Copyright Law Is a Battlefield

Viacom sues Google for letting copyright-protected material slip onto YouTube. Brewster Kahle sues the federal government over a public-domain policy he considers restrictive. The recording industry sues college students -- and, some critics say, just about everyone else in sight -- for downloading music illegally. Lawsuits are the lingua franca of intellectual-property debate, and that's not likely to change any time soon, says Larry Downes.

Mr. Downes, a technology consultant and adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley, draws parallels between the current information wars and the Industrial Revolution -- which spurred the rise of communism and the progressive movement, both of them "rejections of a legal system that no longer functioned, and which could not adapt to changing realities."


Read more on Chronicle

Microsoft's Copyright Assault on Google

by Catherine Holahan

Hoping to convince publishers to back its own online book search service, the software titan comes out swinging against the search giant.

Microsoft threw a one-two public relations punch against Google, starting Mar. 5. The sparring got under way when Microsoft attorney Thomas Rubin publicly criticized Google's position on copyright—first in a newspaper editorial and then again the following day at a publishing industry conference.


Read more on BusinessWeek

Google's Schmidt roots for DRM

Proponents of DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control have received one of their most significant endorsements yet.

"We are definitely committed to (offering copyright protection technologies)," Reuters has Google ceo Eric Schmidt saying. "It is one of the company's highest priorities.

"We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago," Schmidt told Reuters when asked what Google was doing to make so-called anti-piracy technologies widely available to video owners. "It is going to roll out very soon ... It is not far away."


Read more on p2pnet.net

Google sees video anti-piracy tools as priority

Google Inc., racing to head off a media industry backlash over its video Web site YouTube, will soon offer anti-piracy technologies to help all copyright holders thwart unauthorised video sharing, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

YouTube, which Google acquired late last year, plans to introduce technology to help media companies identify pirated videos uploaded by users.

But, to date, the tools are only being offered as part of broader licensing talks, media industry insiders complain.

Read more on Reuters.co.uk