Posted 12:01 PM by Gerald Klaas
From Village Voice:

You can say this much for Canadians: They know that the Recording Industry Association of America's power stops at the border. The Copyright Board of Canada ruled on December 12 that making personal copies of music files—no matter where they came from—is legal, although manufacturers of MP3 players will be required to charge a tariff of up to $25 a 'Pod to compensate songwriters and performers.

Posted 7:36 AM by Gerald Klaas
Finally, an appellate court shows some tech savvy regarding peer to peer (P2P) networking and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA)

The court recognized that, at the time DMCA was passed, nobody anticipated P2P. The concept of "taking down" offending materials did not really apply to these networks. Sure, you can disable all Internet access by users of P2P networks, or you might disable the ports that are most frequently used for P2P, but this remedy goes far beyond simply removing infringing materials.

Meanwhile a Connecticut court finds the same IP history and user account information is fair game for civil proceedings discovery subpoena

The Connecticut court went on to conclude that the identity of Jane Doe (the e-mailer) was relevant to the defamation proceeding, and therefore that Time Warner had to reveal it to the French company.

This provides a road map to the RIAA. While (absent a successful appeal) they may no longer issue hundreds of blanket DMCA subpoenas - at least in the District of Columbia - they can file hundreds of blanket 'John Doe' copyright infringement lawsuits and then issue hundreds of ordinary civil subpoenas. Or, they can go to Congress and have the DMCA amended to specifically include P2P networks.

They may have the ability to file hundreds of copyright infringement lawsuits and then issue hundreds of ordinary civil subpoenas, but if they do, it won't be long before the courts are petitioning Congress to change the law because the additional paperwork will further slow their already backlogged calendars. In my book, this is a clear loss for the Recoding Industry Association of America (RIAA). To further the RIAA pain this week, "DVD Jon", the Norwegian programmer who cracked the DVD encryption code on Linux a few years back has been acquitted, and yesterday, an appeals court upheld his acquittal

Dealing another blow to the entertainment industry, an appeals court in Norway on Monday upheld the acquittal of a man charged with piracy for releasing a program that could crack DVD security codes.

It's been a bad week for the recording industry.

Posted 6:47 AM by Gerald Klaas
Al Gore's sister was a medical marijuana patient. During his campaign for president, Al Gore continued the prohibitionist party line

Chris Lahane, press secretary for the Gore Campaign, told The Week Online that "Al Gore believes that more scientific research needs to be done, but that after that is accomplished, if the findings are favorable, only then should we should consider making it available under tightly controlled conditions."

Asked whether the untold thousands of patients currently using marijuana to relieve suffering should be arrested, as is current federal policy, Lahane said that Gore "is strongly opposed to the legalization of marijuana through the state referendums and initiatives that he has seen."

Al Gore's son was arrested Friday on marijuana charges. I wonder if he'll plea for leniency?