Free Republic

China to put squeeze on foreign firms / IT companies must reveal product secrets The Yomiuri Shimbun The Chinese government has decided to launch a system next month to force foreign manufacturers of digital household appliances and other items equipped with computing devices to disclose key information, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Thursday. The move is aimed at controlling the makers' products when their goods are made or sold in China. Beijing likely has informed Tokyo and Washington that detailed provisions to enforce the system will be announced by the end of this month. The Chinese government likely will give manufacturers...

Is Internet access a fundamental human right? Or is it a privilege, carrying with it a responsibility for good behavior? ...The United States Congress held hearings last week on the growing problem of piracy, which the American entertainment industry says accounts for the loss of $20 billion a year in sales. Several lawmakers vowed to increase scrutiny of international markets where piracy is widespread. But if events in Paris last week are any indication, legislative solutions will not be easy. French lawmakers rejected an antipiracy plan championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, where the Internet connections of people who ignored repeated...

Last September, the Bush administration defended the unusual secrecy over an anti-counterfeiting treaty being negotiated by the U.S. government, which some liberal groups worry could criminalize some peer-to-peer file sharing that infringes copyrights. Now President Obama's White House has tightened the cloak of government secrecy still further, saying in a letter this week that a discussion draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are "classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958." The 1995 Executive Order 12958 allows material to be classified only if disclosure would do "damage to the national security and the...

"Yes we can,'' the Obama campaign proclaimed. "No you can't,'' says the Obama White House of the varied attempts to cash in on the brand Obama built. Or maybe they can, or can't. The lawyers are looking into it, Bloomberg News reports" ### President-elect Barack Obama has created his own brand - represented both by the iconic images of the candidate who campaigned for "change'' and by the "Yes we can'' and "Change We Can Believe in" slogans generated by that campaign. Now the Obama White House, mindful of the "worldwide fascination'' about his election, First Amendment free-speech rights and...

Embattled Psystar says Apple can't tell it what to do with legit copies of the OSThe Mac clone maker being sued by Apple Inc. because it installs Mac OS X on generic Intel-based systems said it bought copies of the operating system from Apple itself, court documents show. In papers filed with a San Francisco federal court last week, Psystar Corp. repeated its argument that Apple has abused copyright laws by tying the Mac operating system to Apple hardware. The filing came in response to an Apple motion asking U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who tossed out Psystar's original...

LOS ANGELES — The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse. Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.

BABIES with a severe form of epilepsy risk having their diagnosis delayed and their treatment compromised because of a company's patent on a key gene. It is the first evidence that private intellectual property rights over human DNA are adversely affecting medical care.

A Harvard law professor has opened a new front in the battle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and alleged music pirates by challenging the constitutionality of a statute being used by the industry group to bring lawsuits against alleged copyright violators. The case involves an individual named Joel Tenenbaum who was sued by the RIAA for allegedly illegally copying and distributing copyrighted songs belonging to several music labels. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston in August 2007 after what the music labels claimed was more than two years of effort trying to get...

FROM next year academics at the University of Melbourne will be able to pick up the phone to order a new tome from the US or an out-of-print textbook, then walk over to the library to pick it up. Publishing distributor DA Information Services has signed a memorandum of understanding with Melbourne to install an Espresso Book Machine at the library. The machines are capable of turning out a 550-page, perfect-bound paperback within 10 minutes at a cost comparable with buying books off the shelf. [snip] Content is distributed digitally through EBM's network, under which book publishers retain full ownership...

President Bush on Monday signed into law an intellectual-property enforcement bill that would consolidate federal efforts to combat copyright infringement under a new White House cabinet position. The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act establishes within the executive branch the position of intellectual property enforcement coordinator, who will be appointed by the president. The law also steepens penalties for intellectual-property infringement, and increases resources for the Department of Justice to coordinate for federal and state efforts against counterfeiting and piracy. The so-called Pro-IP Act passed unanimously in the Senate last month and received strong bipartisan support in the...

A security hole in Adobe Systems Inc software, used to distribute movies and TV shows over the Internet, is giving users free access to record and copy from Amazon.com Inc's video streaming service. The problem exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. "It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly," said Bruce Schneier, a security expert who is also the chief security technology officer at British Telecom....

