Category: Intellectual Property
eBay not to blame for that fake memory card you bought off some bloke in Hong Kong
eBay has won its long-running legal battle with expensive necklace make Tiffany’s – and been found not responsible for the piles and piles of fake tat that clogs up its virtual shelves.
A judge found that protecting their products is the responsibility of the brand owners, not the seller. So eBay’s off the hook, thanks to a ruling that’s also rather bad news…
Viacom "backs down" – doesn't want to know everything about every YouTube user any more
Angry media mega-corporation Viacom has lessened its demands for information about video watchers, says YouTube – but it still wants details of every item on the site.
YouTube says Viacom – which originally wanted to know what every user has watched on the site – has settled for a bit less data. The critical climbdown is regarding user-associations, so Google will still be handing over its database of stuff, only without the critical user details…
Airports given the power to scan your media player for copyrighted material?
Good lord, imagine the queues this would cause.
Global world-controlling power-consortium G8 is, apparently, looking at plans to give airports the power to scan portable media players for copyrighted material when you fly, under its upcoming Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Man wants £744,000 for half his future earnings
Following the hot, international news sensation that was the life-selling nutcase, we brings news of a new eBay nutcase.
The nutcase in question is 33-year-old Canadian musician Ashley MacIssac, who rather worryingly decalred himself bankrupt in 2000, and has stuck his potential future earnings up for auction. And he wants quite a bit of money…
Weak bloggers cave in to Metallica's new album non-review demands
This story’s a bit of a mess. We know some UK bloggers were invited to listen to an “unmixed” demo of the new Metallica album and weren’t required to sign any non-disclosure agreements or stick to an embargo regarding what they heard.
Which meant they could all, quite legally, tell the world all about it on their blogs.
So sites like The Quietus ran with reviews (cached version here) – only to get told to take them down shortly afterwards. This has, predictably enough, turned into a mammoth Metallica HATE-FEST with everyone blaming the put-upon band for trying to break the internet again…
WiiPlayer – a hacked and streamlined unofficial iPlayer app for Wii
Some extremely clever man has been working away on improving the Wii’s iPlayer, creating his own solution to the rather clunky and slow official Wii implementation of the Beeb’s streaming telly service.
Moaning that the Wii’s slightly duff Opera browser simply hasn’t got the right screen resolution to handle the BBC’s default text and layout, the creator has simplified the design, bumped up the font size and generally “Apple-ised” the look and feel of iPlayer so it’s quicker to operate and easier to find your way around…
Motley Crue single downloaded FIVE TIMES more in Rock Band than on iTunes
If you pay attention, read regularly and maybe even take down some notes every once in a while, you may recall an update we did based around reformed dad-rockers Motley Crue releasing a single in the game Rock Band.
This was clearly a clever marketing ploy designed to help the ageing band reach “the youth” – and boy, did it ever work. The play-along Rock Band version of Motley Crue’s single sold FIVE TIMES as many…
The Pirate Bay enters internet top 100
And so, the rise of the crazy ABOVE THE LAW Swedish Bittorrent site continues.
According to shaky-but-all-we-have internet traffic monitor Alexa, The Pirate Bay has just eased itself into the global top 100 at a cool 97th. No doubt the launch of GTA IV helped it shift up a place or two.
With a total monthly unique user count of something around 25 million – up from 3 million in 2006 – The Pirate Bay is clearly doing…
Torrent Spy lawyer cries 'Hollywood publicity stunt' – $111m court order will never be paid
I suppose being declared bankrupt is a lot better than having to pay someone $111m but I can’t imagine it feeling too pleasant when your debtors get to dance around with your head on a pike.
That’s the way it is for Justin Bunnell and Wes Park of TorrentSpy since last week when the Motion Picture Bullies of America decided to kick a good site when it was down.
It turns out that TorrentSpy successfully filed for bankruptcy
Scarlett Johansson's album "Anywhere I Lay My Head" up for sampling on Napster
Yes, really. This is not a May 12 Fools joke.
Everyone’s favourite large-chested, pasty-faced art house actress has only gone and done an album of songs. She’s called it “Anywhere I Lay My Head” – an invitation to lewd comments if ever there was – and you can listen to bits of it RIGHT NOW on Napster.
Subscribers to whatever service it is Napster’s running these days can stream…
