Google Buddies Up to Capitol Hill
“Facing increasing congressional scrutiny, Google Inc. has hired a lobbying firm that includes the son of U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
“The Mountain View Internet giant hired Joshua Hastert as part of a team of lobbyists from the firm PodestaMattoon to champion its interests in privacy, compensation and China, among other issues, according to documents filed with the U.S. Senate.
“The hiring is another sign that Google is raising its profile in Washington.”
Verne Kopytoff. Google Hires D.C. Lobbyist With a Friend in High Places. SFGate.com. March 16, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Maybe Fashion Needs Stinkin’ Lawsuits After All
“For the past several years, as the music and movie industries have gradually consolidated ever more authoritarian control over their copyrights, the fashion industry has been held up as an implicit rebuke to their autocratic ways. Fashion, the story goes, is a similarly creative industry, yet it operates with essentially no prohibition against design copying.
“This laissez-faire idyll may soon be a thing of the past, though. The Council of Fashion Designers of America is meeting with members of Congress tomorrow to gather support for a bill to offer copyrightlike protection to clothing designs.”
Henry Lanman. Copycatfight. Slate. March 13, 2006.
See also:
CopyCense. Lawsuits? Fashion Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Lawsuits. March 1, 2006.
Updates:
Eric Wilson. O.K., Knockoffs, This Is War. The New York Times. March 30, 2006
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
France Wrestles With P2P Penalties
“What began late last year as an effort by France to ratify the European copyright standard is now likely to produce some of the weakest penalties in the world for Internet music piracy — the equivalent of a parking ticket.
“The light penalties for piracy that legal commentators say the final legislation is likely to prescribe have been described by some members of the music industry as the equivalent of an economic firing squad. Others speak of a betrayal of the principles of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, the 18th-century playwright whom the French credit with inventing the concept of copyright to protect authors.”
Thomas Crampton. Will France, Birthplace of Copyright, Go Soft On Piracy? International Herald Tribune. March 13, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Settlement Past, Blackberry Maker Seeks Patent Reform
“Research In Motion took out a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post and several other newspapers earlier this week, thanking those who supported the company in its dispute with NTP and also urging patent reforms. In the letter attributed to RIM’s co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, RIM said it was “pleased to put this matter behind us and remove any uncertainty from our customers’ minds.”
“Eleven days ago RIM paid NTP $612.5 million to end the long-running dispute over whether the popular BlackBerry wireless e-mail system infringed on patents held by NTP. Prior to the settlement, Judge James Spencer appeared set to impose an injunction on the sales and support of BlackBerry devices and software in the U.S. after RIM failed to overturn a 2002 jury verdict that it infringed on NTP’s patents.
“RIM settled with NTP even though — after the jury verdict and appeals process — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had has rejected the claims in NTP’s five patents at issue in the case.”
Tom Krazit. RIM Calls for Patent Reform In Newspaper Ad. News.com. March 14, 2006.
See also:
Research In Motion. A Message To All BlackBerry Supporters. No date.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Net Neutrality Debate Heats Up
Addressing attendees at the Voice on the Net conference at the San Jose Convention Center on Wednesday, Richard Notebaert, CEO of Qwest Communications, also said that he opposes blocking traffic on his company’s network. But for the first time publicly he said he believes that network operators should have the option to charge content providers, such as Google or Amazon, higher rates for providing premium service over the Qwest network.
Speculation over phone companies developing a tiered Internet system that would require content companies to pay more for their access has become a hot-button issue in the tech industry, pitting companies such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon against the big phone companies and equipment makers.
Marguerite Reardon. Qwest CEO Supports Tiered Internet. News.com. March 15, 2006.
See also:
Marguerite Reardon. Debate Heats Up Over Net Neutrality. News.com. March 15, 2006.
Declan McCullagh & Anne Broache. Senator: Net Neutrality May Not Happen. News.com. March 14, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Google Faces Increased Legal Challenges
“A federal judge hearing arguments in the Department of Justice’s records fight with Google said Tuesday that he would grant federal prosecutors at least part of their request for excerpts from the search giant’s massive database.
“U.S. District Judge James Ware said he intends to release his decision ‘very quickly,’ and that he might give the Justice Department access to a portion of Google’s index of Web sites, but not to its users’ search terms.
“Ware said he was reluctant to give the Justice Department everything it wanted because of the “perception by the public that this is subject to government scrutiny” when they type search terms into Google.com.”
Declan McCullagh. Judge to Help Feds Against Google. News.com. March 14, 2006.
See also:
David H. Holtzman. Guarding Google’s Data Banks. BusinessWeek Online. March 14, 2006. (“The more successful Google is, the more unwelcome legal attention it will draw. As data continues to flood into Google, the comprehensiveness of its databases makes it a juicier target for government fishing expeditions.”)
Updates:
Anne Broache. Judge: Google Must Give Feds Limited Access to Records. News.com. March 17, 2006.
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California. Alberto R. Gonzales v. Google, Inc.: Order Granting In Part and Denying In Part Motion to Compel Compliance with Subpoena Duces Tecum. (.pdf) March 17, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
Struggling for Relevance, GPO Goes Digital
“Distributing the budget plan — a total of 8,500 copies of it — is one of the biggest events of the year for the printing office, but it is also becoming something of an anachronism for the 192-year-old organization.
“For most of U.S. history, any government agency that needed to print many copies of a document went to the U.S. Government Printing Office. Now, about half of government documents go straight online, forcing the printing agency to find new ways to make itself relevant in an increasingly paperless world. But questions of security, privacy and authenticity have confronted the GPO leadership as it has sought to get up to date in the digital age.”
Zachary A. Goldfarb. Confronting Digital Age Head-On. WashingtonPost.com. March 13, 2006.
CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.
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