Just saw this mentioned in Wired - a federal court judge in San Jose issued a ruling in the Lenz vs. Universal case, where Universal issued a DMCA takedown notice for content posted on Youtube, and the recipient of that notice is now suing Universal for damages:
In the nation’s first such ruling, a federal judge on Wednesday said copyright owners must consider ‘fair use’ of their works before sending takedown notices to online video-sharing sites.
The 10-page decision (.pdf) came a month after Universal Music told a San Jose, California federal judge that copyright owners need not consider the “fair use” doctrine before issuing takedown notices requiring online video-sharing sites to remove content.
Other than pointing out that the term “consider” presents a considerable amount of wiggle room, this seems to be a positive step in the right direction. In fact, part of Universal’s argument was that it was impossible to determine whether content met any fair use standard. It will be interesting to see if this precedent stands.
Read the full Wired article
Tags: News
This was an article published on LWN, written by Lisa Hoover. A very nice compendium of who we are and what we’re about:
Link to article.
Fundable.org page
Tags: News
Tonight at 6pm at LinuxWorld, GeekPAC will host a Birds-of-a-feather on “Hacking the Election.”
If you’re at LinuxWorld, it’s in room 310 at 6pm. See you there!
Tags: News
PAC to support copyright reform, DMCA reform, net neutrality, and
other technology issues
GeekPAC (http://www.geek-pac.org/), a group of concerned citizens
formerly known as BytesFree.org, has relaunched under a new name to
reflect its new focus. GeekPAC will form a political action committee
with the goal of building grassroots political support for copyright
reform, DMCA reform, net neutrality, patent reform, and other
hot-button political issues. Additionally, GeekPAC has launched its
first fundraiser at Fundable.org (
https://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-07-22.8448851451
) to cover the initial startup costs.
GeekPAC will be a grassroots, member-driven organization with an
emphasis on educating the public at large on how these issues affect
daily life. Said John Mark Walker, GeekPAC Founder, “Many of us in the
technology community have done a poor job of communicating to the
general public why they should care about these issues. With GeekPAC,
we hope to change that by driving thought leadership in this area and
building a critical mass of concerned citizens who will be able to get
the attention of their local politicians.”
GeekPAC’s first action under its new name will be a birds-of-a-feather
(BOF) session at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo
(http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/) under the topic “Hacking the
Election.” The session will take place at 6pm PDT on Wednesday, August
6 in room 301 at Moscone Center in San Francisco and will be open to
all LinuxWorld Expo attendees.
Another work in progress is a voter information project, designed to
gather data for every member of Congress pertaining to their voting
records on relevant bills. The voter information project can be found
at http://deki.geek-pac.org/Voter_Information_Project
**To contribute to GeekPAC see
http://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2008-07-22.8448851451
(GeekPAC is not yet incorporated and donations are not tax deductible.)
**Visit http://www.geek-pac.org/
Tags: News
I’m happy to announce that BytesFree.org will be represented at its first event, Lug Radio Live, which will be held at the Metreon in San Francisco on April 12th and 13th. It’s quite a challenge to get things going organizationally, and this looks to be a pretty rewarding experience.
We will have a table at the expo. Also, Ilan and I will be speaking on Sunday at 3pm.
If you’d like to come by and say hello, or if you’re interested in volunteering, please do let us know.
Tags: Action,
News
A long time ago, I wrote a paper encouraging people to support AB 1668 and posted it on the wiki. I have finally updated the paper to reflect the new focus of BytesFree.org.
Read the new improved paper.
Also, as we slowly make our way through the incorporation process, one of the things we have to do is create a mission statement. I never really cared for these types of exercises. Not because I don’t see their value - I do, but because I’m lazy. In any case, I think we’ve come up with a nice tentative one:
BytesFree.org is dedicated to the idea that all people should have full and unrestricted access to all information to which they are legally or morally entitled. BytesFree.org works to ensure that public data is available to all, unburdened by restrictive access methods, non-standard file formats, unreasonable fees, unnecessary bureaucratic delays, or unpalatable legal requirements.
You can find more new stuff on the About page.
Tags: News
Well, it appears to be final. As the results are verified and commentators weigh in, I’ll post a roundup later, as well as my own commentary on what this means for BytesFree.org’s objectives.
In the meantime, see the posts below from Groklaw and the Standards Blog.
Tags: News
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