Digital Discourse / Archives for intellectual property

This Week in IP Enforcement

February 3, 2012 By

Stolen Software: Piracy Hits More Than Movies and Music (PCMag)
SIIA’s anti-piracy program featured in article that recognizes the negative impact piracy has on the software industry.

Entertainment Lobby Claims Google, Bing Send Users to Illegal Music Files (paidContent)
Google and other search engines “overwhelmingly” direct music fans to illegal copies of copyrighted tracks online, a coalition of entertainment industry groups has told the government.


Ukraine Shuts Down Leading File-Sharing Site (Associated Press)
Ukrainian authorities have shut down a popular file-sharing website saying it violates copyright laws, officials said Wednesday.

Next Frontier in Piracy: Downloading Physical Objects to Your 3D Printer (Time)
Pirate Bay has announced a new category called “Physibles” that houses digital files that can be downloaded and used in conjunction with 3D printers to print out actual, physical objects.


mophie Awarded Significant Judgment in Piracy Case (PRNewswire)
Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Company and Against Counterfeit Seller

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This Week’s Top IP Enforcement Headlines

December 2, 2011 By

White House Unveils New Piracy Awareness Campaign (Reuters)
Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new campaign to raise public awareness about the damaging consequences of intellectual property theft. The campaign will consist of TV public service announcements and print ads and will target everything from illegal music and movie downloads to counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

Grooveshark Responds to Universal’s Copyright Lawsuit (CNET)
Following a lawsuit filed by Universal, in which Universal claims Grooveshark execs led an effort to post more than 100,000 pirated songs onto the music service (previously reported here), Grooveshark responded, stating the lawsuit is based on a “gross mischaracterization of information.”

Judge Orders Google, Facebook to Remove Fake Sites (BBC)
In a case brought by luxury goods maker Chanel against 600 websites, a Nevada judge ordered Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter and others to delist domain names linked to websites selling counterfeit goods.

John Wiley Expands Lawsuit Against File-Sharing ‘Dummies’ (paidContent)
John Wiley filed a new lawsuit against 46 more John Does who were allegedly participating in unauthorized file-sharing of the “For Dummies” series online.

Authorities Seize 131 Domains Associated With Piracy and Counterfeiting (VentureBeat)
Leading up to Cyber Monday, the U.S. government seized 131 domains allegedly associated with counterfeiting and piracy-related websites, signaling authorities have resumed “Operation in Our Sites.”

Hartford Courant Settles Copyright and Hot News Claims (paidContent)
The Hartford Courant quietly settled with the small newspaper that sued it over its news aggregation editor, which means media outlets will not get a further chance to test-drive the controversial “hot news” doctrine in court.

Google Adds More Words to List of Piracy Related Terms (Ubergizmo)
Google has added more words and websites to its list of piracy-related terms, including uTorrent, Bitorrent, and combinations of the word torrent.

Apple Wins Control Over ‘iPhone’ Porn Domain Names (CNET)
Apple has won its dispute with a domain name squatter and dropped the case after the domain name owner agreed to turn over the seven iPhone porn domain names.

Porn Company Sues ICANN Over .xxx Domain (The Wall Street Journal)
Manwin Licensing International, one of the largest purveyors of pornography on the web, filed suit against ICANN to block the new dot-xxx suffix on web addresses, alleging “monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anticompetitive and unfair practices.”

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Today’s Top IP Enforcement Headlines

October 12, 2011 By

Intellectual Ventures Files Patent Suit Against Motorola Mobility
Intellectual Ventures filed suit against Motorola Mobility, alleging infringement of six patents related to transferring files among computers and technology used in an “entertainment device.” The lawsuit creates a potentially awkward scenario since Google is an investor in Intellectual Ventures, and also is in the process of acquiring Motorola Mobility. Read more at: The Wall Street Journal or The San Francisco Chronicle

Steve Jobs and the Patents that Changed Our Lives (Washington Post)
Steve Jobs is listed by the U.S. Patent Office as having more than 300 patents, many of which are basic concepts that have changed the way we listen to, watch, read and share content.

Couple Accused of Reselling Counterfeit Software, Other Items Through Internet (Delaware Online)
A Wilmington couple was charged with copyright infringement, trafficking counterfeit goods and conspiracy after a search of their home uncovered a widespread operation in which authorities believe the defendants purchase counterfeit goods from Chinese websites and resell them on Craigslist.

New Players Join Battle Over Scanning Orphan Books (paidContent)
Writers’ groups from UK, Canada and Sweden as well as more individual authors are joining the fight against universities over the scanning of orphan works.

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This Week’s Top IP Enforcement Headlines

September 28, 2011 By

Amazon Kindle Users Finally Can Check Out (Some) Library E-Books (paidContent)
Amazon’s library lending service for Kindle is now live at more than 11,000 libraries nationwide.

Why Cutting a Deal With Oracle Should Be Google’s Top Android Priority (paidContent)
While settlement discussions have not progressed very far, Oracle has lowered its damages request, and the author argues Google should reach a deal with Oracle since it has more to lose than Oracle at trial.

Amazon Wins ‘One-Click’ Purchasing Patent Appeal (Reuters)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Amazon did not infringe technology patented by Cordance Corp.

$10 Settlement Offers: The Entertainment Industry’s New Copyright Tactic (paidContent)
Content owners are using Digital Rights Corp to monitor file-sharing sites and send $10 settlement offers in a new copyright enforcement tactic based on a massive scale and low dollar amounts.

ICE’s Morton Aims to Pull the Plug on Piracy (The Hill)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton talks about the importance and his focus on fighting intellectual property violations.

