More contractual obligations for new gTLD operators?
Members of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN are pushing for additional contractual clauses for applicants of new generic top-level domains, reports IP Watch. ... Read the full post ...
Spouses waive marital privilege by when communicating via work email
The Fourth Circuit recently held that email communications between spouses sent through an employer’s email system could not be considered “confidential” and, therefore, were not protected by the marital privilege. The court rejected the defendant’s argument that emails to his wife sent from his work account were protected by the marital privilege, on the ground ... Read the full post ...
Google revises AdWords policy to permit use of third party trademarks
Google has announced that AdWords keywords that were restricted as a result of a trademark investigation will no longer be restricted in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Brazil. Google’s policy revision, which takes effect on 23 April 2013, follows its recent success in Australia litigation. The High Court of ... Read the full post ...
Torrent site owners found liable for “inducing” copyright infringement
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court’s finding that the owners of websites providing torrent files are liable for contributory copyright infringement. The defendants in Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Fung, 447 F.Supp.2d 306 owned the websites isohunt.com, torrentbox.com and podtropolis.com. These sites collected, organised and made searchable torrent files for movies ... Read the full post ...
Google not liable for misleading auto-generated search terms
A US court has ruled that automatically-generated search terms that are misleading do not constitute a common-law misappropriation or an invasion of privacy. Dissatisfied with the results of internet searches for her name, Beverly Stayart launched a legal campaign against internet search engines. In her third lawsuit, she contended that Google was in violation of Wisconsin misappropriation ... Read the full post ...
IP addresses alone not sufficient to identify alleged pirates
A California federal court has ruled that an IP address alone is not sufficient to establish identification of an alleged copyright infringer. As reported by IT-LEX, the decision is consistent with an earlier California court holding that IP addresses are not synonymous with identification. ... Read the full post ...
EC VP Kroes urges open Internet
The European Commission’s Vice-President responsible for the digital agenda has told a parliamentary committee that the EU recognises “the values and virtues of openness … are not just economic, but also for freedom of expression and democracy”, reports IP Watch. ... Read the full post ...
CJEU rules live streaming of TV is communication to public
The CJEU has held that TVCatchup’s live streaming of UK free-to-view terrestrial television broadcasts infringes authors’ rights to control communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) Information Society Directive. This decision confirms the right of originators to control how, where and when their material is transmitted or re-transmitted, even where the recipients ... Read the full post ...
Update on procedures for objecting to new gTLDs
As previously noted, parties may object to any of the applied-for new gTLDs on four bases: string confusion – the applied-for gTLD string is confusingly similar to an existing TLD or to another applied for gTLD string in the same round of application legal rights – the applied-for gTLD string infringes the existing legal rights ... Read the full post ...
Pirate Bay loses appeal to European Court of Human Rights
The Pirate Bay founders, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde Kolmisopp, have lost their bid to have the rulings of Swedish courts against their operation of the file-sharing service declared a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. According to the Court’s decision, allowing others to share copyright-protected material for profit-making purposes was covered by the ... Read the full post ...
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