| Copyright Houston Chronicle Middle East Bureau | | Posted Thursday, December 28, 2006 12:45:47 PM by Blog57 Team | | When Marise Saweris left Egypt for the United States, she was a 19-year-old newlywed who didn't speak English or have a college degree. She considered herself fortunate to find a job in the Merrill Lynch mailroom. Today she is a senior marketer at the AIG insurance company in Houston. And that's not all. Her daughter is a pediatrician, her eldest son is a project manager and her youngest boy is getting ready for law school. So it's no wonder that Saweris believes the future is bright for the growing number of Egyptian Copts who are moving to Houston and other parts of the United States to get free of Egypt's rising sectarian tensions and chronic economic woes. "This country gives you opportunity," she said with conviction. "There is no excuse not to be a success here.... | |
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| | | Russia, U.S. to sign copyright protection accord - Gref | | Posted Tuesday, November 14, 2006 6:46:02 AM by Blog57 Team | | MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) - Russia and the United States are expected to sign an agreement on copyright protection, Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref said. "A separate copyright protection accord will be signed," Gref told the press in comments on the accords reached with the U.S. in talks on Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization last week. The agreement will list measures in the making and application of laws, as well as monitoring mechanisms, which aim to enhance the efficiency of copyright protection, he said. A draft of the accord is being scrutinized by the Russian government, Gref said. .... | |
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| | | No More Copyright Rap for 50 Cent | | Posted Saturday, October 28, 2006 6:46:06 AM by Blog57 Team | | Rapper 50 Cent is now free to party like it's Shorty's birthday. A federal judge has dismissed the copyright infringement lawsuit accusing the Get Rich or Die Tryin' purveyor of pilfering the opening line of the 2003 hit "In Da Club" from 2 Live Crew frontman Luther Campbell's 1994 tune "It's Your Birthday." U.S. District Judge Paul Huck ruled Friday that the phrase in question—"Go Sheila, it's your birthday"—was a "common, unoriginal and noncopyrightable element of the song" and was not entitled to protection. Of course, 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, didn't mention someone named Sheila in the opener of his catchy single, but instead informed a dude who went by Shorty that it was his birthday and that "we're gonna party like it's you're birthday." Etc., etc. Huck also found that, aside from those initial five words (which don't even occur until Fiddy has repeated the word "go" quite a few times), there are practically no similarities between "In Da Club" and "It's Your Birthday." No reasonable jury would infer otherwise and nobody's going to be getting those tunes confused anytime soon, the judge added. The lawsuit was originally filed in January by attorney Richard Wolfe on behalf of Lil' Joe Wein Music, which holds the copyright to "It's Your Birthday." Campbell told MTV News afterward that he was not involved in the decision. Wolfe also alleged in the complaint that Campbell's "I Like It, I Love It" can be heard on the 2003 DVD 50 Cent: The New Breed. 50 Cent, who most recently lent his rapping prowess to Eminem's upcoming single, "You Don't Know," is scheduled to spend part of his Halloween at the Baychester Community Center in the Bronx, New York, talking to kids about the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps he'll lead off with tips on how to avoid getting shot nine times.... | |
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| | | Freelancers win copyright lawsuit | | Posted Thursday, October 19, 2006 6:45:53 PM by Blog57 Team | | In a 397-word, October 2004 news story headlined "Court rules against Globe in copyright case," The Globe and Mail reported that the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled it couldn't republish articles bought from freelance writers in electronic databases because those articles are no longer part of the newspaper. To read that full story today, though, you'd have to pay $4.95 to The Globe and Mail. Or you could pay them $17.95 for a "4-pack" or $39.95 for a "10-pack" (which comes to $4 per article). The Globe and Mail appealed that 2004 decision, but in last week's 5-4 Supreme Court of Canada ruling in favour of Canadian freelance reporter Heather Robertson's 10-year-old $100-million class-action lawsuit against The Globe and Mail (a lawsuit representing hundreds of freelance writers), the majority concluded, "The right to reproduce a collective work under the Copyright Act does not carry with it the right to republish freelance articles as part of an entirely different collective work." In other words, says John Degan, executive director of the Professional Writers Association of Canada, "If you write it, you own it." But if freelancers think it's going to be smooth sailing from now on, think again.... | |
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| | | Copyright concerns key to deal | | Posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006 10:45:34 AM by Blog57 Team | | Google's deal to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion, announced Monday, appears to be part of a larger strategy by the search engine giant to solve one of the trickiest aspects of media on the Web: copyright issues. The deal also unites the world's largest search engine with one of its hottest properties, and creates another duo of fabulously young and wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, similar in many ways to Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google itself. After a weekend of speculation, Google said it will pay for San Bruno-based YouTube with stock and allow YouTube to maintain much of its autonomy. Google also said it would continue providing its own video-sharing site, Google Video. Analysts worried about the price, but a bigger concern about buying YouTube may have been copyright issues.... | |
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| | | Canadian Ministers Responses to DRM and Copyright Issues | | Posted Sunday, October 08, 2006 12:45:37 PM by Blog57 Team | | The first known response was back in April. In that response, she was quoted, "The copyright legislation that was introduced by the previous government, once it was tabled, it did die on the order paper, but once it was tabled created a lot of dissension. There were different views on many elements of that bill. Consequently we are working and we will be introducing a new copyright bill that will expedite meeting our international obligations but also making sure that we have a copyright regime and a copyright framework that's appropriate." One thing was certain by that response, they recognized the controversy in the last copyright reform bill. In essence, she also mentions speeding up to meet international obligations. What she meant by that isn't so clear. Did she mean that she would ratify the WIPO treaties? Did she mean something else entirely? Is she noting CRIA's (Canadian Recording Industry Association) problems that boiled over not a week later and listening to different sources? Is she merely listening to CRIA? Is she listening to a voice somewhere in between? These questions seem to have no real answers.... | |
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| | | NBI set to file copyright breach raps vs American consultant | | Posted Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:45:46 AM by Blog57 Team | | AN AMERICAN consultant is now facing copyright infringement charges for allegedly ripping off his former employers' designs worth $1.7 million or P85 million. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is set to file charges against Thomas Joseph O' Connor, of 112-C Fillmore Court corner Prominence Drive, Brentville International Community, in the village of Mamplasan, Binan, Laguna. NBI Intellectual Property Rights Division chief Jose Justo Yap said the official of a waste resources management company based in Tunasan, Muntinlupa City had filed a complaint before the bureau regarding O' Connor. Theodore James Staley, representative of Palingenesis Manufacturing Inc. (PMI), said O' Connor had brought unauthorized copies of the company's designs when he was terminated during the first week of September.... | |
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| | | Sculptor of Wall St. bull sues over copyright | | Posted Sunday, September 24, 2006 2:45:45 PM by Blog57 Team | | The artist who created New York City's famous Charging Bull bronze sculpture located in the Wall Street financial district is suing at least 10 companies, including Wal-Mart Stores, for copyright infringement. Arturo Di Modica filed a lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan claiming the companies were selling copies of his statue or using images of it in advertising without his permission. "Wal-Mart is knowingly and wilfully selling and marketing direct copies of plaintiff's subject work to the public," said Di Modica in his suit. The artist contends he will "lose substantial revenues" as a result. He also says others are unfairly profiting by "incorporating images of the charging bull into advertising campaigns and into the graphics associated with particular television programs." "We haven't been served with the suit and can't comment on something we haven't seen," John Simley, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, told the Bloomberg news service.... | |
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| | | Copyright Notice | | Posted Saturday, September 16, 2006 2:46:22 AM by Blog57 Team | | All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Martinsville Bulletin or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content. However, you may download material from Martinsville Bulletin on the Web (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal, noncommercial use only. Links to Web sites other than those owned by Martinsville Bulletin are offered as a service to readers. The editorial staff of Martinsville Bulletin was not involved in their production and is not responsible for their content.... | |
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| | | Protecting authors rights, including freedom of choice, in the ... | | Posted Friday, September 08, 2006 8:45:42 AM by Blog57 Team | | We have had many conversations on this. Unfortunately we have never resolved our disagreement on the harm of extended/statutory licensing in areas where there is not a market failure (IE: where there are competing business models). Extended/statutory licenses are extreme measures that must only be used in extreme situations where there is a massive market failure, with radio airplay, cable retransmission, and IMHO non-commercial p2p redistribution being obvious examples of market failures. The types of works that Access Copyright licenses are areas where there is a healthy market with many options online, and thus this is exactly the wrong marketplace to be discussing extended/statutory licensing. I believe Mr. Geist was correct to point out that both the Access Copyright and the CMEC proposals are massively flawed and harmful to authors.... | |
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