NYC Cracking Down on Counterfeit Merchandise to Protect Image, Money (AMNewYork)
New York City officials are taking extraordinary steps to protect the iconic and profitable “NYC” name and other city trademarks, including “NYPD” and “FDNY.”

Apple Gains Ground in China Piracy Battle with New Patents (Mac Daily News)
Apple was granted 40 patents in China, giving it new ammunition to fight the rampant piracy of its products there.

Report incidents of digital piracy to the SIIA here.

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After landmark Patent Reform, Hill agenda still full with IP, Privacy and Cybersecurity

September 14, 2011 By

Last week Congress overwhelmingly passed milestone patent reform legislation when the Senate approved the Smith-Leahy America Invents Act (H.R. 1249) by a vote of 89-9. SIIA and many of our members have worked diligently toward this goal for more than 6 years, and passage of the bill represents a significant victory for our industries. We believe that this legislation will improve patent quality and reduce (though certainly not eliminate) wasteful litigation over bad patents. In passing the House version of the bill, the Senate rejected amendments that could have essentially derailed the bill by sending it back to the House.

Next on the IP front, rogue website legislation remains a priority in both the Senate and the House. In the Senate, proponents have been pushing for a floor vote on the PROTECT IP Act, which looks likely to occur later in the Fall. We anticipate that the long-awaited House bill, which is expected to be significantly broader in scope than the Senate bill, could be introduced by the end of the month and perhaps as early as next week. SIIA will continue to strongly support legislation to combat rogue websites.

On the privacy front, you’re surely in good company if you can’t keep up with all of the proposed legislation. In addition to Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) reintroducing her Data Breach Notification Act (S. 1408) before the August break, Sen. Blumenthal (D-CT) also introduced legislation last week, the Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act (S. 1535). Chairman Leahy (D-VT) has put these two bills on the calendar for markup this Thursday, along with his legislation, Data Privacy and Security Act (S. 1151).

And those are just the bills being considered in the Judiciary Cmte! The Sen. Commerce Cmte. is also expected to focus on various privacy proposals in the coming weeks–more on this to come soon. While on the House side, Data Security/Breach legislation has temporarily been shelved, while the Committee is planning to take a closer look at privacy issues more broadly, with several upcoming hearings in the weeks ahead. The first hearing, in Chairman Bono-Mack’s subcommittee on Thursday, will focus on “the Impact and Burden of EU Regulation.”

And finally, indications are still that Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) is hoping to advance cybersecurity legislation this fall. Of course, this is contingent on the success of the ongoing bipartisan discussions on the issue. By any account, it’s looking like a very busy four months on Capitol Hill to close out 2011.

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Deluge of Privacy and Security Bills in Washington, Plus ICANN

June 21, 2011 By

In case you thought there was already too many privacy and data security bills in the U.S. Congress, several more were introduced last week. Notably, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Dick Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the “Location Privacy Protection Act,” Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced their “Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act,” and on the data security front, Commerce Chairman Rockefeller (D-WV) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) introduced the “Data Security Breach Notification Act.”

At the same time, one of the bills receiving the most attention hasn’t yet been formally introduced.  That is, Mary Bono Mack’s draft “SAFE Data Act” was the subject of a Subcommittee legislative hearing last week, and the Chairwoman has made clear her intentions to move forward to markup the legislation in the near future.

SIIA is currently assessing the long list of proposals, and the outlook in Congress for the remainder of 2011.  Even more now, there is considerable jurisdictional wrangling among the key Committees of jurisdiction on these issues, which could lead to more smoke than fire for the remainder of 2011.  Regardless of how this plays out, SIIA will continue to work with members and policymakers as they explore the need for new laws and regulations regarding the collection and protection of personal information.

On the patent reform front, as reported last week, it’s still expected that the legislation will be voted on by the House this week.  As of Tuesday a.m., House leadership was reportedly hammering-out some of the remaining key details regarding the controversial issue of PTO fee retention and future funding.  That vote is expected to occur later this week. Stay tuned.

As expected, yesterday the Board of Directors of ICANN approved a proposal to add hundreds and possibly thousands of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) to the Internet. The proposal has been years in the making, and the 400-page Draft Applicant Guidebook that describes it has undergone seven major revisions. SIIA believes that the decision to approve the Guidebook represents a significant threat to copyright owners. Intellectual property owners will need to familiarize themselves quickly with the Rights Protection Mechanisms in the gTLD Applicant Guidebook, and expend even more resources and time in enforcing their rights against cybersquatters and infringers.

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The week’s top 5 IP enforcement headlines

March 30, 2011 By

1. Baidu Announces New Anti-Piracy Measures (Wall Street Journal)
Chinese online-search provider Baidu announced that it will begin to use new copyright-recognition technology on its online document-sharing platform to prevent sharing of pirated content. 

2. ICANN Asks to be Set Free (The Inquirer)
ICANN sent a letter to the Department of Commerce last week asking NTIA to privatize ICANN, saying that the security and stability of the Internet would be enhanced by moving to a cooperative agreement.

3. U.S. Internet Piracy on the Decline? (USAToday)
A report by the NPD Group says that Internet piracy is on the decline in the United States.

4. Have Microsoft’s Anti-Piracy Efforts Gone Too Far? (ZDNet)
The article questions whether Microsoft’s efforts to get new anti-piracy legislation passed in the state of Washington go too far.

5. Photobucket Rebuffs A Copyright Lawsuit—A Pattern Likely To Continue (paidcontent.org)
In Wolk v. Eastman Kodak, a visual artist lost her suit against Photobucket and Kodak, in which she alleged that her copyrighted illustrations were uploaded to the photo-sharing network without her permission.  As in similar cases brought against Veoh and YouTube, the court found that Photobucket was immune from liability under the “safe harbor” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

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