Copyright scholar James Boyle has a brilliant Financial Times column on the WIPO broadcasting/webcasting treaty that threatens to gum up the Internet with a new layer of "middleman" rights, for the nonsensical reason that it will create "parity" between broadcasters and webcasters:

The Broadcasting and Webcasting Treaty,...

Edgar Bronfman Jr., the CEO of Warner Music Group, recently took a moment to attack Apple's Steve Jobs for the 99-cent pricing of music downloads in the iTunes Music Store. According to Bronfman, "Not all songs are created equal -- not all time periods are created equal. We want,...

William Patry, a highly respected copyright lawyer, law professor, and former copyright counsel to the US House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, has decided he was too hasty when he criticized the Google Print library project:

My initial, negative reactions to Google's project reflected, as it...

In the face of stiff opposition to a plan to extend campaign finance laws to the Internet, which led many bloggers to fear that political speech would be restricted online, members of Congress are now openly calling for legislation to kill the plan before it ever gets off the...

As many have reported, the Authors Guild has filed a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit [PDF] against Google in the Southern District of New York. The dispute, as we've mentioned before, involves Google Print.I believe Google has a strong fair use defense here. Because a fair use defense turns...

Have you noticed that when you "update" a product these days, you have to be on your guard lest the vendor slip in a "downgrade"? Like when Apple "updated" iTunes to reduce the number of burns you could make from the music you bought from the iTunes Music Store?
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For some time, the RIAA has been pushing the FCC to impose a copy-protection mandate on the makers of next-generation digital radio receiver/recorders (think TiVo-for-radio).
Now, as reported by Public Knowledge's Mike Godwin, the entire music industry has taken up the cause and is beating the drum...