The bad, the ugly and copyright

Recent developments in the the fields of copyright and the field of responsibility of the the hosting provider are more than alarming. They are outright dangerous.

Recent court verdict in Italy against Google, semi legal attempt to close down Russian torrent tracker Torrents.ru and several other cases show that we are at a very dangerous path that can seriously damage our cultural and technologic progress. Furthermore, copyright laws, quickly becoming into a weapon to ram anyone or anything, like business or political opponents.

If drastic moves will not be taken soon, we will see more such cases and they will be more and more dangerous and ugly.

A wish granted

Remember me hoping for SCO filing for bankruptcy?
They are!
Not completely destroyed thou, but I hope that investors lost enough money to teach them a lesson.

SCO "You are stealing from us, but we won't tell you what" looses legal battle

Happy day to all!

Well, one idiotic, yet dangerous legal battle is over.
Court has stated that all rights for Unix and UnixWare are property on Novell and SCO can't claim any right on it. Furthermore, SCO can't sue anyone for "stealing" something that they don't own and must transfer all the royalties collected by SCO from Unix licences (often by using intimidation) to their rightful owner - Novel.
As a result SCO shares dipped 71% in a single day. I'm waiting for the day that SCO would file for bankruptcy.

Read Groklaw for more.

The road Internet sensorship laid with IP legislation

Belgian court of law has concluded that the ISPs (Internet Service Providesr) are responsible for IP violation enforcement. Meaning that Belgian ISPs will have to block file sharing in their networks.
What next, the electric companies would be responsible for copyright violation, since the are providing electricity needed for file sharing?

The true meaning of this decision is that the ISPs will have to enforce censorship on the internet. ISPs, or actually the IP owners will tell you what you may or may not do with your Internet.

RIAA: Radio Ga G...ive us your money

RIAA is always on the prowl.
Now, they put their sights on the terrestrial radio. However the radio is there for a long time, and has some teeth also, therefore it won't be a helpless prey.

I call this whole RIAA and MPAA attitude a legal racketing.

Another screw up from the record industry

It is another example of how greed managed to screw up a good thing.
Remember Pandora.com?
This fabulous web based music service, offers personally adapted internet radio, and thanks to some greedy IP owners, it is available to US listeners only. My guess that they weren't happy enough with the standard licensing fee.

They are so shortsighted that it....
Ahhh, what is the point in saying the same thing over and over...

Copyright on public domain?

While trying out the Google book search I found out that Scholastic Inc. is claiming copyright for.... "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne.
Anyone else finds that something is terribly wrong with this picture, or is it just me?
If I'm not mistaken classics are a public domain and nobody can claim copyright for it.
Perhaps I'll claim copyright for Shakespeare's works, or better still for the Bible. Imagine the revenues from that!