Piracy Issues are the Subject of News Worldwide
Nov 26th, 2007 • Posted in: NewsVARIOUS DATELINES
The intersection of technology and intellectual property was the venue for some heavy ethics traffic last week:
- France is planning to get tough with intellectual property pirates by suspending the Internet accounts of repeat online offenders, according to the entertainment industry trade journal Variety. But the future of the scheme is uncertain, notes the Times of London, because it requires cooperation from Internet service providers who may be reluctant to in pull the plug on persistent pirates and to provide data that will allow authorities to track them down.
- Hollywood studios will have their say in a Chinese court in late November after filing suit against a Beijing-based online film and television content provider, PC World reports. The studios claim the firm, Jeboo.com, provides unlicensed versions of their films to China’s ubiquitous Internet cafes. Jeboo.com has posted a statement on its website saying it has the right to provide the service because of contracts signed with its partners, but an official of the company would not comment about the suit when contacted by Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.
- More than 80 percent of Russian companies use pirated software, according to a survey released last week. The St. Petersburg Times reports that the study, commissioned by Microsoft, indicates that many executives there simply believe that buying software legally is not cost-effective. Violation of intellectual property rights has long been a sore spot in Russia-U.S. relations, the Times notes.
- The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has been sending pre-settlement letters to those it suspects of listening to pirated music, last week targeted several Ivy League universities. InformationWeek reports that the RIAA informed administrators at Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn, Princeton, and Yale that individuals on their campuses had used their networks to download copyrighted songs. Individuals were not named. RIAA’s strategy has been to write first and ask for a financial settlement before taking the case to court.
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