Baltimore Man Sentenced to Prison for Copyright Infringement (FBI.gov)
A Baltimore man was sentenced to 87 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for conspiring to and infringing copyrights by illegally reproducing and distributing over 1,000 copyrighted commercial software programs totaling $4 million.
Photographer Sues BuzzFeed for $3.6M Over Viral Sharing Model (paidContent)
An Idaho photographer is suing BuzzFeed for $3.6M in copyright damages, claiming BuzzFeed is liable not only for the unauthorized photo that appeared on its site, but also for “contributory infringement” because the site’s viral news model encourages readers to share the content they find.
New Ebook DRM Will Change the Text of a Story to Prevent Piracy (paidContent)
German researchers are working on a new DRM system that would prevent piracy by changing the actual text of a story, swapping out words to make individualized copies that could be tracked by the original owner of the ebook.
This One Page Could End the Copyright War Over ‘Happy Birthday’ (NPR)
The birthday song is still under copyright protection, but a lawsuit filed in federal court last week seeks to change that. The complaint argues that the copyright to the song, if it ever existed at all, expired no later than 1921.
Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.