SHOOT THE MESSENGER

iiNet 'allowed 100,000 dodgy downloads'

The Federal Court has heard almost 100,000 illegal downloads of video and music files were detected during a 59-week investigation of the internet service provider iiNet.

A group of 34 film, television and music companies is suing the company for allowing its customers to illegally share files.

The court has heard the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft had warned iiNet during the investigation that its customers were illegally sharing files, but the internet provider failed to act.

The prosecution alleges iiNet drew up a policy document dealing with repeat copyright infringers, but never implemented it for fear of driving away customers and losing revenue.

Outside court, an iiNet spokesman said blaming the internet service provider for copyright infringement was akin to suing Australia Post if drugs were sent in the mail.

COPYRIGHT WRONG

Film reviewer sacked after downloading illegal copy

Corporate giant 20th Century Fox has condemned the theft and copying of a film and has enlisted the FBI and the Motion Picture Association of America to track down the perpetrators.

Downloading a copy of the film for publicity purposes columnist Roger Friedman wrote a positive review that appeared in his Fox411 column on Thursday.
"I doubt anyone else has seen this film. But everyone can relax. I am, in fact, amazed about how great Wolverine turned out. It exceeds expectations at every turn," he wrote.

Friedman met with Fox News executives and, following the meeting, the company issued a statement saying the parties had "mutually agreed to part ways immediately".

[He described how easy it is to download any film or TV show and joked he might decide to catch up on some other recent films via illegal downloads.]

DOMAIN MASTER

Creative Commons Zeroes in on public domain

New “licence” waives all rights to created content.

Creative Commons has introduced a new licence that allows content creators to waive all their rights over their material.
CC0—pronounced “CC Zero”—is a universal waiver that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain.
“Our copyright licenses empower creators to manage their copyright on terms they choose,” said Diane Peters, Creative Commons’ general counsel.

COPYRIGHT WRONG

DRM Foils iTunes Movie Rentals for Some Apple TV Owners

When I sat down to watch it, however, the Apple TV wouldn't let me, due to the way I have the device set up. You see, I don't own an HDTV, which is required for the Apple TV.

When I attempted to watch the movie, however, the Apple TV displayed an error message: "This content requires HDCP for playback."
HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is a form of digital rights management (DRM) that prevents you from playing video over DVI and HDMI connections (in my case) if you don't own compatible hardware that can decode the signal properly.
(In other words, HDCP is more DRM crap that does nothing but irritate legitimate customers.)
 Although I had downloaded the movie legally, my monitor apparently was too old to include HDCP and thus wouldn't display my movie.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Long arm of US law reaches Australia

Hew Griffiths has been in prison in Australia for nearly three years for allegedly breaching US copyright law. He has been charged by a grand jury in the US, but the offences alleged against him have never been tested, and the Australian Government has refused to resist an American demand to “surrender” him to face trial before the US District Court in Virginia.
Griffiths was born in England and has lived in Australia from the age of 7. His crime was breaching US copyright law via software piracy. The trouble is that Griffiths has never set foot in the US. He has lived all his life in Australia on the NSW Central Coast. He has been in custody for the past three years (he is 44 now) awaiting moves to extradite him to the US.

[Griffiths has already served more time on remand and awaiting extradition than anyone has served for a similar offence. Furthermore, the US authorities say they will not credit Griffiths with the time served.]

SHIPPING NEWS

Furniture causes FedEx fits

Instead of scouting street corners for a ratty, unwanted couch, Avila got creative and built an apartment full of surprisingly sturdy furniture -- out of FedEx shipping boxes.
Fanciful as his creations may seem, FedEx is not amused. The shipping giant's lawyers have sent Avila letters demanding he take down the site he created to document his project, invoking, among other things, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (.pdf), or DMCA.

PRIVATE LIVES

Cybercrime push 'imperils personal security'

President Bush this week urged Senators to back the adoption of a Council of Europe Cybercrime treaty into US law. But Privacy International (PI), the human rights watchdog, warns that if the Senate ratifies the Treaty, "dozens of countries will have 'on demand' access to the personal information and communications records of any American they may wish to investigate".
This data - including full email logs, phone records and mobile phone location data together with account and financial records - could be "cherry picked" by investigating authorities in countries that ratify the treaty.
The treaty, designed to streamline cooperation between signatory countries, will significant expand the power of investigators to access data and prosecute offences ranging from copyright infringement to "hate speech".