The previous free trade agreements (FTAs) have been particularly troubling for Internet communications since they have required trading partners to treat all temporary reproductions of images and sound files in computer memory as copyright-infringing, but have not exported the fair use limitation of U.S. copyright law: a limitation that provides...

Adding to previous revelations about the latest version of Apple's iTunes software, Playlist is reporting that the iTunes 7.2 (necessary for the so-called DRM-free iTunes Plus tracks) has broken the "buy-burn-rip-to-MP3" procedure that iTunes users have long relied on to convert the FairPlay-restricted songs they buy from...

A bill designed to combat government secrecy won?t be coming to a vote on the Senate floor any time soon. An anonymous Senator who apparently thinks the government isn?t secretive enough has placed a secret hold on the bill.
The Open Government Act of 2007 (pdf), sponsored by...

The NPD Group's latest music stats provide yet another reason that the RIAA's war on college students is misguided:
"The 'social' ripping and burning of CDs among friends ? which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing efforts ? accounted for 37 percent of...

Google can already collect and store a staggering amount of personal information - search queries, email records, copies of hard drives' contents, personal calendars, and much more. Collecting these records alone can paint a vivid picture of a user's most private interests and concerns, but apparently Google's just getting started.In...

South Korea has just signed a bilateral free trade agreement with the US that will put severe restrictions on its ability to innovate. This is exactly the kind of arrangement that James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, wrote about in the May 14 issue of the...

Effective Technological Measures: It Means What It Says, Says Finnish
Court
It's the phrase that rules over both the DMCA and Europe's equivalent, the European Copyright Directive EUCD. Under both it's illegal to circumvent "effective technological measures" used by rightsholders to restrict access to their works.
But...