Copyright Alert System gets started, ISPs ready to lay the smack down on P2P piracy

The fight against online piracy just gained a new weapon in the form of the Copyright Alert System (CAS) aka the "six strikes" policy. Starting today, participating ISPs like Verizon, Time Warner Cable, AT&T and Comcast will begin issuing warnings to customers suspected of using illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services that violate copyright laws. Initial notifications will be used to educate and direct customers to legal alternative content sources. If the first set of notifications go avoided, the ISP may take further action, which includes: throttling internet connection speeds and redirecting users to websites requiring acknowledgment of CAS alerts.

If a person wishes to contest their ISP's findings, they will have 14 calendar days to request an independent review by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) for a fee of $35. If the investigation finds that no copyright violations have taken place, the alerts will be removed from the customer's account and they will receive a refund for the filing fee. However, should the organization's research rule otherwise, the internet service provider may proceed with taking action against its account holder. To get a closer look at the CAS and its inner workings, "redirect" your browser to the source links below.

Source: Center for Copyright Information (1), (2)

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By: Unknown On 5:03 PM

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RIAA copyright takedown requests to Google reach 10 million

Something tells us they won't be handing out gold watches for this milestone. Just eight months after Google added copyright takedown requests to its Transparency Report, the search firm can claim to have almost exactly 10 million such requests from the RIAA. A dive into the numbers very quickly explains just how they built up so quickly. The RIAA and the music labels attached to it have topped at least the most recent monthly requests, and they're collectively issuing hundreds of thousands of notices every week. We certainly don't expect the industry group to hang up its hat just because it's at a nice, round figure: when pirate sites rarely stay down for long, and the RIAA all but accuses Google of being an accomplice to piracy despite censorship concerns, the current game of infringement whack-a-mole is only likely to continue.

Via: Digital Music News

Source: Google Transparency Report

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By: Unknown On 9:49 PM

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UK offers long-awaited copyright reform that sanctions format shifting, remote education

Believe it or not, it's still illegal in the UK to rip a favorite CD, or even to show copyrighted work in distance education -- both fair use permissions that many North Americans take for granted. Some sense is at last coming around now that the Intellectual Property Office is putting forward copyright reforms that accept a digital reality. The measures explicitly approve private copying for personal use, making it legal to shift formats as long as it's to play purchased content. Many of the reforms also clear up the murkiness surrounding institutional use: analysts, researchers and teachers should have access to copyrighted material over networks, as long as it's for non-commercial purposes. The fair use terms aren't as broadly outlined as they are in the US -- these are exceptions, not general rules -- but they go a long way towards legitimizing what many wanted all along. Or, let's be honest, were already doing.

[Image credit: Department for Business Innovation and Skills, Flickr]

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Via: GigaOM

Source: Dept. for Business Innovation and Skills

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By: Dilusha On 8:22 PM

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Google reports copyright takedown requests spiked in 2012

Publicly posting takedown notices sparked corporate interest in search copyright protection

A post on Google's Policy by the Numbers blog this week indicated that the amount of copyright takedown requests grew ten times between May and November.

Fred Von Lohmann, Legal Director at Google, wrote that in May 2012, when the Mountain View-based search giant start posting copyright infringement link removal notices, it processed around 250,000 requests a week.

As of November 2012, Google sees 2.5 million requests each week, and removes 97.5% of all the links requested for removal.

The company's legal department says that its average response time to copyright queries, even with the major uptick in requests, is around six hours.

A brief look at the Transparency Report, the feature that Google launched in May, opens up a detailed, publicly available view of all the biggest copyright holders.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) members sit firmly at the top of the list, representing almost 2.5 million recognized copyrights.

RIAA members include Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, among others. Fox and Microsoft also find top spots on the list.

On the other side of the copyright battlefield are the top offenders of posting copyrighted material. Filestube.com, sumotorrent.com, and torrentz.eu.

To date, almost 12.3 million URLs have been removed from search circulation by Google for copyright violation.

Via The Verge

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By: Dilusha On 8:11 PM

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Google ends copyright dispute with Belgian newspapers

Google has settled a long-running dispute with Belgian newspapers over copyright complaints. The case dates back to 2006 when a group of publishers sued Google claiming the use of headlines and snippets of Belgian newspaper articles in Google New amounted to copyright infringement, and so did providing links to cached copies of articles in its web search results. After some back and forth, a Belgian court sided with publishers, Google lost its appeal and in September 2011 it removed all links to compy with the ruling.

Since then the two parties had engaged in talks to reach the "most reasonable" solution and now they've dropped all litigation under a new deal. In short, Google isn't admiting to copyright infringement and says it isn't paying publishers for their content, but rather will collaborate with them on a range of initiatives to increase their revenue. That includes purchasing millions of dollars of advertising space in the papers, integrating Google services into the publishers' content, and assisting with distribution on mobile devices.

Google will start referencing Belgian newpapers in its news aggregation service again, but cached content on web searchesis still off limits. The company is also paying all the legal fees for Belgian papers, signaling it had the losing hand in this arrangement despite framing it as a win-win.

As PaidContent notes, French media wasn't as gracelful, claming that the Belgian papers "forced Google to bend" and pay newspapers "around 5 million euros" (about $6.5 million). It's possible other European publishers will come knocking on Google's door for similar arrangements -- France and Germany are already making noise about levying a fee for search engines which link to content.

Google for its part says it already offers publishers a way to opt out of being included in Google News, and recently launched a campaign in Germany with the goal of educating people about the proposed changes.

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By: Dilusha On 5:09 PM

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