Hollywood Battles Swedish Pirates

Staff / Truthdig Feb 17, 2009 The founders of The Pirate Bay, one of the biggest names in file sharing, face up to two years in a hard-core Swedish prison if they can't convince a judge that their unfortunately named Web site isn't legally responsible for 115 million kronor worth of media piracy. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Mark Fischer on Copyright in the Digital Age

BLANK Jan 30, 2009 A new book by Lawrence Lessig asks what constitutes copyright infringement in the era of "sampling" and point-and-click downloading. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

U.K. Cracking Down on Net Piracy

Staff / Truthdig Jul 25, 2008 The British government is planning to "significantly reduce" the country's online file-sharing of copyrighted content, by at least 50 percent, in the next three years through a sequence of warning letters, Internet account suspensions and ultimate expulsion from Internet access. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Google Loses YouTube Privacy Battle

Staff / Truthdig Jul 3, 2008 A court has ordered Google to hand over the viewing log of every user and every video ever on YouTube. Media giant Viacom is suing Google over copyright violations, and won access to the 12 terabytes of data, but not YouTube's source code, which it also demanded. Google has asked to anonymize the data. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AP Backs Down, Blog Crisis Averted

Staff / Truthdig Jun 16, 2008 The Associated Press over the weekend challenged the very format of blogging, prompting an immediate boycott and, almost as quickly, a reversal. The blogosphere began organizing a bipartisan boycott after AP informed the Drudge Retort that its excerpts of AP stories -- some as short as 39 words -- were a violation of copyright. The news cooperative has since retreated, saying it will work toward "better and more positive" guidelines. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AT&T, Microsoft Discuss Internet Filtering

Staff / Truthdig Jan 10, 2008 During a panel discussion at the annual consumer electronics show, representatives from NBC, Microsoft and AT&T made the case for filtering Internet content at the service provider level. The idea is to stop the movement of copyrighted material, but there is a large, scary implication: allowing the pipe owner to control what passes through. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Many Net Radio Stations Observe Day of Silence

Staff / Truthdig Jun 27, 2007 Because royalties for webcasters have been dramatically increased, many Internet radio sites have proclaimed Tuesday, June 26, a day of silence. A recent ruling held that starting July 15, Web-based broadcasters must pay triple for royalties. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Closing the Box on Pandora?

Aram Sinnreich / Truthdig Apr 24, 2007 The Internet radio business changed suddenly on April 16, when the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board decided in favor of drastic hikes in the royalty fees that webcasters pay record labels to play their music. Pandora founder Tim Westergren (above) says this ruling could put an end to American internet radio as we know it. Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )