Imagine you get a letter from your Internet service provider giving you some odd news: You’re not being accused of piracy, but there’s a court order demanding that the ISP hand over your information to a copyright holder who thinks you might be a pirate. That’s the case for several Cox customers who have been caught up in a lawsuit between the cable company and a mammoth music publisher. [More]
copyright
Innocent Cox Customers Fighting To Prevent Personal Info From Being Turned Over In Piracy Lawsuit
By 6.16.15
Pirate A 20-Year-Old Friends Episode, Get Hit With A $20 Bill From Warner Bros.
By 6.8.15
A quick search on our TV menu here in the Consumerist Cave finds that there are more than 150 episodes of Friends set to air on various channels — both cable and broadcast — over the next couple of weeks. Not bad for a show that’s been off the air for over a decade and which is also streaming in its entirety on Netflix. Given this ready availability, we don’t know why one would download a pirated copy of a Friends episode, but if you do, prepare to be slapped with a bill for $20 from Warner Bros. [More]
GM: That Car You Bought? We’re Really The Ones Who Own It.
By 5.20.15
Congratulations! You just bought a new Chevy, GMC, or Cadillac. You really like driving it. And it’s purchased, not leased, and all paid off with no liens, so it’s all yours… isn’t it? Well, no, actually: according to GM, it’s still theirs. You just have a license to use it. [More]
MPAA Will Pay You $20,000 For Your Pro-Copyright Research
By 5.4.15
Are you a college-affiliated academic who could use an extra $20,000? Do you have strong feelings in favor of copyright protections? Then the Motion Picture Association of America has a deal for you! [More]
HBO & Showtime File Lawsuit To Block Live Streams Of Pacquiao Vs. Mayweather Fight
By 4.29.15
In case you hadn’t fallen victim to the pummeling from ads, news stories, and seemingly countless documentaries that have aired in recent weeks, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao are set to square off in a Las Vegas boxing ring this weekend in a bout co-produced by Showtime and HBO. The fight won’t actually be airing live on either network; you’ll have to pony up $100 to watch it on pay-per-view. That’s why the two premium networks, along with the fight’s promoters, have filed suit to preemptively block websites from live-streaming the event. [More]
Katy Perry’s Attempt To Claim A Trademark On “Left Shark” Design Fails Like A Left Shark
By 4.22.15
The “Left Shark” phenomenon that overtook the world after Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show has long since exited the cultural dialog, and yet the battle rages on over whether or not the pop star can claim a trademark on the uncoordinated, anthropomorphic fish. [More]
John Deere Wants To Be Able To File Copyright Claims Against The Way You Use Your Tractor
By 4.22.15
In the modern, digital economy, there are a whole lot of things you buy but still technically don’t own. Nearly all entertainment, for example: digital books, video games, music, and so on. Other software, too. But as basically everything continues to become some kind of computer in a specialized body, plenty of other goods are starting to be subject to licensing, copyright law, and non-ownership problems, too. Like tractors. [More]
Aereo Settles $99 Million Copyright Claims With CBS, FOX, ABC For $950K
By 4.21.15
Even though poor little Aereo — the once-promising live TV streaming service — was gutted by a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling has already been picked apart in bankruptcy auctions, it still had to face the copyright infringement claims from the broadcasters who alleged Aereo was stealing their signals. What remains of Aereo has now agreed to pay about a penny on the dollar to resolve the nearly $100 million in claims. [More]
“Batman v Superman” Trailer Leaks Online
By 4.17.15
While the trailer for next year’s superhero showdown Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is supposed to be kept under wraps in the U.S. until after its IMAX premiere on Monday, a handheld video of the trailer has already made its way online. [More]
HBO Complains To Twitter About Periscope Users Who Streamed Game Of Thrones
By 4.15.15
While plenty of people were legally watching the Game of Thrones season premiere on Sunday, some of those viewers were also using their accounts on Periscope, the Twitter-owned live-streaming service, to illegally re-broadcast the show to their online pals. In response, HBO has sent takedown notices and these Periscope users may have their accounts suspended. [More]
Judge Says An IP Address Is Not Enough To Identify A Movie Pirate
By 4.10.15
Since the dawn of online piracy, media companies have been serving subpoenas on Internet service providers to try to compel them to match up IP addresses of alleged pirates with the names on the accounts tied to those IP addresses. Unless the ISPs put up a fight, courts frequently grant these subpoenas, but one federal judge in Florida has said that a mere IP address is not sufficient to identify someone as a pirate. [More]
How The Gaming Industry Uses Copyright To Prevent You From Playing Abandoned Games
By 4.9.15
It seems like every few months we hear about another video game that the publisher has decided it’s no longer worthwhile to support. Once upon a time, that merely meant no more patches or new content. But now that more frequently means that much, if not all, of that game is now unplayable because gamers will no longer be able to access the servers needed to play or authenticate the title. And it’s all perfectly legal thanks to the infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [More]
AMC Goes To Court To Identify Who Is Posting Spoiler Clips Of ‘Walking Dead’
By 4.3.15
While most of us never see a TV show until it airs, there are all manner of people out there — from network people to entertainment reporters to advertisers — who often get to see episodes ahead of time, and some of these folks (or maybe their idiot kids or roommates) are then sharing these videos online with spoiler-hungry fan communities. For the producers of hit AMC show The Walking Dead, it’s not enough to just take these spoiler videos down as they pop up, they want to know where the clips are coming from. [More]
Musician Says Universal Music Has Hijacked His YouTube Videos With Bogus Copyright Claims
By 3.17.15
UPDATE: Shortly after posting this story, Mr. Lynne updated his original Facebook note to say that he was eventually able to get UMG to release its claim to his clip via an “Appeal,” which is a step above the “Dispute” process that had failed him earlier. [More]
You Can Soon Buy “.Sucks” URLs, But At Prices That .Suck
By 3.16.15
If you’ve ever dreamed of using the recently approved .sucks top-level domain suffix to make fun of companies that annoy you, your chance is coming up when registration opens later this month. However, a .sucks domain won’t exactly come cheap, so be prepared to be outbid by the company you’d love to skewer. [More]
Apartment Complex Claims Copyright On All Tenants’ Reviews & Photos Of Property
By 3.10.15
When you move into an apartment building you may face all sorts of rules about noise, public areas, trash collection, and paint colors, but one Florida management company tried to go the extra mile by including a “social media addendum” telling tenants that not only will they be hit with a $10,000 fine for griping about their living situation on any social media platform, but that the apartment owners automatically hold the copyright for anything tenants write about — and any photos they take of — the place. [More]
Dentist Who Claimed Copyright Over Patient’s Yelp Review Must Pay $4,766 In Damages
By 3.3.15
Way back in 2011, we told you about a dental patient who said his dentist had gone too far with a “privacy agreement” that preempted patients from publicly complaining about the doctor and claimed copyright on patients’ reviews. After nearly four years of legal wrangling, the dentist has finally been ordered to pay the patient nearly $5,000 in damages, though he may never get it. [More]
Ridiculous Copyright Claim Seeks Takedown Of Skype, Java, Whatsapp, Dropbox & 91 Others
By 2.23.15
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows content companies to ask Google and others to remove sites from search results because they contain material that infringes on their copyright. But one music company has been on a tear recently, sending DMCA notices claiming that everything from news stories about file-sharing to the generic “downloads” pages of some of the Internet’s biggest sites are violating its copyright. [More]
