CyberLaw Blog

Archive for November 20th, 2009

ISPA slams Mandy’s copyright land grab: “

Someone tell Lord Sith about encryption

Claims from minister Stephen Timms this morning that the Digital Economy Bill has widespread support have been thrown into question, after the Internet Service Providers Association insisted it is strongly opposed to aspects of the legislation.…

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(Via The Register – Comms.)

Police in copyright case can retain evidence and pass to trade body, says Court of Appeal: “A company whose computers and disks were kept by police even after the force had dropped its case will appeal the case to the Supreme Court. A lawyer for Scopelight told OUT-LAW.COM that it will seek leave to appeal by 4th December.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Mod chip seller infringed copyright in game elements, even if not in whole game: “A man who sold computer chips that enabled pirated video games to be played on consoles was rightly convicted of copyright offences, the Court of Appeal has ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

ISPs and public believe Government data safeguards inadequate: “The internet access industry and members of the public have rejected the Government’s plans to retain details of citizens’ internet access, saying that safeguards for internet users’ privacy were inadequate.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

The strange death of illegal downloading: “(Guardian)
This year is the most successful in the UK’s history for singles sales. More than 117m have been sold ? comfortably beating the previous record of 115.1m, set in 2008. It is happening because of an explosion of new companies offering tracks free, legally, without having to go to peer-to-peer sites and thereby avoiding the risk of getting bogus tracks or viruses. People are flocking to them simply because it is a much easier way of listening to music. None of these sites were started by the music industry. Two of the newbies, Spotify.com and We7.com, alone have gained at least 5 million new users in their first year, mainly people who previously downloaded illegally. They use so called ‘freemium’ business models offering streamed tracks for free if you accept an advert or for nothing if you take out a monthly subscription.

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(Via QuickLinks Update.)