There is a tabletop game called Risk! I cannot quite remember all the territories but I think the most difficult to win with was the Russians. Fighting a war on so many fronts was a costly business and often the death of many a player. It’s seems clear that Google never played Risk! as their ... Read more
Now, I’m sure many people have many views on this, but I’m still in shock about the amount that this poor woman was fined I’m under the impression that 29 songs is about 3 albums, which I’d say is about 20 quid? I’m pretty sure these songs wern’t on special.
Now, I’m not sure if you ... Read more
This is a photo they took for their family Christmas message that was sent out to friends via Christmas cards and a blog message.
Now look at this advert for a local grocery in Prague, Czech Republic.
It seems someone Googled something like ‘happy family’ , saw the Smiths and thought it made a great image.
Fortunately for the Smiths, they have a well-traveled assortment of friends, one of whom saw them in Prague and let them know. You can read the rest pf the story on the BBC site but the question here is one about permission. Increasingly, ‘copyright’ as a subject is being assaulted by the ‘democratisation’ of the web. Whilst many of us sit home and steal music, video and game entertainment at the expense of the large (and sometimes very small) corporates, suddenly we feel very unhappy when the shoe is on the other foot.*
Here’s a thought, instead of suing everyone, the corporations who are victims of piracy should download photos of the pirates and then use them for free in their advertising. 
*my legal disclaimer: I’m not implying the Smiths illegally download any content.
In the stampede to embrace all things social we have to understand that in the same way it enables people to expose more of their life to their friends, people are exposing more of their lives to strangers.
Meet the Smiths.
This is a photo they took for their family Christmas message that ... Read more
“I believe that the correct punishment should be one year in prison and that is what I am requesting that the district court hand down in this case,” prosecutor Haakan Roswall told the court.
The four men, who deny the charge, have been charged with earning at least 1.2m kroner (104,000 euros) by facilitating copyright infringement.
The film, music and video games industries are seeking about 117m kronor (10.1m euros) in damages and interest for losses incurred from tens of millions of illegal downloads facilitated by the site.
Prosecutors will sum up in the case later on Monday, while the defence is scheduled to give its closing arguments on Tuesday. A decision in the case is expected to take a few more weeks.
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Prosecutors in the trial against the four men who run the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay have called for a one-year prison sentence to be imposed.
Frederik Neij, Carl Lundstom, Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Warg are accused of promoting copyright infringement.
The Pirate Bay hosts thousands of links to so-called torrent files, which allow for movies, TV ... Read more
This year’s IAB Engage Conference was yet again packed with impressive speakers. Digital Marketing professionals and advertisers came together on Wednesday to discuss issues from piracy to measuring engagement, from integration of TV and online advertising to the extreme possibilities of the future – we’ll be sending our robots to shop for us within ten ... Read more
Viacom are suing YouTube’s video sharing service for its inability to keep copyrighted material off its site. They have identified 150,000 unauthorised television and movie clips on the site, including South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and MTV Unplugged, which have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
YouTube’s owner Google says that the lawsuit threatens Internet freedom ... Read more