The $222,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas for copyright infringement by P2P is no more. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis dismissed the verdict (PDF), saying it was based on the faulty “making available� theory of distribution. Thomas will face a new trial, in which the RIAA will have to prove actual distribution. The decision means the RIAA now has zero wins at trial, Wired notes. RIAA’s “making available� theory would hold that someone has distributed copyright material merely by creating the potential for distribution. Under the RIAA’s theory, it need not show actual distribution. The judge soundly denied this legal...

IBM is threatening to leave organizations that set standards for software interoperability because of concerns that their processes are not always fair. ... IBM was one of the most vocal opponents of a file format created by Microsoft and approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as an international standard earlier this year. ... Microsoft has long been accused of dominating the market for office productivity programs due to its use of closed file formats. Microsoft changed course, however, and submitted its OOXML format to become an international standard, which means other vendors could implement OOXML in their products....

Over the last few years, attorney Ray Beckerman has been defending broadband users accused of copyright infringement by the RIAA, and frequently blogs about it. His blog frequently highlights instances where the RIAA has sued individuals in error, often highlighting the tenuous legal ground many RIAA cases rest on. The RIAA is now targeting Beckerman, claiming he's a "vexatious" litigator, and demanding unspecified monetary sanctions to punish him for blogging about his cases.

In recent years, scientific publishing has changed profoundly as the Internet simplified access to the scientific journals that once required a trip to a university library. That ease of access has caused many to question why commercial publishers are able to dictate the terms by which publicly funded research is made available to the public that paid for it. Open access proponents won a big victory when Congress voted to compel the National Institutes of Health to set a policy of hosting copies of the text of all publications produced by research it funds, a policy that has taken effect...

RealNetworks is putting its considerable prestige behind a DVD-copying Windows application, moving into territory hitherto occupied by illegal freeware. The $30 program called RealDVD will copy not only the main disc content but also the extras and art. In an interview with The New York Times, Real chief Robert Glaser calls it "a compelling and very responsible product" for making disc backups and transferring content to a laptop for viewing on the road. Expect Hollywood to erupt over this like a volcano. The studios have long litigated against companies making DVD ripping software, which circumvents the DVD Copy Control Association's...

Apple Admits British Man Invented iPod in 1979, Uses Him to Win Patent Lawsuit There you have it folks. The real inspiration for Apple's game-changing iPod, courtesy of the world's unluckiest Briton, Kane Kramer, 52 (not including the fifth Beatle). You see, in the dark technological days of 1979, Kramer saw a beacon of light in his IXI. Capable of playing a mind-busting 3.5 minutes of music, the IXI prototype was Kramer's ticket out of obscurity. Sadly, when he couldn't raise enough venture funding to renew the IXI patent in 1988, the device became the Zune of its time, and...

Not very long ago, in a land not at all far away, there was a little company called Blueport. It held the copyright on a piece of software that the US Air Force liked using for logistics. Blueport protected its software with a time bomb—a bit of code that made the software self-destruct when the license expired. That date was approaching, and Blueport wanted to negotiate a new license with the USAF—and you know, get paid. Instead, it got a bit of the ol’ shock and awe. The Air Force not only didn’t pay up, it paid big contractor SAIC...

US-based Mac clone maker Psystar plans to file its answer to Apple's copyright infringement lawsuit Tuesday in the US as well as a countersuit of its own, alleging that Apple engages in anti-competitive business practices. Psystar's Open Computer (Credit: CNET News) Miami-based Psystar, owned by Rudy Pedraza, will sue Apple under two federal laws designed to discourage monopolies and cartels, the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act, saying Apple's tying of the Mac OS to Apple-labeled hardware is "an anti-competitive restrain of trade," according to attorney Colby Springer of antitrust specialists Carr & Ferrell. Psystar is requesting that...

If patenting the obvious is considered something of an art form in the world of IT, then Microsoft is undoubtedly an old master. The Page Up Page Down patent it has been granted would seem to confirm this... US Patent 7,415,666 goes under the snappy title of: "Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments" and is the latest to be granted to that serial patent application junkie better known as Microsoft. Anyone who has ever looked at technology patents will know that there is a trick to quickly scanning these application titles in order to weed out...

By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders, who ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide.... After taking over the Foreign Relations committee, Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs.......

