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Blizzard Wants Copyright Laws Changed
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| Cheating is bad, but does cheating infringe on a video game publisher’s
| copyright? World of Warcraft-maker Blizzard, a subsidiary of Vivendi, is
| trying to argue in court that it does. If this argument succeeds, it could
| change the way all software copyrights operate in the eyes of the law.
`----
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/blizzard-wow-warcraft,5311.html
Appeals Panel Reviews Standard For Business-Method Patents
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| A U.S. federal appeals court Thursday considered making it harder for
| companies to obtain business-method patents that, among other things, protect
| novel tax strategies, financial-services processes and one-stop online
| shopping.
|
| In a rare 12-judge session, the Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it
| was using the Bilski case, which involves a process for reducing
| weather-based risk in commodities trading, to consider stemming a tide of
| business-process patents that has followed the panel's 1998 ruling in State
| Street Bank & Trust. The State Street case involved a process for handling
| mutual-fund assets and said processes could be awarded if they achieve
| a "useful, concrete and tangible" result.
`----
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200805081747DOWJONESDJONLINE001147_FORTUNE5.htm
Recent:
The New Perverted Reverse Value Theory of Copyright
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| What this means to me is not that consumers have captured value that belongs
| to the industry, but rather that consumers have long been deprived of the
| value of their money, and are finally beginning to get something close to the
| true value of the product being sold. It is that market reality that scares
| the you-know-what out of the MBG, and that forced it to turn to a consultant
| to come up with a theory to sell to government policy makers as an example of
| the sky is falling from yet another effort to blame consumers for the
| industry’s own shortcomings. The proposed solution by MBG is an attempt to
| obtain a government-mandated subsidy by consumers of an industry that is
| finally being forced to give consumers what they want. There is no value for
| policy makers in mandating such an undeserved subsidy. And, as a policy
| matter, the theory on which it is based, namely that every unauthorized use
| by consumers is the misappropriation of value properly owned by copyright
| owners, has no limit; it applies to book reviews, news stories, quotations,
| parodies, the first sale doctrine, and a limitless term of protection (note
| the connection between the value theory and the concurrent effort at term
| extension for sound recordings in the UK and Europe). Even Blackstone’s view
| of property as the sole, despotic dominion of the owner never reached this
| far.
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http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-perverted-reverse-value-theory-of.html
ISPs demand record biz pays up if cut-off P2P users sue
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| ISPs are calling on the record industry to put its money where its mouth is
| on illegal file-sharing, by underwriting the cost of lawsuits brought by
| people who are wrongly accused of downloading or uploading music.
|
| [...]
|
| It's the latest public detail from long-running private negotiations that
| have hit mainstream media headlines today. The lobbying campaign to have
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| government force ISPs to disconnect persistent illegal file-sharers scored a
| victory with a leak to The Times. The draft government document says: "We
| will move to legislate to require internet service providers to take action
| on illegal file-sharing."
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/12/anti_filesharing_paper_leak/
Policing internet 'not ISP's job'
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| The head of one of Britain's biggest internet providers has criticised the
| music industry for demanding that he act against pirates.
|
| [...]
|
| BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said that the music industry
| has been fighting a losing battle to prevent people from swapping songs for
| nothing on the internet.
|
| Mr Dunstone, whose TalkTalk broadband is Britain's third biggest internet
| provider, said the demands are unreasonable and unworkable.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7329801.stm
Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'
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| The Internet Service Providers Association said data protection laws would
| prevent providers from looking at the content of information sent over their
| networks.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm
RIAA, MPAA urge pro-copyright vows from presidential candidates
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| One question, for instance, asks: "How would you promote the progress of
| science and creativity, as enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, by upholding
| and strengthening copyright law and preventing its diminishment?"
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http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9821141-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Is Sarko Uxorious?
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| What this neglects to take into account is the fact that falling into the
| public domain is a gain for the public - and hence the actual moment when it
| becomes part of the "national pop heritage" - and that the gain vastly
| outweighs any minimal effect it has on ageing rockers' royalties.
| Unfortunately, with this action, as with others (including the "three strikes
| and you're out" approach to fighting filesharing), Sarkozy shows himself to
| be an old man - however young his new wife may be.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/02/is-sarko-uxorious.html
MEPs debate tightening up lobbying rules
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| MEPs on Thursday launched the thorny debate on tightening rules covering the
| thousands of EU lobbyists in Brussels, with an initial discussion showing
| deputies in favour of defining the term "lobbyist" as broadly as possible but
| shying away from the 600-page rulebook that defines and confines lobbyists in
| the US.
|
| [...]
|
| For his part, Mr Stubb says he is not out to demonise lobbyists, whose
| activities have come to light recently during the ferocious lobbying on
| legislation that took place during the development of the chemicals, services
| and software patent laws.
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http://euobserver.com/9/25526
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