogs and Web sites. Some photos were taken from a bootleg copy of Hello! magazine, which had obtained the rights in Britain to the photos for a reported $3.5 million. Others that appeared later were from copies of People that the magazine says may have been stolen before official distribution. Within an hour of the first postings, lawyers for the magazine began unleashing cease-and-desist letters to the offending Web sites.
“But did the Internet publication of the pictures really undermine People’s publicity plan?”
Julie Bosman. In Web Era, Big Money Can’t Buy an Exclusive. The New York Times. June 12, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Unbalanced Webcasting Proposal Moves Forward With A Hush
“In September last year, I wrote about a very bad proposal being debated in the World Intellectual Property Organization. The proposal was to extend the length of an existing set of intellectual property rights for broadcasters, and even apply them to webcasting.
“Extending the rights to webcasting, despite the manifest differences between the economic structure and global reach of the two media, was a jaw-dropping move with obviously bad consequences. We should be focusing on rules about conduct, not rights over content.
“This proposal was so bad, so empirically threadbare, so unbalanced, that I had cherished a faint hope that the members of WIPO would abandon it. At least, I hoped there might be a comparative study of the nations that had previously adopted the protection and those that had not, to see if there was any need for such a change? What was I thinking!!?”
James Boyle. Constitutional Circumvention. FT.com. June 13, 2006.
Related Stories & Documents:
- James Boyle. More Rights Are Wrong For Webcasters. FT.com. Sept. 26, 2005.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Blockbuster Goes Antitrust on Netflix
“Responding to a lawsuit that Netflix leveled against it two months ago, Blockbuster said on Tuesday that it has filed an antitrust counterclaim alleging that its online rival is trying to use the courts to secure a monopoly for itself.
“Netflix, the first company to market a DVD-by-mail subscription service, sued Blockbuster in April claiming that its Blockbuster Online infringed on patents it held. Netflix maintained that when it launched in 1999, such a service was not obvious.”
Paul Bond. Blockbuster Counters Netflix Suit. WashingtonPost.com. June 14, 2006.
Related Stories & Documents:
- Ars Technica. Blockbuster Fires Back At Netflix With Suit of Its Own. June 14, 2006.
- U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Approach for Renting Items to Customers (Patent No. 7,024,381 assigned to Netflix Inc.). April 4, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Senate Wrestles With Net Neutrality
“Taking cues from earlier proposals in the House of Representatives, key senators on Wednesday said they too are pondering legislation that would police violations of so-called Net neutrality under antitrust law.
“The idea that network operators must grant equal treatment to all Internet content and applications that use their pipes is ‘very, very high on the agenda,’ Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter said at a hearing here. Internet innovators are understandably ‘concerned their access could be cut off, degraded or become an expensive barrier to entry.’
“Specter said he was working with Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Commerce Committee, on a ‘coordinated plan’ to address the issue.”
Anne Broache. Senate Ponders Policing of Net Neutrality Offenses. News.com. June 14, 2006.
The Web 2.0 Effect on Business
“Unless you’re a diehard techie, though, good luck figuring out what Web 2.0 means. Web 2.0 technologies bear strange names like wikis, blogs, RSS, AJAX, and mashups. And the startups hawking them — Renkoo, Gahbunga, Ning, Squidoo — sound like Star Wars characters George Lucas left on the cutting-room floor.
“But behind the peculiarities, Web 2.0 portends a real sea change on the Internet. Web 2.0 sites are not online places to visit so much as services to get something done — usually with other people. From the photo-sharing site Flickr and the group-edited online reference source Wikipedia to the teen hangout MySpace, they all virtually demand active participation and social interaction.
“Though these Web 2.0 services have succeeded in luring millions of consumers to their shores, they haven’t had much to offer the vast world of business. Until now. Slowly but surely they’re scaling corporate walls.”
Robert Hof. Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning. BusinessWeek Online. June 5, 2006.
Related Stories & Documents:
- Martin LaMonica. Microsoft: Online Services For Businesses, Too. News.com. June 11, 2006.
- Tim O’Reilly. What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. O’Reilly. Sept. 30, 2005.
Updates:
- Stefanie Olsen. Social Networks–Future Portal or Fad? News.com. June 14, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Digitization Battle Intensifies As California Chooses Microsoft
“Two leading research institutions haven issued library cards to Microsoft so the software giant and search up-and-comer can scan their collections.
“The University of California and the University of Toronto libraries have agreed to lend their collections of out-of-copyright material held in trust. In concert with the Open Content Alliance, Microsoft will scan and index the materials for use in its Windows Live Book Search, according to a Microsoft statement issued last week.
“Like Google Book Search and Amazon.com’s Look Inside feature, Windows Live Book Search is being designed to enable full-text searches of books. The Microsoft project, however, will be built slightly differently than Google Book Search.”
Candace Lombardi. U.C. System Signs On To Microsoft Book-Scan Project. News.com. June 9, 2006.
Related Stories & Documents:
- Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft to Collaborate With University of California and University of Toronto Libraries for Windows Live Book Search. (Press Release) June 8, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Pornographers Against Piracy
“What worries Jason Tucker, a new breed of pornographer that heads Falcon Foto, isn’t the possibility of a raid on Falcon’s studio — a 40-acre farm north of Los Angeles — or a congressional hearing scrutinizing his industry. It’s piracy. Falcon, which he runs with his former-model wife, Gail Harris, owns the rights to more than 2 million photos and 350 videos.
“At a recent shoot at the ranch, Tucker is livid after learning that a Falcon-owned photo appeared in a magazine without authorization, having been downloaded from the Internet.
“The pornography business, once relegated to a dark corner of the media world, has become a powerful, if unlikely, ally with mainstream Hollywood in the battle against digital piracy. But where mainstream companies fret endlessly before deciding how to proceed with new technologies and business models, the never-bashful porn industry is making some moves that may well show the way for Hollywood.”
BusinessWeek Online. The Pornographers vs. The Pirates. June 19, 2006.
CopyCense™: The law, business, and technology of digital content. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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