A judge's ruling today is a major victory for free speech and fair use on the Internet, and will help protect everyone who creates content for the Web. In Lenz v. Universal (aka the "dancing baby" case), Judge Jeremy Fogel held that content owners must consider fair use before sending takedown notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Universal Music Corporation ("Universal") had sent a takedown notice targeting a 29-second home movie of a toddler dancing in a kitchen to a Prince song, "Let's Go Crazy," which is heard playing in the background. Because her use of the song...

ASPEN, Colo.--Recording industry and motion picture lobbyists are renewing their push to convince broadband providers to monitor customers and detect copyright infringements, claiming the concept is working abroad and should be adopted in the United States. A representative of the recording industry said on Monday that her companies would prefer to enter into voluntary "partnerships" with Internet service providers, but pointedly noted that some governments are mandating such surveillance "if you don't work something out." "Despite our best efforts, we can't do this alone," said Shira Perlmutter, a vice president for global legal policy at the International Federation of the...

A 16-year-old patient, terminally ill with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, should be allowed to use an experimental drug treatment despite objections from the drug’s developer, a federal judge in Newark ruled on Wednesday. The case, which touches on major ethical issues, is being closely watched by the pharmaceutical industry. Under the ruling, Jacob Gunvalson, of Gonvick, Minn., would be able to start taking a drug intended to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare and fatal disease that strikes boys and young men. The developer, PTC Therapeutics of South Plainfield, N.J., contends that Jacob does not meet the criteria...

August 19, 2008, 6:00 a.m. The Real Truth about Drug CompaniesDevelopmental issues. By Henry I. Miller I never knew my maternal grandparents. During the 19-teens, my maternal grandmother died of a wound infection following a routine gall-bladder operation. A few years later, her husband, my grandfather, suffered a fatal stroke brought on by untreated high blood pressure. Both were in their thirties. Neither occurrence was uncommon back then, but a half century of new drugs has changed that. Thanks to a research-intensive (and, therefore, capital-intensive) pharmaceutical industry, pharmacy shelves now contain dozens of antibiotics and blood pressure medications. Similar...

A federal appeals court has overruled a lower court ruling that, if sustained, would have severely hampered the enforceability of free software licenses. The lower court had found that redistributing software in violation of the terms of a free software license could constitute a breach of contract, but was not copyright infringement. The difference matters because copyright law affords much stronger remedies against infringement than does contract law. If allowed to stand, the decision could have neutered popular copyleft licenses such as the GPL and Creative Commons licenses. The district court decision was overturned on Wednesday by the United States...

It has been something of a David and Goliath battle, but the first skirmishes in the war on file sharing are over. While the RIAA jubilantly claimed success last year, it is another case that has has now silenced the RIAA, as it avoids drawing attention to the case it never had. If you read a mainstream media news report about file sharing or talk to a reporter about (illicit) filesharing, you would think that the only case involving the RIAA was Capitol V Thomas, a case that made news nationwide for the size of the fines. However, there are...

Politics: With gasoline and oil prices going down, what's a crusading lawmaker to do? Change gears and go after the next capitalist monster.The latest dragon to be slain is the one that makes life-enhancing and lifesaving drugs. Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Charles Schumer of New York, Democrats both, asked the Government Accountability Office last week to investigate price hikes in the pharmaceutical industry. This follows Klobuchar's request in April that the Federal Trade Commission open a probe of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a company that raised prices on four medications in 2006 by up to 3,436%, USA Today reports. Express...

Rangel, Levin, Emanuel, Van Hollen’s stance against Intellectual Property Rights will increase the risk of creating drug-resistant strains of the world’s most dangerous viruses. In addition it allows countries like Thailand to shift important healthcare spending to bolstering their politically present military.

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/5/08 — There has been a major backfire with presidential candidate John McCain’s TV ads comparing Barack Obama’s rock-star status and intelligence to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Not only has the highly- influentional Hilton family struck back, who once donated to McCain’s campaign, about the affront to their offspring, fans across the nation are riled by the commercials offending their women, no matter how controversial they may be. Moreover, Paris can sue McCain in many states who have “right of publicity laws.” Simply stated, you cannot use a person’ image to sell anything without...

