LawFont.com

The Delaware State Supreme Court has held that where a defamation suit is brought against an anonymous blogger, the identification of that blogger cannot be compelled.

In John Doe No. 1 v Patrick Cahill and Julia Cahill, the court also considered the nature of blogs in dismissing the defamation claim. In particular, the court noted that:

Blogs and chat rooms tend to be vehicles for the expression of opinions; by their very nature, they are not a source of facts or data upon which a reasonable person would rely.

The court considered the nature and reliability of Internet communications when evaluating the claim. (more…)

Bit of a round up around the place on the Stevens v Sony ruling by our High Court, which I’ve commented on already: (more…)

Apparently special leave was refused by the High Court in The Panel case this morning. I assume the issue on which special leave was sought was the concept of ‘substantial part’ as interpreted in the recent Full Federal Court decision. (yes, I know – it’s already been to the High Court once. On the meaning of ‘broadcast’. But then the Full Federal Court gave a judgment on what constitutes a ‘substantial part’ of a broadcast).

So that long copyright saga draws to a close. All together now … sigh.

I’d be relieved, only that it leaves Australian copyright law on the meaning of ‘substantial part’, particularly as it relates to Part IV subject matters, pretty much incomprehensible (hat tip: Michael Handler for passing on this news).

Is ICANN’s control of Internet governance at an end? Representatives from the European Union and other countries are lobbying for this to be true. At the recent World Summit of the Information Society, organised by the United Nations in Geneva, several countries argued that the allocation of domain names and similar tasks be run by an international body, rather than by ICANN in conjuction with the US government. Such a change would be a radical shift from the current policy, and it is not altogether clear which option would have the best results. (more…)

USA Today has reported that a Yahoo-backed alliance plans to provide digitised copyright material online. Yahoo Inc., along with partners including Adobe Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., the Internet Archive, O’Reilly Media Inc., the University of California, and the University of Toronto, plans to do something similar to the Google-backed initiative that I described in an earlier post.

The difference between the projects is significant. Where Google has, controversially, announced that it will provide excerpts of copyrighted works unless the copyright holders “opt out”, the Open Content Alliance is instead pursuing an “opt in” policy: only when the copyright holder explicitly gives permission will a work be made available. The actual difference between the two approaches is not so great, however. (more…)

You can find his comments here, on Weatherall’s Law, and here, on Michael Geist’s blog.

In Stevens v Sony, the Australian High Court today offered its first view on Australia’s current legal equivalent to the US DMCA. The encounter is an interesting one.

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The High Court of Australia has delivered its highly-anticipated judgment in Stevens v Kabushiki Kaisha Sony Computer Entertainment.

The case considered recent changes to the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) enacted by the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act 2000 (Cth), which adapted existing copyright laws to certain challenges presented by digital technology. The particular issue addressed by the High Court was whether Eddy Stevens, who sold PlayStation game consoles with modified chips that allowed users to play copies of PlayStation game software not authorised for use with consoles purchased in Australia, had circumvented a “technological protection measure” as defined by seetion 10(1) , and prohibited by section 116A of the Copyright Act.

The short answer to all of this is that the High Court ruled that Stevens did not violate the Copyright Act as contended by Sony. See Kim’s post for further details.

Tim O’Reilly, commentator and head of the excellent O’Reilly technical publishing series, has a fascinating take on the Authors’ Guilde suit against the Google Library Project. See Sarah’s earlier post for additional comment.

Since online auctioneer eBay agreed to purchase Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Skype Technologies for $2.6 billion in cash plus eBay stock, industry analysts have been wondering why. Skype, which allows Internet users wth broadband connections to talk from computer-to-computer anywhere in the world for free, and from computer-to-phone at a deep discount from any rates offered by traditional telecommunications companies, is an example of how VoIP, also called IP telephony or Internet telephony, is revolutionising the telecommunications industry. The focus in the news has been on why an online auctioneer would want to pay this much for a telephony company. Equally interesting are the questions for regulatory policy. (more…)

In December 2004, Google announced its Library Project — an initiative to index the book collections of Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, and make their content searchable online. As with all things interesting to do with the Net and intellectual property, this project has not been uncontroversial. (more…)

No, I’m not learning Finnish. That is the first line of this highly recommended article on Crikey.com.au – Therese Catanzariti, Australian expat in Finland, on Finnish music with a rather nice segue into Kazaa and private copying issues.

In other IP news and reading this morning:

• Warwick Rothnie on the ever-ongoing (or rather, never-going) iTunes Australia saga. Oh, and Warwick – government comments on where the fair use inquiry was at as at the end of August can be found here.
• The Economist on the digital home and the fundamental importance of open standards and interoperability in getting consumers to shift to new devices.

What else am I reading? (more…)

It is encouraging to hear that the education of students affected by Hurricane Katrina will not go neglected.

Several school districts throughout the country are taking on elementary and secondary school children, whose numbers are thought to exceed 200,000.

In addition, a number of universities (including law schools), both public and private, have offered places to college and graduate school students displaced by Hurricane Katrina. (more…)

I hadn’t mentioned this, because it seemed to me so much less important than other current government reviews (on TPMs and copyright exceptions), but Attorney-General’s are running yet another simultaneous review: this one of the appropriate scope of the ISP safe harbour provisions brought in with the FTA Amendments last year. I wasn’t going to blog about this, because it’s pretty clear that AGs do not think it requries wide comment. But now Warwick Rothnie has commentary here, I’ll just note it in passing. (more…)

Some more links to peoples’ comments on Kazaa:

1. a couple of articles are available on Online Opinion: including this piece by Stephen Peach (ARIA), and this piece by Stephen Abood.
2. Michael Madison’s views (University of Pittsburgh) – interesting comments comparing US and Australian approaches to legal development.
3. Phil Tripp’s views are here (Tripp is a music business type person, and runs the website themusic.com.au, a news/commentary portal for music biz)
4. Brendan Scott’s views here (pdf)
5. Ed Felten’s comments on Kazaa are here.
6. Kathy Bowrey’s Comments (and comments on many other digital copyright and ‘piracy’ issues) here.
7. David Starkoff (recommended – don’t agree with him on everything but it’s an interesting view);
8. IPKat (just saying it seems a sensible result. Of course, that’s not the issue – the issue is the reasoning, which is problematic for reasons I’ve outlined and Matt Rimmer has also underlined in his comment on this and Geists’ blog, quoted in Starkoff).

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