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In re Bilski: The Supreme Court Takes on Business Method Patents
Today, EFF joined an amicus brief in Bilski v. Kappos, a closely-watched case that will be decided by the Supreme Court later this year. At stake is whether the Supreme Court will limit the patentability of "business methods."
Just over ten years ago, the...
You Bought It, You Own It: MDY v. Blizzard Appealed
When you buy World of Warcraft (WoW) in a retail box, do you own the copy of the software you bought? That's the critical legal question facing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a pending appeal in MDY v. Blizzard, and the question that Public Knowledge took...
UMG v. Veoh: Big Win for Online Video
Earlier this week, a federal court in Los Angeles ruled that Veoh, an online video hosting service similar to YouTube, qualifies for a DMCA safe harbor that protects the service from monetary damages for copyright infringements committed by its users. The plaintiff, Universal Music...
Ninth Circuit Holds Disloyal Computer Use Is Not A Crime
Are employees who use their workplace computers contrary to the interests of their employers criminals under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said disloyal keyboarding is not a crime in LVRC Holdings v. Brekka. In Brekka, the defendant emailed himself client files...
Judge Rules Against RealDVD
UPDATE: Just one day after Judge Patel's ruling against RealDVD, a California appeals court has ruled against Kaleidescape, reversing the lower court and sending that case back for a fresh determination of whether Kaleidescape violated the terms of the DVD-CCA license. More bad news for innovators who want to...
EFF Defends Wikipedian's Right to the Public Domain
As has been widely reported, the National Portrait Gallery of London (NPG) recently sent a legal threat to an American Wikipedian, Derrick Coetzee, over his posting approximately 3,000 photos of public domain paintings to Wikipedia. Because of the importance of this issue for the public domain and...
ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings
ASCAP (the same folks who went after Girl Scouts for singing around a campfire) appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license. At least that's the import of a brief ...
The Child Safe Viewing Act and Another DMCA Victim
In an earlier post, we mentioned that EFF filed comments with the FCC in connection with the Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007. This process unexpectedly drew our attention to a copyright issue, which we discuss below.
The comments of one blocking technology company, TVGuardian, reveal...
Danger Mouse Releases a Blank CD-R
For decades, recording artists have lived in fear of their albums ending up in limbo if a record label refused to release it. But no more? Danger Mouse, who broke into the public consciousness with his remarkable Grey Album remixing Jay-Z and The Beatles and went on to...
