Turnitin Sued

My friend Dawno alerted me to this story about anti-plagiarism service Turnitin.com being sued for copyright violation by four students. Turnitin is a service contracted by universities and schools. Faculty submit student papers for analysis by Turnitin which compares the text to papers stored in an internal database and to text stored on the Web; […]

Plagiarism at the University

There’s an interesting discussion over at Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light regarding the University of Kent student dismissed for plagiarism. The comments from Teresa’s regular readers, including those in the UK, are especially good.
My university has recently subscribed to Turnitin, a database and searching service that compares instructor-submitted files of student papers to those in […]

Coping with P2P

I’ve posted about the DMCA before, pointing out that the DMCA is a poorly written law, but it is the law,
and must be adhered to, something RIAA subpoenas rely on. There have recently been a
number of articles referring to the way UCLA, where I am a student, is
dealing with P2P (peer to peer) MP3 […]

It is Corosive to one’s Character to Steal

So said Steve Jobs in a recent Rolling Stone interview, in which he says some of the smartest things I’ve seen anywhere about copyright. According to Steve Jobs:

If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive […]

MS loses patent suit: forgot to buy jury

From Observable Phenomena

- A news report yesterday stated that benevolent software hegemony Microsoft (all blessings to them [please don’t hurt us!]) lost a patent suit brought jointly by Eolas Technology and the University of California. The jury decided that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer contains functions that infringe an Eolas-UC […]

DMCA and Fandom

I attended the “The DMCA and Fandom” panel on Sunday at ConJosé. The official description reads:

How has the Digital Millennium Copyright Act affected Fandom? Fan writers, editors and lawyers discuss recent actions and activities surrounding Fan Fiction.

The participants were Cory Doctorow (author and EFF Outreach Coordinator), C. E. Petit (Harlan Ellison’s attorney), Deborah M. […]

Information Wave Technologies Bans the RIAA

From a press release from host Information Wave Technologies, via Metafilter:

Due to the nature of this matter and RIAA’s previous history, we feel the RIAA will abuse software vulerabilities in a client’s browser after the browser accesses its site, potentially allowing the RIAA to access and/or tamper with your data. Starting at midnight on […]

About Mr. Coble

I knew a bit about Congressman Howard Berman, since he’s the representative for my home state, California, but I’d never heard of Congressman Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) until I learned he was Berman’s co-sponsor for the so called “Peer to Peer Piracy” bill.
Here’s a list of Coble’s top eleven contributors (via PACs and other […]

Who Is Howard Berman?

Howard Berman (D-California) is co-sponsor with Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) of the Peer to Peer Piracy Bill). I’d like to make sure you know that Congressman Berman’s top five financial contributors (via PACs) are:

Walt Disney Co.
$31,000

AOL Time Warner
$28,050

Vivendi Universal
$27,591

Viacom Inc.
$13,000

News Corp.
$11,750

Other major contributors include well-known intellectual property law firms in Los […]

Peer to Peer Piracy Bill—A License to Ransack?

There’s an important post about Coble’s role in the Peer to Peer Piracy bill at Ed Cone’s blog. He quotes an email from Fred von Lohmann, Senior Intellectual Property Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Under the bill, “…a copyright owner *can* invade your computer if it has your “authorization.” When would you ever authorize such a thing? […]

— keep looking »