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US Chamber of Commerce cites #19 rank, wants tougher IP laws
,----[ Quote ]
| A new survey of intellectual property protections puts the US
| in 19th place, and that has already led for business groups to
| demand that the government ratchet up IP protection (again).
`----
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/09/us-chamber-of-commerce-cites-19-rank-wants-tougher-ip-laws.ars
MonaVie Hits Blogger Over 'Trademarks' In Metadata
,----[ Quote ]
| Lazy Man and Money is just one of many sites (including this
| one) that have been critical of MonaVie, a company that has
| cleverly combined the miraculous, life-extending properties
| of the acai berry with the equally stupendous, wallet-
| emptying promises of a multi-level marketing company. Lazy
| (as the blog's author likes to call himself) has, however,
| achieved one thing that other MonaVie critics apparently
| haven't: He's gotten the company's attention, and they're
| accusing him of trademark infringement.
`----
http://consumerist.com/5356665/monavie-hits-blogger-over-trademarks-in-metadata
Good Old Fashioned Rant On Overbearing Copyright Holders
,----[ Quote ]
| Hirst, apparently got so upset by a 16-year-old kid using
| the image in his own artwork, that he threatened to sue the
| kid, and forced the kid to hand over the artwork and to pay
| Â200 to Hirst. A bunch of other artists started creating
| more artwork using Hirst's skull in protest. But the whole
| thing got more bizarre lately, after the teen stopped by a
| Hirst exhibit and took a box of pencils that were in one of
| the "sculptures" and left a "ransom note" demanding his own
| artwork back. Except, the police have valued that box of
| pencils at Â500,000 and arrested the kid. Yikes.
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090914/1843036189.shtml
Recent:
EFF, libraries: Keep your ACTA out of our Internet!
,----[ Quote ]
| Library groups have joined forces with the EFF and others to demand a seat at
| the table when it comes to negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
| Agreement. Also, they want all Internet regulation stripped from the treaty.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/07/acta-no-internet.ars
âDrop Internet Issues From ACTA, Add Public Interestâ
,----[ Quote ]
| Nine organisations representing the technology industry, libraries, digital
| rights and privacy interests have sent a letter to United States Trade
| Representative Ron Kirk urging that issues related to the internet be dropped
| from negotiations for an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). They
| also demanded that in the secretive ACTA negotiation, negotiating documents
| be made available to those representing the public interest, and that
| advisory committees be created to include civil society and internet-related
| industry interests.
`----
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/07/17/âdrop-internet-issues-from-acta-add-public-interestâ/
Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of writing a
secret, restrictive copyright treaty
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/25/meet-the-former-time.html
Meet the chief US ACTA negotiator: Kira Alvarez, the Deputy Assistant USTR for
IP Enforcement
,----[ Quote ]
| Kira Alvarez is the Deputy Assistant USTR for Intellectual Property
| Enforcement, and the chief US negotiator for ACTA. According to her Linkedin
| bio, as late as October 2008, right before the election, she was the Time
| Warner Vice President for Global Public Policy, and before that, she was a
| lobbyist for Ely Lilly, the pharmaceutical company. Alvarez also worked for
| both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, before her stints for
| Lilly and Time Warner. Note that she took her current job in December 2008,
| after the election but before the inauguration. Now she is the lead Obama
| representative for ACTA, reporting to Stan McCoy and Ambassador Kirk at USTR.
`----
http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/06/25/kira-alvarez/
U.S. Targets Canada Over Copyright in Special 301 Report
,----[ Quote ]
| The move is not unexpected, given recent comments from Vice President Joe
| Biden and U.S. Congressional panels as well as the demands from U.S. lobby
| groups.
`----
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3911/125/
Former RIAA Lawyer At DOJ Will Only Avoid RIAA Issues For A Year
,----[ Quote ]
| Plenty of folks have noted that the Justice Department has been the landing
| place for a number of RIAA lawyers. Some have suggested not to get too worked
| up about this, given that the Obama administration's ethics rules supposedly
| forbade those lawyers from being involved in issues related to their former
| work.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090501/0209474714.shtml
Obama Names Craig Mundie to Sci-Tech Advisory Council
http://microsoftontheissues.com/cs/blogs/mscorp/archive/2009/04/27/obama-names-craig-mundie-to-sci-tech-advisory-council.aspx
Joe Biden promises a blank check to the entertainment cartel
,----[ Quote ]
| VP Joe Biden stood up in front of a bunch of Hollywood execs and promised to
| appoint a copyright czar, and furthermore, that this would be the "right"
| person to protect their interests. I would have voted Dem in the last
| election, if I got a vote, but make no mistakes: the Dems are the party of
| stupid copyright laws.
