The week’s top 5 IP enforcement headlines

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).

Mark MacCarthy sits down with 5 Qs on Tech

Rob Haralson of 5 Qs on Tech stopped by our DC office to interview Mark MacCarthy, SIIA’s new Public Policy VP. They sat down to chat about SIIA’s views on IP protection, cloud computing, ed-tech, privacy and cybersecurity. Check out the video–and stick around until the end to hear the story about Mark’s unusual first encounters with email!

SIIA CEO Interview with Bill Loss, SaaShr.com

What will the software industry look like in 3, 5, even 10 years from now? And what customer demands and business trends will drive changes in software products, how they’re developed, and the industry that provides them?


Given the dynamics of innovation and ever-changing user landscape, in many ways it’s difficult to predict what the software industry will look like in 3 years let alone 5 or 10 years. With this said, however, here are some thoughts for consideration.

Security: Security will ultimately be linked more often to an individual’s biometric markers. The trend continues towards multi-factor authentication where both physical and virtual considerations prevail. As advancements in security technology are achieved, cyber criminals will also continue to advance and keep this segment of the software industry ever-changing.

Private, Public and/or Hybrid Clouds: The existence of all three may very well be a reality for years to come. With most business decisions, associated risk must be well balanced with specific technology advancements to determine appropriate IT decisions. When it comes to private and public clouds, attention will remain focused around the sensitivity of intellectual property and related data which is collected, processed and stored. [Read more...]