Even the Register reports on the new Swiss copyright regulation.
The wording of the regulation is ambiguous, argues petition author Florian Bösch. Switzerland’s new copyright law has been described as “brutal” by BoingBoing.net and is hotly debated on Slashdot.
The Swiss copyright collecting authority, SUISA, dismisses the claims as groundless and misguided.

Dutch actors and musicians request that the introduction of a copying fee on mp3 players and DVD-recorders takes effect immediately. The Dutch government wants to postpone that extra fee until 2009. Copyright organisation Norma claims through its lawyer that the government’s decision is illegal.
Apart from Norma, the Dutch system consists of over 20 organisations […]

Striking screen writers turn to web outlets that, while paying less, give them total control over their content and share a substantial proportion of revenue, up to 50 %, much larger than conventional Hollywood companies; read “Striking Writers Gravitate to Web” by Gary Gentile, AP Business Writer, for Wired News.

Have a look at the two you-tube contributions: „Why We Fight“ and „Tim Kazurinsky riffs on Writers Strike on WGN”.

MacUpdate reports that a number of libraries, joined in the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), decided to actually pay for having their bookes scanned by the Open Content Alliance (OCA), rather than having Google or Microsoft scan them for free.
The reason is, that the OCA keeps the content “search-engine neutral” as BLC Executive Director Barbara Preece […]

According to silicon.com University admissions body Ucas ran a trial of a CopyCatch software on 50,000 university applications last year because of rising numbers of students bootlegging material for the personal statement section of the form. Around five per cent - 2,500 - of applications were found to have used material from web sources such […]

The WIPO has published a new booklet in their “Learn from the past, create for the future” series — a school study and exercise book on The Arts and Copyright.
Details of WIPO’s announcement are here.
The booklets should be ordered from the WIPO electronic bookshop at www.wipo.int/ebookshop.

“Fair Use” is a concept of US copyright legislation. In essence it is ‘any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a copyrighted work’1.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association reveals in a study2 about $4.5 trillion of the revenue generated in the US, […]

Creative Commons Netherlands and Buma/Stemra, the collecting society for music authors (composers, textwriters) and music publishers in the Netherlands start a groundbreaking pilot project: music authors will be able to combine the more flexible licensing models of Creative Commons licences with membership of Buma/Stemra. Details will be presented on 23 August 2007 at Pakhuis de […]

Reuters reports: Children in Europe are aware of the risks of illegal downloading but often rationalize their act by saying that everyone - including their parents - is doing it, according to a major European Commission survey. Other excuses included: the download is for personal and private purposes; the Web sites presumably remunerate the […]