BC Law IPTF Blog

On Tuesday, September 26, the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness held a hearing entitled “The Internet and the College Campus: How the Entertainment Industry and Higher Education are Working to Combat Illegal Piracy”.

Congress has yet to regulate educational networks, but has considered measures that would require universities to actively monitor their networks to limit the sharing of copyrighted materials. As the holders of copyrighted materials continue to see sales eroded by online piracy, it appears that increased pressure will be put upon federal legislators to force educational institutions to limit access by students to P2P sharing of copyrighted works over their networks. This may not be as uncomfortable for universities as it may seem, as P2P sharing eats up network bandwith, and may put schools in tricky positions should one of their users be sued.

A full webcast of the Subcommitte hearing is available here.
For a summary of the meeting and further discussion please see Congress Looks At P2P in Academia at arstechnica.

Peer-to-Peer Developer Sues Record Companies - Yahoo! News

Lime Wire now charges the record companies with colluding to create a monopoly over the digital distribution of copyrighted music. The record companies “have engaged in these unfair business practices for the specific purpose of eliminating sources of decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing and acquiring a monopoly over digital distribution of commercially valuable copyrighted music and movie content,” the lawsuit reads.

The alleged unfair business practices include collusion among the record companies to price their licensing rates such that independent music sellers can’t afford to stay in business, Lime Wire said.

* * *

Lime Wire also charges the record companies with trying to extend their monopoly by forcing music distributors to work only with their affiliated filtering system supplier. Lime Wire says it developed a filtering application to prevent illegal downloading and encourage legal content purchasing. But the record companies refused to give the developer access to the metadata that uniquely identifies each song in order for the filtering system to work, Lime Wire claims.

Instead, Lime Wire alleges the record companies encouraged Lime Wire to use their preferred supplier for a P-to-P filtering system, iMesh. While Lime Wire concedes that iMesh is not owned by the record companies, it alleges the supplier is controlled by the record companies. A top executive at iMesh is a former leader of the Recording Industry Association of America and iMesh is the only RIAA-sanctioned business of its kind in the U.S., according to Lime Wire.

This isn’t the first time the music industry actively conspired in anti-competitive behavior. Music distributors were charged with price-fixing, and I know I received a check as part of a settlement of the class action lawsuit for having bought CDs at one point.

Here, Lime Wire is throwing a punch back at the record companies, scrapping together a tenuous argument, into the volley of lawsuits back and forth.

One of the most potent areas for innovation has always been interoperability with existing inventions. As a small example, in the ‘80s some enterprising entrepreneur came up with a cup holder which could fit next to the driver’s seat in most cars.

Theoretically, such an invention benefits everyone. Consumers get an improved product: a car with a cupholder. The entrepreneur exploits a previously unoccupied market niche – creating new value. And, the owners of the existing technology, in this case, the car manufacturers, sell more cars because their product has been enhanced.

The owner of the already existing technology, however, is not always welcoming of interoperable products. Sometimes a manufacturer bundles a proprietary technology with a previously existing technology in order to control not one but two markets. In such a case, the manufacturer is not very happy when an enterprising inventor creates an interoperable technology – and jumps in on his or her game.

Let me give a famous example. In Lexmark Intern. v. Static Control Components, Lexmark, a computer printer manufacturer, designed its printers so that only Lexmark’s printer cartridges could be used with its printers. 387 F.3d 522 (6th Cir. 2004). Then, Lexmark sold the printer cartridges for high prices. In order to use a Lexmark printer, the consumer had to pay for one of Lexmark’s high-priced printer cartridges. In this way, Lexmark leveraged control of the printer market into control of the printer cartridge market.

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Aborigines win Australian land claim - Yahoo! News

OK, so here’s another one of my posting that seems to have *nothing* to do with IP or technology and law… But I know that Australia has a history of entertaining claims about indigenous rights–the ones off the top of my head being about copyright and indigenous art and patents and indigenous medicines.

In the Federal court decision, the Noongar people were given a limited land title claim to the city of Perth, the capital of the Western Australia state. It grants native title to lands not usurped by freehold or leashold titles. At issue are the national parks and reserves and what rights this land title claim gives over these areas.

Part of the case hinges on whether the Noongar people had maintained their culture and customs since European settlement in 1829. Since this was decided, this may also provide them–and other similarly situation indigenous peoples–the grounding to make other claims over indigenous rights.

Perhaps such a claim may help with copyright battles over indigenous art–symbols and styles–or with claims over indigenous plants or medicinal traditions. Regardless, it shows the court’s willingness to accept that indigenous cultures have title over things they possessed centuries before European settling.

The Bartlett Diaries has a run-down on the many biases in reporting on this issue.

BennetonTalk provides a more sympathetic interpretation of the aboriginal plight.

US Patent and Trademark Office made a new record for the number of software patents awarded in a single year. The agency has issued 893 new patents yesterday, pushing the total to 30,232 in this year.

if this is the trend for registration, more than 40,000 software patents will be issued more in this year, according to the Public Patent Foundation. The previous record was set in 2004.

The post brings up the NTP v. RIM case, where NTP, a patent-farm, sued the maker of the Blackberry for patent infringement. Even though RIM had the patents rejected upon reexamination, RIM eventually settled with NTP for $612.5 M. (NTP has not yet exhausted the appeals process on the USPTO patent reexamination decisions.)

Some followers saw this as a cry for the reexamination of the patent system as a whole, and the rejection of the NTP patents as a firming of the patent-gifting process. But maybe this recent news merely highlights the traditional pace of change in governmental bureaucracies: slow to none.

Hoo-ray.

From ArsTechnica: Poll: Americans don’t want net neutrality (or maybe they don’t know what it is)

A nationwide survey of 800 registered voters is being touted by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation because it purports to show that Americans are not interested in net neutrality legislation. Calling proposed net neutrality “onerous,” the Committee’s press materials say that the poll makes it clear that Americans prefer “video choice” over such regulations.

The poll also found that many Americans have no idea what net neutrality is, or why they should care . . .

Maybe we just need another term to describe the concept. (I find the term “network neutrality” confusing. Perhaps something more loaded like “egalitarian networks” or “anti-entertainment bandwidth throttling” or “need-blind allocation” or “usage-tiered pricing.” Or “lobster pricing.”)

In the survey, the question was posed as a battle between network neutrality–ISPs can’t sell faster (or slower) bandwidth on a scaled pricing scale–and increased TV and video choice. A non-neutral network could, for example, charge YouTube’s streaming video more for their bandwidth, and favor the ISPs cable network partner in allocating bandwidth to the TV set. It’s like paying more per pound for the larger lobster at the lobster pound.

It’ll be exciting to see more decisions being made in Congress by people who don’t even try to understand, like what happened with the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act.

Update: ValleyWag comments on this in a less-formal manner: Feature: Congress says “fuck you” to Net Neutrality with blatant pro-big-business push poll.

DealBreaker: Warner Opens Video Library to YouTube

Recognizing the power that YouTube has a promotional tube, Warner Music has agreed to open its videos up for the site, and make them available to fans for, ahem, mashing up.

This is the first time a major record company is opening up its library of music videos to the public.

From MSNBC:

Under the agreement, YouTube users will have full access to videos from Warner artists. They will also be permitted incorporate material from those videos into their own clips, which are then uploaded to YouTube. Warner and YouTube will share advertising revenue sold in connection with the video content.