Apple lawsuit not just about copyright or EULA issues, says Psystar attorneyOne of the attorneys hired by Psystar Corp. to defend it in a copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit brought by Apple Inc. hinted that the clone maker will bring up antitrust issues if the case goes to trial. Colby Springer, one of the three lawyers from the Palo Alto, Calif., firm of Carr & Ferrell LLP who will represent Psystar, wouldn't go into details about legal strategies but spoke in general terms about the case during an interview on Thursday. "This case has been mischaracterized," said Springer. "There are a...

A federal judge has dismissed radio host Michael Savage's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations, which had posted excerpts of one of his programs online. Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco ruled that the clips, totaling four minutes out of the two-hour Savage Nation program that ran on Oct. 29, 2007, constituted a fair use. "Defendants used plaintiff's material in order to criticize and comment on plaintiff's statements and views," Illston wrote in the 21-page ruling. Savage filed suit for copyright infringement and racketeering last December. Among other allegations, Savage asserted that the CAIR took his statements...

America’s Unknown Competitive Edge by: Daniel Smith, July 30, 2008 Believe it or not, America not only has not lost its competitive edge in the world, but, in at least one key sector, has achieved an advantage. For Pfizer, Inc., which employs 85,000 employees, intellectual property (IP) “is the foundation of [their] ability to discover and develop innovative new medicines,” the company CEO Jeff Kindler told a congressional committee. A generation ago, according to Kindler, Europe produced eight out of ten drug innovations. Today, however, America produces eight out of ten. Kindler encapsulated the importance of IP in a formula:...

As every federal judge must be painfully aware by now, an estimated 30,000 ordinary people2 have been sued during the past four years in U.S. district courts by the world’s four largest record companies, EMI, SONY BMG, Warner Brothers Records, and Vivendi/Universal, or their affiliates. The suits have been brought for alleged infringement of sound recording copyrights. Although these companies are represented by a trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), none of the hundreds of other members of this association has participated in the litigation campaign. The large majority of the defendants have defaulted, and the default...

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position...

Apple accuses brothers Robert, left, and Rudy Pedraza of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract. A Doral company founded by two South Florida brothers has been sued by technology giant Apple, which is attacking the Mac clones the brothers started selling in April. Attorneys for Apple are accusing Psystar Corp., owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza, of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract for building and selling ''cloned'' computers that run on Apple's Leopard operating system. In addition to monetary damages, Apple wants a court to force the Pedraza brothers to stop selling their clones...

In the end, this new copyright law is going to suffer the same fate that many other well intentioned laws have suffered in China; most people will probably never even hear about it. I was just in an Internet cafe yesterday. To my right someone was giggling as they watched Meet the Fockers and to my left someone else was spellbound by an old episode of Prison Break. What did I think? I guess I was happy that they could find some enjoyment in the midst of the harsh reality that probably confronts them every day in this developing country.

Jul 21st, 2008 The RNC agrees to remove the Republican Elephant from CafePress’ Endangered Species List - Grand Old Party Ensues! Some of you may have seen some of the media coverage (maybe here, here, or here) regarding the Republican National Committee’s recent complaints about our shopkeepers’ use of the terms “GOP,” “Grand Old Party,” “Republican National Committee,” “RNC,” and various elephant designs. To sum it up: back in February, the RNC demanded that CafePress “cease and desist from allowing vendors to utilize the federally registered trademarks of the RNC” and threatened legal action. While we’re open to working...

Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage “MERCHANT and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. “Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa (see article). But stealing other people’s R&D,...

While Apple is the famously fruity iPod and Mac company, a small upstart named Psystar has sought to steal a small amount of Apple’s thunder by producing clones of the famous Apple computers. Psystar took advantage of Apple’s recent conversion of all of its personal computers to use Intel microprocessors, the same microprocessors at the heart of ordinary PC’s, to make clones that (mostly) run Apple’s OS X software operating system. Of course, Psystar is not doing this out of benevolence, as its website proclaims: "Why spend $1999 to get the least expensive Apple computer with a decent video card...

But Mac clone maker might counter with anti-competitive argumentApple Inc.'s demand that a Mac clone maker recall computers because the company installed Mac OS X on the machines may be an extreme measure, but it's hardly unprecedented, an intellectual property attorney said today. "It would be extreme because it would likely put Psystar out of business, but it's not a remedy that's coming out of the blue. It's not completely without precedent," said Carole Handler, a partner in the intellectual property (IP) department of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon. Handler is best known for her work on a case involving...