`----
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/22/joe-biden-promises-a.html
Administration Lobbyist Ban Not Doing What It's Supposed To Do
,----[ Quote ]
| We've already seen how the Justice Department is, for example, being filled
| with lawyers who regularly worked with the RIAA, MPAA and BSA -- three of the
| biggest copyright lobbying organizations, and those individuals have wasted
| no time in expressing their desire to continue pushing those industry's
| viewpoints in their new positions.
`----
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090422/0419234608.shtml
Copyright debate heats up over Obama appointments
,----[ Quote ]
| The president has, in fact, filled out some high-level Justice Department
| positions with lawyers favored by the copyright industry, including attorneys
| who have represented the Recording Industry Association of America and the
| Business Software Alliance. The signatories of the April 2 letter said the
| Justice Department's intervention last month in favor of a record label in a
| file-sharing case heightens their concern.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10223549-38.html
Biden promises 'right person' as new U.S. copyright czar
,----[ Quote ]
| "It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American
| people as consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of
| income," Biden said, according to a White House pool report.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10224689-38.html
MPAA reaches out to lawmakers
,----[ Quote ]
| The occasion: the second biennial summit sponsored by the industry's chief
| lobbying arm, the Motion Picture Assn. of America.
`----
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118002688.html?categoryId=18&cs=1
I got you, babe
,----[ Quote ]
| Obama is whistling the music industry's tune
`----
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/15/i-got-you-babe-obama-is-whistling-the-music-indust/
Obama Taps 5th RIAA Lawyer to Justice Dept.
,----[ Quote ]
| President Barack Obama is tapping another RIAA attorney into the Justice
| Department.
|
| Monday's naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department's deputy
| assistant attorney of the Civil Division, comes more than a week after nearly
| two-dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library coalitions urged
| the new president to quit filling his administration with lawyers plucked
| from the Recording Industry Association of America.
|
| The move makes it five RIAA lawyers Obama has appointed to the Justice
| Department.
`----
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/obama-taps-fift.html
Obama administration sides with RIAA in P2P suit
,----[ Quote ]
| The Obama administration has sided with the recording industry in a copyright
| lawsuit against an alleged peer-to-peer pirate, a move that echoes arguments
| previously made by the Bush administration.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10201831-38.html
Obama Sides With RIAA, Supports $150,000 Fine per Music Track
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/obama-sides-wit.html
U.S. Sides with RIAA in Filesharing Case
http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/03/us-sides-with-riaa-in-filesharing-case.html
Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?
,----[ Quote ]
| When the Obama administration took over, there was a public stance that this
| administration was going to be more transparent -- especially with regards to
| things like Freedom of Information Act requests. The nonprofit group
| Knowledge Ecology International took that to heart and filed an FOIA request
| to get more info on ACTA. The US Trade Representative's Office responded
| denying the request, saying that the information was "classified in the
| interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." This is a
| treaty about changing copyright law, not sending missiles somewhere. To claim
| that it's a national security matter is just downright scary. As KEI points
| out, the text of the documents requested have been available to tons of
| people, including more than 30 governments around the world and lobbyists
| from the entertainment industry, pharma industry and publishing industry.
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090313/1456154113.shtml
Obama names Doerr, Phillips to economic board
,----[ Quote ]
| Two Silicon Valley leaders have been appointed by President Obama to a
| 16-person committee that's charged with offering economic advice during what
| has become an unusually sharp and deep recession.
|
| John Doerr, the billionaire venture capitalist at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield
| & Byers, is one. Doerr was involved in funding companies including Google,
| Amazon.com, Sun Microsystems, and Cypress Semiconductor; he currently serves
| on the board of companies including Amazon and Google and has recently turned
| his attention to green tech.
|
| Charles Phillips, the president of Oracle, is another. Phillips became
| president in May 2003 and previously was with Morgan Stanley's Institutional
| Securities Division. He's a Linux aficionado and said in 2005: "On demand is
| the future of software for many years to come and we are building it on
| Linux."
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10158505-38.html
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