Новости за 09.04.2016

Five Years Ago

This week in 2011, we saw a variety of attempts to define whole new forms of copyright infringement (and to fight back against them). The UK advertising agency was going after a CD jukebox maker for advertising that it is capable of making copies; a Greek site linking to legal videos from rightsholders was sued for infringement; it wasn't clear if Amazon would end up buying music licenses it shouldn't need; the MPAA unsurprisingly sued a streaming site that used connected... Читать дальше...

This week, we're taking a look at some new crowdfunded gadgets for music lovers and creators.

For many years now, we've written about the fact that copyright law and the First Amendment are actually in quite a lot of conflict. After all, copyright is regularly used to stifle speech, and the First Amendment isn't supposed to allow for the barring of speech. Over the years, legal experts have been increasingly starting to realize this. A few years back, we wrote about a paper wondering why copyright law doesn't require a showing of harm, as should be required under the First Amendment. We've... Читать дальше...

As Techdirt has reported, politicians (and some journalists) haven't waited for the facts to be established before assuming that encryption is to blame for recent terrorist attacks. But as detailed information starts to appear, it becomes clear once more that the bombings and shootings did not succeed because things had "gone dark," but largely because intelligence agencies in both Europe and the US missed numerous clues and hints about the bigger picture. This emerges most powerfully from a long article in The New York Times... Читать дальше...

The Earth's moon is the most well-known planetary satellite because we see it almost every night. But the Earth has a few more natural satellites that aren't technically moons. There are a bunch of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are in resonance with the Earth around the Sun. Several quasi-satellites and trojans dance around our planet in space -- and these objects could be potential landing sites for probes someday (or for asteroid mining operations). They're just not moons (or dwarf moons or whatever you want to nickname them)... Читать дальше...

One of the rules that is supposed to keep trademark law from creating language-lock insanity is the prescription against trademarking purely descriptive terms. That's why you get a trademark on Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but not on "soda." It's why "computer" is not a valid trademark term. Were this not the case, companies could simply lock up the language of their marketplaces, restricting terms not to the benefit of the consumer, but purely as a monopolizing strategy.

And, yet, this doesn't always play out in practice. Читать дальше...

The Baltimore Police Department's warrantless deployment of Stingray devices has come to an end. It may have gotten away with more than 4,300 times so far, but the Maryland Special Appeals Court has declared these devices operate as searches under the Fourth Amendment.

The 74-page opinion -- which belatedly follows its two-page order from nearly a month ago, indicating which side it had taken in this dispute -- dives into every issue implicated by the warrantless use of Stingray devices... Читать дальше...