According to Julia Reda’s blog, the only Pirate in the EU Parliament, the European Commission in 2014 paid the Dutch consulting firm Ecorys 360,000 euros (about $428,000) to research the effect piracy had on sales of copyrighted content. The final report was finished in May 2015, but was never published because the report concluded that Read more about EU Paid For Report That Said Piracy Isn’t Harmful — And Tried To Hide Findings[…]

Subtitle lovers, beware: a court just ruled that making fan subtitles or translations is not protected by the law. A Dutch group called (translated) the Free Subtitles Foundation took anti-piracy group BREIN to court over “fansubbing.” BREIN has previously been active in taking fan subtitles and translations offline, and the Foundation was hoping a Dutch court Read more about NL Court rules fan subtitles on TV and movies are illegal[…]

Cited in a DMCA takedown request filed against Google on behalf of Paramount Pictures, and spotted by TorrentFreak (and tipped to us by reader ~nonanonymous) is an innocuous link to a 32-bit alternate install image Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. The takedown request seeks to remove links to a number of torrent URLS that are alleged to Read more about Ubuntu Torrent Removed from Google for ‘Infringing’ Transformers Movie – OMG! Ubuntu![…]

Film studio Warner Brothers has asked Google to remove its own website from search results, saying it violates copyright laws. It also asked the search giant to remove links to legitimate movie streaming websites run by Amazon and Sky, as well as the film database IMDB. The request was submitted on behalf of Warner Brothers Read more about Warner Brothers reports own site as illegal[…]

All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database Read more about All Prior Art – generating patent applications and giving them away, helping kill patent trolls[…]

Copyright strikes again, with photographers and publishers hit particularly hard. Changes to UK copyright law will soon mean that you may need to take out a licence to photograph classic designer objects even if you own them. That’s the result of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, which extends the copyright of artistic objects Read more about UK citizens may soon need licenses to photograph some stuff they already own[…]

Mooney aka Suicide Girl has her picturers reused by Prince. Prince’s images, which consist of screen shots of other people’s Instagram photos enlarged to 4×5 foot inkjet prints with a single banal comment by Prince, have reportedly sold for $90,000.In response Mooney produced her own prints, identical in every way to Prince’s except for an Read more about The Richard Prince – Suicide Girls Circus[…]

Once Apple saw it they went for the patent and yesterday got it. Prior art? Never heard of it. Well done Apple for copying someone else – yet again. And well done the patent system for giving up patents to people who have not rights to them. Yet again. Apple patenteert Samsungs Edge-scherm – Webwereld.

Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under Read more about What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?[…]

A photographer who set up a load of cameras in the wild can’t get pictures of a monkey removed from Wikipedia, as the monkey pressed the shutter. Wikipedia argues that this means that nobody owns the copyright. I wonder what the BBC series Earth has to say about this? Wikipedia refuses to delete photo as Read more about Monkey selfie at heart of copyright controversy[…]

Twitch TV – a gaming TV channel with billions of watchers – will attempt to detect music playing in the background. If a 10 second spell seems to be copyrighted, they will remove the sound for half an hour. I suppose the rationale is that the music companies and the RIAA think this is a Read more about Twitch TV shows why copyright is ridiculous as it shuts down music in videos[…]