Intellectual Property

IP-related Posts from DeepLinks

July 17, 2006
YouTube Sued
YouTube has been sued in federal court for copyright infringement.
A Los Angeles video news service sued YouTube Inc. on Friday in
federal court for allowing its users to upload copyrighted video
footage onto the popular Web site, including the... [Read more]
July 11, 2006
YouTube and Copyright
The Hollywood Reporter Esq. (a new publication aimed at
entertainment industry lawyers, but interesting to cyberlaw types,
as well) asked me to write a short piece describing YouTube's
relationship to copyright law. Many people have wondered whether
YouTube may be... [Read more]
July 11, 2006
Frequently Awkward Questions for the Entertainment Industry
The RIAA and MPAA trot out their spokespeople at conferences and
public events all over the country, repeating their misleading talking
points. Innovators are pirates, fair use is theft, the sky is falling, up
is down, and so on. Their... [Read more]

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You'd like to move the tracks you bought from Rhapsody to a
personal stereo like Apple's iPod, but the copy protection prevents
you. Creating or using the software necessary to make the switch
could put you behind bars.
You want to distribute your hip hop band's music, but the P2P
system that's revolutionized your ability to reach listeners is being
sued out of existence, a company claiming to own a patent to all
streaming media technology is demanding licensing fees, and
record labels are breathing down your neck over the samples you've
looped.
You want to criticize Vivendi Universal on your website or blog, but
the plug's been pulled on your "vivendisucks" domain name
because of its unflattering reference to the company's trademark.
You want to build an open-source video recorder, but threats of a
"broadcast flag" technology mandate are driving the TV tuners you
need off the market.
In each of these instances and many more, your freedom runs up
against intellectual property (IP). IP serves important public
purposes: encouraging creativity (copyrights) and innovation
(patents and trade secrets) and protecting the public from being
defrauded by misleading advertising (trademarks). At the same
time, IP must be carefully limited to protect your rights to create,
access, and distribute information, as well as to develop new ways
to do so.
In the move from analog to digital, offline to online, this delicate
balance is becoming dangerously tilted, as legislators, courts, and IP
holders push for ratcheting up IP rights.
EFF fights to preserve balance and ensure that the Internet and
digital technologies continue to empower you as a consumer,
creator, innovator, scholar, and citizen.