Late last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill that would make the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material a felony. Under current law, “reproducing” and “distributing” copyrighted works are felony charges and covered under peer-to-peer transfers and Web downloads. But streaming has been considered “public performance” rather than “distribution” – and holding a public performance without a proper license is not a felony. This bill, S. 978, adds “public performance” to the list of felonies. [ Read More ]
Copyright
The music industry thinks LimeWire should pay $75 trillion in damages for their copyright infringement claim. The judge in the case, Judge Kimba Wood, has called this request “absurd”. The current US GDP is about 14 trillion, less than 1/5th the damages requested. In fact, the GDP of the entire world is somewhere between $59 and $62 trillion in US dollars. So the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is, to quote Judge Wood, “suggesting an award that is more [ Read More ]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a guide that translates various online music stores’ marketing messages into a true picture of the limitations those restrictions impose and how those restrictions differ from your legal rights under current copyright law. They review Apple’s iTunes, RealNetworks, Microsoft’s “Play for Sure“, and Napster 2.0. Before buying crippled music from one of these services, check out EFF’s guide, The Customer is Always Wrong.
