Free Republic

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop princess Britney Spears, the bubbly dancing spokesgirl for Pepsi, will soon be hawking again but on a more serious note in a commercial to warn people of the evils of online piracy. Spears, rapper Nelly, hip-hop diva Missy Elliott and other pop stars will be featured in coming weeks in TV spots funded by the world's biggest record labels to educate people about illegal downloading of music, which the music industry blames for a protracted sales slump. After falling more than 5 percent in 2001, CD shipments dropped another 7 percent in the first half...

Tinker with your MP3 player, get 5 years in jail By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 07/29/2002 at 12:25 EST We were suspicious a few months back when US Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat, Delaware) introduced proposed legislation with Senator Fritz "Hollywood" Hollings (Democrat, South Carolina) to protect emblems of authenticity for digital media, such as holograms, with the same tough laws that criminalize bogus labels on designer-wear. A Biden aide told us at the time that the proposed legislation would have no effect on DRM features; it was merely meant to cover software and music packaging. We doubted it...

Valenti backs away from P2P hack bill By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 07/26/2002 at 11:20 EST House Hollywood sock puppet Howard Berman (Democrat, California) may have gone too far in licking the boots of his benevolent patrons. Indeed, he's gone and licked the shine clear off Motion Picture Ass. of America President Jack Valenti's boots, as this article from Reuters indicates. "We're pleased that a bipartisan group of lawmakers ... want to curb the explosion of Internet piracy," the wire service quotes the previously-supportive Valenti as saying. "However, there are aspects of the bill we believe need changing...

July 11, 2002 Pirates of the WebBy JENNIFER 8. LEE AST week, at age 29, John Sankus Jr. moved out of his parents' house for the first time. He and his parents drove 150 miles from their home in suburban Philadelphia to his new one: a federal penitentiary in Allenwood, Pa. Mr. Sankus, who entered the minimum-security prison on July 2 to serve a 46-month sentence, is a soft-spoken, churchgoing computer technician who still has the plush stuffed whales from his childhood. But United States Customs Service investigators and prosecutors say he was also a ringleader of an international...

Major League Baseball is threatening to shut down a non-profit fan website about one fo their teams. The reason? Copyright infringemnt, so they say. Similar to what Free Republic went through except this site provided only a bunch of links, their own commentary and a huge wealth of historical and statistical data that would put the homoginized astros.com and mlb.com to shame. They're getting what they wished for. The website is shutting down rather than fighting in court. To see how Major League Baseball treats their dedicated fans, click on the link at the top and read the lawyer's letter...

<p>When huge, nameless, faceless corporations try to impose "linking policies" upon webmasters who want to point to the company's site, people usually react in a predictable way. They get mad, they spitefully put up dozens of policy-violating links, and they bemoan, once more, the fact that some folks still don't understand that if you don't want to be linked you shouldn't be on the Web.</p>

The AK-47 is a weapon of choice for rebels and gangsters the world over... a staggering 100 million AKs have been produced so far - enough to arm all the armies of the worldThe AK is a weapon of choice all over the world A two-year legal dispute between Russian companies for the copyright of the world-famous Kalashnikov assault rifle has been won by its original producer in the Urals. Kalashnikovs - or AK-47s - are made in 19 countries, of which only a few have been paying royalties. Those not paying have claimed there was not a sole patent...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PHILADELPHIA -- An American company can resume producing those grimacing, spiky haired troll dolls because a federal appeals court has decided that the company may have the copyright privileges to produce the dolls. The trans-Atlantic copyright dispute has spanned decades, with Dam Things from Denmark and Russ Berrie & Co. squabbling over who owns the right to make the lovable little figures. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction on Russ Berrie, which was ordered by U.S. District Judge Nicholas H. Politan to stop making all troll dolls...

DEMOCRATS running for the U.S. House and Senate this year have latched onto the issue of prescription drug prices like ticks on a bloodhound. If they aren't careful, their reckless feeding frenzy could seriously damage one of their most solid constituencies — artists. The Democratic argument boils down to this: large, greedy pharmaceutical firms are gouging the public by charging indefensibly high prices for prescription drugs. This argument breaks down into two parts, only one of which is on target. The solid argument is that the Hatch-Waxman Act, which governs patents for drugs, contains a flaw that allows big...

Disney's Michael Eisner and others say Hollywood will defend its intellectual property at all costs. Silicon Valley eminences like Andy Grove say those are fightin' words -- if it means trampling consumers' rights and squashing innovation. Over the course of four decades in the semiconductor business, Leslie Vadasz has had a hand in creating the 256K chip, the first dynamic RAM, and Intel (INTC), where he's currently in charge of acquisitions and strategic investments. Beyond the ranks of his colleagues and professional peers, however, Vadasz had kept a fairly low profile until Feb. 28, when his duties took him to...