copyright

The days of content software receiving notices of copyright infringement from their internet service providers are about to come to an end. The Center for Copyright Information announced today that it's killing off its Copyright Alert System, which began seeing use four years ago. The system would send a number of warnings to consumers when ISPs, studios, and artists detected copyright infringement through P2P file sharing, with different punishments envisioned depending on how many warnings a person had received.

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Facebook is working on building its own copyright tracking technology, according to sources, and it'll use this technology as part of a larger licensing plan. Say the sources, big-name record labels have been pressuring the social network to remove user-uploaded copyrighted videos, and to license the music shared by its users. However, the sources caution that we likely won't see a deal struck between the record labels and Facebook until at least spring 2017.

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The use of satire and parody over the Internet isn’t new, but as always, humor doesn’t travel well over TCP/IP. And given its very nature, such jokes often end up offending involved parties. Unfortunately, there are times when the law can be used, or abused, by offended parties to their benefit. That may seem to be what Samsung has just done in using a copyright takedown notice against a popular GTA 5 mod that literally used the Galaxy Note 7’s explosive powers. Unfortunately, as with any legal, especially copyright, matter, things are not as straightforward.

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Whether or not No Man’s Sky is the best game of 2016 really depends on who you ask. Most will, however, agree, that it is at least the most talked about. It’s hype even resulted in an indie title so popular that it actually landed on Nintendo’s radar and on its lawyers’ plates. And so the game formerly known as No Mario’s Sky has been taken down by the all powerful DMCA notice. And in its stead is a very similar game, just with different characters, called, what else, DMCA’s Sky.

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The Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA has been one of the most debated laws affecting the tech industry. While the intention to protecty copyright in this modern age is commendable, the DMCA has often been waved around by giant companies, like record labels, as a threat to those who make even the slightest error in using, say, music in a YouTube video. That law happens to also impose restrictions in security research, which digital rights advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF is now challenging by suing the US government.

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Six hours. That's how long, or, to be more blunt, short settlement talks between tech giants Google and Oracle lasted. Given that duration, the outcome should probably already be evident. The the companies failed to reach a settlement regarding an ongoing copyright infringement lawsuit Oracle filed against Google for the use of its proprietary Java APIs in Android. As the settlement failed, the two will head back to court next month to perhaps once and for all give closure to both the actual question of infringement as well as damages to be paid. If any, that is.

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The squabble between Apple and Samsung over certain design patents may have hogged the spotlight time and again, but there is another lawsuit that is taking just as long and has just as grave a repercussion, at least for the Android world. For nearly six years now, Google and Oracle have been going back and forth over the copyright infringement lawsuit revolving around the use of Java APIs in Android. Ahead of a pretrial scheduled end of April, Oracle is seeking a whopping sum of $9.3 billion in damages for the profits that Google made from Android.

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Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde was arrested and sentenced to prison for copyright infringement and got out of jail last year. Even though his prison term is done, he still owes the record labels millions of dollars in damages and you might expect that he would stay away from any further issues with piracy. Sunde isn’t staying away though, he has created an "art installation" called the Kopimashin.

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Google's YouTube has announced a new program that aims to support creators on the service when they become the targets of copyright claims. In select cases, when a video creator is being unfairly targeted with copyright takedown requests when in fact their content is protected under "fair use" guidelines, YouTube says it will provide up to $1 million to cover legal costs in the event of a lawsuit. In addition, YouTube will keep the video in question live on the website as a sign of support.

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Until recently, it was illegal for owners to unlock their smartphones, which basically constituted modifying the device's software, because it was deemed to be a violation of copyright laws. While that issue has more or less become moot this year, the fight seems to have now shifted to cars, as more and more vehicles include sophisticated infotainment software into the latest models. According to the Library of Congress' new guidelines, car owners don't violate copyright laws when they modify the car's software, a position strongly opposed by many in the auto industry.

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An appeals court has agreed with a 2013 ruling by Judge Denny Chin that Google's digitization of 20 million books did not violate copyright laws. Google's snippet feature - or snippet view, if you prefer - shows only a tiny portion of any given book at a time. As such, it has been ruled that any reading of an entire book would be far too great an undertaking to consider realistic. "Snippet view," said the appeals court ruling, "at best and after a large commitment of manpower, produces discontinuous, tiny fragments, amounting in the aggregate to no more than 16% of a book."

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After years of sidestepping the legal matter, Kim Dotcom's extradition hearing is underway in Auckland. Dotcom, along with three others, have been accused by US authorities of operating a “criminal enterprise” via the now defunct website Megaupload, a file storage website that was home to copyrighted TV shows, music, movies, and more. The drama started in early 2012, when the US government seized Megaupload and New Zealand police raided Dotcom’s local mansion.

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