e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Copyright

  • The World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) and Richard O’Dwyer

    Richard O’Dwyer

    On Monday, delegates from 193 countries began meeting in Dubai at the World Conference on International Telecommunications. The resulting International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR) could change the operation of the Internet. Russia Today summarized the event as “Free Internet=American Internet?” Intense lobbying by Google and Russia’s 17th November  proposal focus on retaining the current Internet governance structure versus one based on national and international authority over the Internet.

    A name shaping the discussion that will never be mentioned is university student Richard O’Dwyer. (more…)

  • U.S. Copyright Infringement – U.S. Strikes in New Zealand

    On Friday January 20, two helicopters and “76 police staff, including armed offenders squad members” raided the home of Kim Dotcom north of Auckland, New Zealand. He was sought by the U.S. for copyright infringement and racketeering under an indictment from the U.S. District Court of Virginia, Eastern Division. Three associates were also arrested.

    The issues of whether links to documents can be copyright infringement, acts that preclude DMCA safe harbor, and barring legitimate users from their files may be resolved as two legal teams—the U.S. Department of Justice and a yet to be named legal team representing “the Mega Conspiracy” in the U.S.—clash in Virginia These are issues that will affect colleges and universities because of the similarity between these sites and the way some students use the Internet.

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  • U.S. Claims Global Jurisdiction of .net and .com Web Sites: Is .edu Next?

    On January 13, a UK magistrate ruled a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films; this despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws. He has become the “guinea pig” of expansive U.S. justice.

    About four years ago Richard O’Dwyer, a computing student at Sheffield Hallam University, began a website registered as TVSHACK.net. It “posted links to pirated material. It did not directly host any files, which meant, according to the student’s lawyers, that it acted as little more than a Google-type search engine and did not breach copyright.” The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized the domain name in July 2010 and subsequently TVSHACK.cc in November. (Seizure must be challenged with ten business days, difficult for someone outside the U.S.).

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