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Domain: paidcontent.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to paidcontent.org.
Stories · 12
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Martha Stewart Out To Exterminate Patent Troll Lodsys
McGruber writes "Gigaom's Jeff John Roberts reports that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (MSLO) has filed a lawsuit against Lodsys, a shell company that gained infamy two years ago by launching a wave of legal threats against small app makers, demanding they pay for using basic internet technology like in-app purchases or feedback surveys. In the complaint filed this week in federal court in Wisconsin, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia asked a judge to declare that four magazine iPad apps are not infringing Lodsys' patents, and that the patents are invalid because the so-called inventions are not new. The complaint explained how Lodsys invited the company to 'take advantage of our program' by buying licenses at $5,000 apiece. It also calls the Wisconsin court's attention to Lodsys' involvement in more than 150 Texas lawsuits. In choosing to sue Lodsys and hopefully crush its patents, Martha Stewart is choosing a far more expensive option than simply paying Lodsys to go away." -
Warner Bros Sued For Pirating Louis Vuitton Trademark
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You have to love a case where Warner Brothers, copyright maximalist extraordinaire, gets sued for 'piracy,' in this case for using a knock-off Louis Vuitton bag in a recent movie. This lawsuit has been described as 'awkward' for Warner; I have to agree with that characterization. Louis Vuitton's 22-page complaint (PDF) alleges that Warner Bros. had knowledge that the bag was a knock-off, but went ahead and used it anyway. Apparently Warner Bros. takes IP rights seriously only when its own IP rights are involved." -
NY Post Goes App-Only For iPad Users
bfwebster writes "Browsing the web this morning, I discovered that the New York Post is blocking iPad users from reading its website via Safari. Instead, iPad users must download and use the NY Post App instead. That app previously required a paid subscription (which is one reason I didn't use it); however, the version I downloaded this morning isn't making any demands for payment. Yet." -
Judge Reveals Secret Righthaven Copyright Contract
Hugh Pickens writes "Judge Roger Hunt has unsealed the confidential agreement between Righthaven and the Las Vegas Review-Journal that has allowed Righthaven to sue over more than 250 charities, impoverished hobby bloggers, reporters, and the newspaper's own sources, for $150,000 each in damages and forfeiture of the sites' domain names, and the contents of the agreement could end up being ruinous for Righthaven's campaign of copyright lawsuits. The problem is that Stephens Media, the company that owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, didn't actually assign any of the rights related to copyright to Righthaven except the right to sue — and that has been found in Silvers vs. Sony Pictures to be illegal under case law. In other words, none of the important things that come with a copyright — such as the right to make copies of a work, or distribute it, or make 'derivative works' — were handed off to Righthaven. Only the right to sue was given, and that makes the copyright transfer bogus, argue lawyers for the Democratic Underground, which is being sued for one of its website users posting the first four paragraphs of a 34 paragraph story." -
FTC Is In Talks With Adobe About the 'Flash Problem'
jamie links to news that the FTC is talking with Adobe about persistent Flash cookies. "Flash isn't actually necessary to watch YouTube videos, but the rest of this article is interesting." -
News Corp. Shuts Off Hulu Access To Cablevision
ideonexus writes "Normally when we advocate Net Neutrality, we are talking about preventing ISPs from discriminating against content providers, but in this case, the content provider is discriminating against the ISP. Is this a new dimension in the Net Neutrality fight? From the article: 'Cablevision internet customers lost access to Fox.com and Fox programming on Hulu for a time Saturday afternoon — the result of a misguided effort on News Corp.'s part to cut off online viewing as an alternative in its standoff with the cable operator over retrans fees. Fox stations in NYC, Philadelphia, and New Jersey went dark at midnight Friday when negotiations between the two broke down.'" -
South Korea Joins the "Three Strikes" Ranks
Glyn Moody writes "For years, the content industries having been trying to get laws passed that would stop people sharing files. For years they failed. Then they came up with the 'three strikes and you're out' idea — and it is starting to be put into law around the world. First we had France, followed by countries like Italy, Ireland — and now South Korea: 'On March 3, 2009, the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting & Communications (CCSTB&C) passed a bill to revise the Copyright Law. The bill includes the so called, "three strikes out" or "graduated response" provision.' Why has the 'three strikes' idea caught on where others have failed? And what is the best way to stop it spreading further?" -
AskJeeves Steps Into RSS with Bloglines Acquisiton
Sugarpimp writes "According to several sources, AskJeeves has stepped into the deep end of the blogging pool with an interesting acquisition. Bloglines is one of the premier RSS readers. Perhaps AskJeeves will be able to legitimize itself again in the crowded search market by integrating Bloglines into its suite of products." -
TV's Tipping Point
alinv writes ": Ashley Highfield, the head of BBC New Media & Technology spoke yesterday at a conference about how TV is being radically changed by users: 'future TV will may be unrecognisable from today, defined not just by linear TV channels, packaged and scheduled by television executives, but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels.'" -
Red Herring Comes Back
alinv writes "Red Herring, once the hype bible of the Valley VC economy, has made a comeback. The site was relaunched today. They are trying to pitch the site as an Economist-style, no-bylines gig. More details on the buyout by a French company and relaunch plans here." -
Red Herring Comes Back
alinv writes "Red Herring, once the hype bible of the Valley VC economy, has made a comeback. The site was relaunched today. They are trying to pitch the site as an Economist-style, no-bylines gig. More details on the buyout by a French company and relaunch plans here." -
Will Video Surfing Become Reality?
alinv writes "Australia's CSIRO has developed a multi-media browsing tool callled CMWeb, which makes surfing audio and video content as esy as text (view a screenshot here). The tool, called Continuous Media Web (CMWeb), enables user to activate a link within a video or audio file,and be taken to a related clip in another file, and then return to the original or follow further links into other subject areas, in much the same way they currently do with Web pages."
