In a unanimous decision, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the broadcast flag, the FCC rule that would have crippled digital television receivers starting July 1. The ruling came in ALA v. FCC, a challenge brought by Public Knowledge, EFF, Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of...

On April 14-15 (after the three-day WIPO Development Agenda meeting, a.k.a. IIM), the WIPO Permanent Committee for Co-operation for Development Related to Intellectual Property (the PCIPD) met for its fourth session.
The PCIPD is a pre-existing WIPO sub-committee, formed in 1998. There's no formal relationship between the...

The New York State Attorney General's office today announced it has filed a lawsuit against Intermix Media for deceiving users into installing and using spyware. The complaint charges Intermix civilly with several violations of New York statute and common law. The lawsuit is a step forward for end-users'...

So Marty Schwimmer (The Trademark Blog) asked whether the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act creates copyright immunity for those who make devices capable of auto-magically skipping commercials (like the ReplayTV 4000). The answer is no, but it's interesting how we get there.
The statute creates a new...

As many have reported, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (S.167/H.R. 357), recently passed the House, which also issued a committee report about the bill. Since the identical language had already passed the Senate in February, the measure now goes to President Bush for...

In November 2002, the now-famous "Microsoft Darknet Paper" laid out the argument for why DRM is not only futile in a P2P world, but actually counter-productive (because DRM drives otherwise legit customers to the Darknet).
Well, now we have yet another example of the futility side of the...