After a frustrating few months of searching for a solution to the audio problems he encountered while ripping on-screen video with his Dell laptop, a ripten editor discovered that others were experiencing the same issue—and that the problem was not confined to Dell laptops. Apparently, the lack of a sound card Stereo Mix recording option is to blame—and numerous forum threads have suggested that the RIAA has put pressure on laptop manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and Pac Bell to remove it.After posting this information on ripten, a Dell representative chimed in to say that the lack of a sound card...

...the pharmaceutical industry has become a lightning rod for critics. For example, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, blasted the drug industry in a much-publicized 2004 book, accusing it of profiteering and having become "a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit." She maintained the pharmaceutical industry's reputation for innovation is a myth, that it "feeds off the NIH" and that new drugs "nearly always stem from publicly supported research." ...Mr. Zycher and his colleagues concluded that scientific contributions of the private sector were essential for the discovery and/or development of virtually all the...

THE HAGUE, 28/06/08 - Any Dutch person who downloads protected songs, films or software via the Internet is breaking the law, Het Financieele Dagbad reported Friday. The newspaper based this on a verdict of the district court in The Hague. "This is the first time a Dutch judge has characterised the unauthorised downloading of copyright-protected material for private use as illegal. This week's verdict is diametrically opposed to the position of the government. It has always tolerated downloading for private use," according to the newspaper. In the Netherlands, producers of blank media carriers such as empty DVDs remit a levy...

U.S. District Judge F. Bradford Stillman this morning ruled that the College must turn over the names of 20 students suspected of downloading music illegally to the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA plans to sue the students for copyright infringement after they allegedly downloaded music on peer-to-peer music sharing programs such as Limewire. 7 students have already settled independently, paying between $3,000 and $5,000 each. The suit had previously been denied by U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. Kelley recently retired, and the RIAA asked Stillman to overturn his ruling. According to RIAA lawyer Katheryn Coggon, the...

Ruling Affirms Right to Resell Promo CDs San Francisco - A federal judge has shot down bogus copyright infringement allegations from Universal Music Group (UMG), affirming an eBay seller's right to resell promotional CDs that he buys from secondhand stores.Troy Augusto, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and law firm Keker & Van Nest, was sued by UMG last year in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for 26 auction listings involving promo CDs. At issue was whether the "promotional use only, not for sale" labels on those CDs could trump Augusto's right to...

June 10, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Drug Resistance Is DeadlyPharmaceutical knock-offs may threaten our ability to treat malaria. By Roger Bate Thai government officials, led by commerce permanent secretary Siriphol Yodmuangcharoen, will meet with their Washington counterparts on June 10, hoping to persuade the U.S. Trade Representative to remove Thailand from its “Priority Watch List.� Thailand is one of nine countries listed, earning its place because of intellectual property-rights violations by the previous Bangkok government — which broke patents on AIDS and heart drugs, undermining its trade relationship with the U.S., and harming foreign investment. While the U.S. will continue...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday limited the ability of companies to collect multiple royalties on their patents, the latest step by the justices to scale back the power of patent-holders. The unanimous decision, which was helpful to customers of Intel Corp., involved a longtime Supreme Court doctrine that in recent years had been eroded by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which handles patent cases nationally. Justice Clarence Thomas reined in the appeals court, saying that "for over 150 years the Supreme Court has applied the doctrine of patent exhaustion" and...

Sean "Diddy" Combs is a multi-millionaire mogul who leads a life most can only dream of. So why is he pissed off at a rinky-dink website that sells cufflinks? We're told Diddy unleashed his big-time lawyers on a website called Cuff-Daddy.com, a small, family-owned cufflink seller. They fired off a letter telling them that the business' name was way too similar to his. Wait -- didn't he change his name to Diddy years ago? We hear the business gets its name from the owner of the company -- he's just a proud dad who sells cufflinks. The owner of the...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declared open season for fantasy-sports companies. The high court effectively ended a three-year legal battle when it rejected an appeal from Major League Baseball and its Players Association that, if successful, could have given professional sports leagues the ability to control the lucrative fantasy-sports business. Instead, the court's decision solidifies the rights of fantasy-sports companies to run their businesses without having to buy licenses from the major sports leagues or their players' unions anymore. The Supreme Court ruled that fantasy-sports companies aren't required to pay for licenses from leagues or players' unions. Fantasy sports...