Harvard-Professor gegen Musikindustrie


Eine Million Dollar Schadensersatz: Mit dieser Summe bedroht der Verband der US-Musikindustrie einen Studenten, weil er in Tauschbörsen Songs zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Nun mischt sich ein renommierter Harvard-Professor ein: Das Vorgehen der Branche verstoße gegen die Verfassung, glaubt er.

spiegel.de

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Monty Python Puts All Its Content On YouTube To Increase Sales Of Scarce Goods


As quite a few folks have sent in, it appears that the always funny team of folks who made up Monty Python actually seem to get the concept of giving away infinite goods to increase the value of scarce goods.

techdirt.com MontyPython

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French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P


It would appear that Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF), a group that represents French record labels, is now trying to sue a bunch of non-French file sharing applications, as well as SourceForge. This brings up a lot of different issues, so let's break them out one by one.

French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P

torrentfreak.com techdirt.com

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Bender's Anti-Piracy Warning


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RIAA defendant enlists Harvard Law prof, students


Joel Tenenbaum, accused in August 2007 of swapping seven songs on KaZaA, is mounting an unusual defense. First representing himself, Tenenbaum has now attracted the help of a Harvard Law professor and a class of cyberlaw students, and he is intent on taking the case to a trial. In a counterclaim against the recording industry, Tenenbaum's legal team argues that the entire RIAA "onslaught" is unconstitutional and that federal judges should impose serious limits on the group's legal campaign.

ars technika

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Prince: So Close, Yet So Far


The musician Prince has been quite fascinating to follow over the years from a business model perspective. He has aggressively experimented, and for a while seemed to be the perfect example of a musician who understood how to embrace new business models allowed by the internet. He was creating tons of new music, some of which he was giving away free in order to promote scarce aspects of his business model, such as concerts (he sold out 21 straight concerts in London after giving away his latest CD totally free), while also embracing the idea of getting people to pay him upfront to create music. He also experimented with things like having companies sponsor him, setting up a subscription fan club and even owning a dance club in Vegas where he would perform regularly. All were perfect examples of the sorts of business models that we talk about all the time. And the model was clearly quite successful for Prince, helping him to earn quite a bit of money off of those scarcities.

techdirt.com

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Albert Einstein's theory of royalty longevity


The famous scientist might have been dead for 53 years, but that didn't stop him earning £11m over the past 12 months.

It's no surprise to see Elvis Presley, John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe on a list of the top 10 highest earning deceased celebrities, but what's Albert Einstein doing there?

guardian.co.uk

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Anti-Piraterie-Abkommen: Klage gegen US-Regierung


Die US-Bürgerrechtsorganisationen Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) und Public Knowledge haben gestern den US-Außenhandelsbeauftragten auf Herausgabe des geheimen Anti-Piraterie-Ppakts Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) geklagt.

ACTA ist ein Abkommen, das derzeit unter den USA, Japan, der EU und anderen wichtigen Handelspartnern ausgehandelt wird. Bürgerrechtler und Hilfsorganisationen befürchten, dass ACTA zu schärferen Grenzkontrollen, Internet-Überwachung und härterem Patentschutz für Medikamente zur Aids-Bekämpfung führen wird.

futurezone.orf.at

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DRM Of Any Kind Will Always Lose


Microsoft’s digital-rights-management strategy on the consumer/device side of the house has been a constantly changing, murky one. Microsoft’s latest move in joining a new digital-media coalition is doing little — so far at least — to clarify the situation.

Microsoft’s ill-fated PlayForSure initiative seemed to give way to its next-to-invisible PlayReady. At the same time, the Redmondians supposedly have been working (forever) on creating an end-to-end connected entertainment experience that, presumably, will allow content to be played on a variety of devices — Xboxes, to Zunes, to PCs, to TVs, to cars.

Digital Rights Management

zdnet.com

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ScanRobot Automates Copyright Infringement


Although I’d love to be able to scan in my entire collection of comic books and take them everywhere I go, I just don’t have the time or patience. Or a scanner. Robots are great at tedious and repetitive tasks, but when it comes to scanning important manuscripts like my collection of 23.5 Tintin books, the tricky bit involves page-turning. Such a delicate and precise procedure demands either an expensive and complicated robot, or a simple idea, like the ScanRobot.

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OiNK Admin Charged With Conspiracy to Defraud


During October 2007, the popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK was shut down in a joint effort by Dutch and British law enforcement. Today, OiNK admin Alan Ellis has been charged with conspiracy to defraud. Charges against four OiNK uploaders will follow later today.

torrentfreak.com techdirt.com theregister.co.uk

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Käufer protestieren gegen "Spore"-Kopierschutz


Ärger für Electronic Arts: Der Hersteller hat die Evolutionssimulation "Spore" mit einem sehr restriktiven Kopierschutz ausgestattet - nun protestieren die Käufer. Im Online-Kaufhaus Amazon wird "Spore" mit miesen Bewertungen überhäuft - schlecht fürs Image und womöglich für den Absatz.

spiegel

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