If you are trying to work out who is hosting a website and where it is being hosted, you might be interested in this discussion of the Netcraft toolbar.
Note:
A tool bar for detecting hosts etc. Read More »
IPKat reports that the case in Eire in which the record companies sued the ISP, Eirecom, has settled after 8 days of the scheduled 4 weeks of trial.
Amongst other details, the ISP adopted a 3 strikes policy and the record companies deployed a service to monitor (entrap?) file”sharers”.
Read more here.
Some other background and 3 other strikes here, here, here and here.
Irish ISP and 3 strikes Read More »
The Government has published Frontier Economics’ review of the ambush marketing legislation provided by the Olympic Insignia Protection Act 1987 (Cth) and the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games (Indicia and Images) Protection Act 2005 (Cth) (the AML).
According to the Executive Summary, key points include:
While the review found the legislation largely working as intended, it did not some qualifications:
(1) whether apparent reductions in ambush marketing are due to factors outside the AML;
(2) whether NSOs and other peak bodies have been unduly hampered in their ability to attract their own sponsorships; and
(3) whether sufficient income generated from the rights granted under the AML has been returned to sport.
Read the report here (pdf).
Ambush Marketing DownUnder Read More »
The dispute resolution panel’s decision in the USA’s complaint against China’s rules on enforcement, “Measures affecting the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights” (DS362) (background here) has been published.
There’s a range of commentary around the web. The IPKat reproduces the conclusions and, applying sophistaKatted Euro reading between the lines, scores it at 3-all.
Intellectual Property Watch’s summary here. According to the USTR, the US won.
Not sure what has happened to the “market access” dispute?
The USA, China and the WTO dispute Read More »
Courts have apparently been allowing service of court documents by email and in at least one high profile case against a rugby player alleged to be in breach of his club contract by text message. Now, for those of you looking for reports of the case where the Court allowed service by Facebook, try:
here and here and here and here.
Master Harper’s decision in MKM Capital v Corbo and Poyser doesn’t appear to be online on Austlii yet.
Lid dip: Jane Treleaven
By the way, Jane asks what kind of privacy settings these people were using that their, er, Facepage (?) showed so much personal information?
While teasing out some issues about the Lori Drew prosecution, Eric Goldman also notes there are problems with the reliability of social network sites pages here, here and here (e.g.).
Served by “Facebook” Read More »
Ass. Prof. David Brennan and Dr Rhonda Smith will talk for IPRIA about how to determine a fair price for using IP where the IP owner can’t demonstrate any real harm.
I think a situation like this is where an infringer makes sales of the infringing product, but the IP owner wouldn’t have made those sales and so didn’t “lose” anything.
The talk if at Blake Dawson in the city on 18 November at 6.00 pm.
Registration is free via here.
the value of copyright: determining shadow prices Read More »
The “gang” secretly negotiating ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeitng Treaty) is starting to attract increasingly organised opposition:
* “100 groups” (ranging from the EFF in the USA to the Australian National University to …) have signed a “letter” challenging much of what is (assumed) to be going on behind closed doors
* China, supported by Brazil and India, amongst others, has launched a campaign to force ACTA back into WIPO
Of course, one might speculate that the developing countries or the “South” (in a non-US civil war sense) might feel they have better voting prospects in WIPO than, say, a treaty which is being negotiated without them by, apparently, Australia, Canada, European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, United States, and the United Arab Emirates. Then again, one might wonder if that will dissuade the gang of 13 (if one may count the EU as “one”) from rushing headlong onwards?
Sydney 2000?
Athens 2004?
World Cup 2006?
Beijing 2008?
According to OHIM’s Board of Appeal, World Cup 2006 and related labels like Germany 2006 are descriptive and lack distinctive character. Accordingly, it ordered their registration as trade marks cancelled. IPKat has more details here.
May be Parliament was on to something when it enacted the Olympic Insignia Protection Act 1987.
Imagine what would happen if someone did something like this to AFL Grand Final or Formula 1 Grand Prix?
Is it a trade mark? Read More »
It seems DFAT has been considering ACTA since December 2007.
Now, DFAT has called for submissions and has flagged these as interesting topics.
Lid dip, Cheng Lim.
Meanwhile, IPKat reports of a UK Intellectual Property Office consultation paper on penalties for copyright infringement.
IPKat also draws attention to some further EU perspective on counterfeiting here (scroll down to 7.2).
WTO and EU …
IP Watch reports that IP is on the agenda next week (beginning 21 July) in the DOHA negotiations and identifies key issues raised by a “regional groupings such as African, Caribbean and Pacific developing nations in league with Brazil, China, India and Europe” here.
More GIs and better acknowledgement of traditional knowledge seem to be the main concern. Australia is one of the opponents – which makes sense at least in respect of GIs.
Also, IP Watch reports on IP developments in the EU including an extension of term for copyright in sound recordings (also known as Cliff Richard’s superannuation?) Get ready for pressure to increase copyright protection here by another 25 years! IPKat’s take here.
There is also a discussion paper on copyright exceptions on the internet. One might hope that this means they have discovered they have gone too far, but where the EU is concered it usually means that copyright owners’ rights need to be improved.
Then, there is to be an investigation into the quality of industrial property rights.
The IP News report has links to the EU papers.
International agendas Read More »
