LawFont.com

As noted in the previous post, last Friday I was in BrizVegas for the ACIPA Copyright Conference.

Naturally, I learned much. But here are two things I really didn’t know, that I should note. (more…)

So on Friday, I’m at the ACIPA Annual Copyright Extravaganza in BrizVegas, and Matt Rimmer is talking about Google and all the court cases against it. And one of the cases is that brought by Perfect 10, suing over the existence of its (nudie wimmin) images in Google’s thumbnail images as displayed in Google’s Image Search function. And I have a bit of a laugh to myself, muttering phrases to myself like ‘total try-on’, and ‘haven’t you read Kelly v Arriba-Soft?‘ Then this morning, I get an email from a reader, with the title ‘Girlie Photos Land Google in Legal Trouble’, with a link to this SMH story. So I’m figuring, try on. Indeed, I shoot back a response – without reading said story – saying ‘looks like a try-on to me’. Finally, this arvo I read the story. And, it transpires, there is an injunction. My reaction: what? Or, as Marty Schwimmer – says, ‘wow’.

Now I’ve read the case. In essence, a preliminary injunction will be ordered against Google (terms yet to be determined) against its copying, and displaying , of thumbnail images of Perfect 10’s nudie wimmin pictures.

The judgment has some amusing footnotes: footnote 4 in particular, where the court notes that Perfect 10 complained ‘thumbnail’ is a misnomer when the image may be 8 x the size of an actual human thumbnail. Oh, puh-lease. Amusement aside, however, the case is interesting – even for us Australians. I reckon most of the discussion in the blogosphere is likely to go to the ‘fair use’ issue: ie, is Google’s creation, and display, of thumbnail pictures ‘fair use’. The court said no – something I thought was pretty interesting. But actually, from an Australian perspective, perhaps even more interesting are some of the parallels with Cooper, on liability for linking to stuff. (more…)

Last week, a Joint hearing of the Subcommittees on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and Asia and the Pacific (part of the House International Relations Committee) of the U.S. Congress was held on the involvement of U.S. firms (including Yahoo! and Google, as has been discussed in earlier posts) in upholding China’s oppressive regulation of the Internet in that country. The hearings are interesting not only for the particular points raised, but for the question it raises on who is responsible for putting pressure on oppressive regimes: private sector firms or the governments that represent them? (more…)

In case you didn’t know already, in October 2005 Stanford University launched a partnership with Apple called “Stanford on iTunes“, which allows the public to download podcasts of Stanford lectures, events, and music free of charge. There are already over 400 programs available, including: Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address; various podcasts on technology; academic lectures on literature, philosophy, and music; and news of Stanford. Stanford on iTunes is also being used by Stanford academics to deliver content to their students. There does not seem to be any law-related content yet, but I’ll be looking out for it.

As with any content from iTunes, it’s not necessary to own an iPod to listen — you can also listen via another kind of mp3 player or your computer. The Stanford podcasts are available via an add-on to iTunes itself (meaning that it’s necessary to launch Stanford on iTunes via http://itunes.stanford.edu to download any content). It’s all pretty impressive, and I look forward to listening to some of the podcasts. I only hope that other universities will follow Stanford’s example.

Another Internet company has been accused of cozying up to the Chinese government. The other week, it was Google, which has decided to filter its Google.cn search results, according to categories set by the Chinese government. This time, it seems that Yahoo! may have cooperated with the Chinese government in its arrest of a political dissident (and this may not have been the first time). (more…)

…the OECD has just held a major conference on the Future of the Digital Economy. Michael Geist, who attended, has a summary of the ‘big themes: the battle over DRM, and network neutrality.

Because of Chinese government restrictions on the information available to its citizens, access to Google’s main website (www.google.com) has either been prevented altogether or has been very slow. Google’s new Chinese website, www.google.cn, will not suffer the same problems. However, this access comes at a price. In exchange for access to the Chinese market, Google has agreed to censor its search results on the .cn version of the search engine. (more…)

This edition of “What is..?” considers VoIP, otherwise known as Internet telephony or IP telephony. VoIP, which stands for “Voice over Internet Protocol”, refers to the transmission of voice telephone calls over the Internet or any other IP-based network. VoIP systems use packet-switched networks to route and transmit voice calls, rather than the circuit-switching systems used by “traditional” voice telecommunications services.

This article provides an introduction to VoIP, including how it differs from traditional telephony services, and considers some of the regulatory issues raised by providing voice telephony over the Internet. While today VoIP might appear to be a niche product, it is in fact threatening to change the structure of the telephony industry, and is evidence of convergence between the Internet and telecommunications. (more…)

Pretty cool: the inventor of the web finally has his own blog. The first post contains this fascinating snippet:

“The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.”

In other words, that web was a wiki. (You can see a screenshot of it.)

I found this while seeing if I could find stats about the results of Harvey Danger’s experiment in allowing their latest album to be downloaded for free (apologies for those who find it monotonous, as I’ve posted about it twice already in the last couple of months, but I find it a great way to try to find hard data behind all the press spin about music and the net). (more…)

Two short stories that illustrate two of my pet theories about the net: MMORPG economies and RSS. The first, in the New York Times reports on Chinese ‘gold farmers’ — people who sit and play MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) all day, to build up virtual gold which they then sell for real money to time-poor players. (more…)

Adam Cohen has published an interesting, and critical, opinion piece on Google in The New York Times, focusing on privacy issues raised by the company’s technology and services.

It’s been a long time coming. The television and Internet industries are working together to offer consumers the ability to download, legally, movies and television episodes. This convergence might be seen as inevitable, particularly since the advent of TiVo, Foxtel iQ, and other services using digital video recording systems (DVRs), as well as the popularity of P2P file-sharing networks. These industry developments reflect an important influence: the power of consumer demand. (more…)

Ah, the government submission process. Having finally completed my submission on the inquiry into TPM exceptions being run by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, now I can’t publish it until they decide to publish it. Shame really. I’ll put up a link as soon as it happens…

Oh well, in the meantime, if you’re starved for my views (as if!) there is the submission I made on the Attorney-General’s review of the availability of Safe Harbours under Part V Div 2AA of the Copyright Act. (more…)

This week has had some mixed results for Google Print. The good news: Google Print has rolled out additional efforts to serve European users. The bad news: the Google Print Library Project has attracted another lawsuit in the United States, this time from the Association of American Publishers, objecting to the company’s “opt out” approach for scanning copyright works. (more…)