From the Daily Yomiuri Online:
Fourteen arts and cultural organizations have agreed that the protection period for copyrighted works of literature, music, arts and photographs should be extended to 70 years from the current 50 years after the creators’ deaths, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Saturday.
The organizations plan to submit a joint statement about the issue to [...]
Archive of entries posted on July 2006
Japanese Arts Groups Call For Copyright Term Extension
Group Appeals Government Eavesdropping Ruling
From News.com:
A coalition of civil liberties groups and technology companies, including Pulver.com and Sun Microsystems, is appealing a federal court ruling that forces Internet service providers to create backdoors for government wiretapping.
The coalition on Friday asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to review a June 9 ruling that sided with the [...]
ABA Issues Report on Presidential Signing Statements
The American Bar Association has released their report on President Bush’s signing statements.
[34 pages, PDF]
RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association opposes, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, the issuance of presidential signing statements that claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline [...]
EFF’s Spying Case Moves Forward – Judge Denies Government’s Motion to Dismiss AT&T Case
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
A federal judge today denied the government’s motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF’s) case against AT&T for collaborating with the NSA in illegal spying of millions of ordinary Americans. This allows the case to go forward in the courts.
Wilson-Sensenbrenner-Hoekstra Introduce Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act of 2006
Press Release:
Rep. Heather Wilson, chair of the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence was joined today by Reps. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in introducing the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act of 2006, an update to the outdated Foreign Intelligence [...]
Elsevier sponsors a more open-access article model
From Information World Review:
Nuclear physics authors can opt to pay for their articles to be published in six physics journals published by Elsevier under a new Sponsored Articles scheme which the company insists is very different from open access.
Six Elsevier physics journals have adopted the Sponsored Articles programme, which allows authors to pay a fee [...]
Dare Violate a Copyright in Hong Kong? A Boy Scout May Be Watching Online
From the New York Times:
Movie and song copiers beware: use an Internet discussion site in Hong Kong to violate copyrights and you may be turned in to law enforcement authorities by an 11-year-old Boy Scout.
Starting this summer the Hong Kong government plans to have 200,000 youths search Internet discussion sites for illegal copies of copyrighted [...]
Judge: Google News lawsuit can proceed
From News.com:
A federal judge has postponed a key ruling in a lawsuit against Google brought by Agence France-Presse that alleges Google’s popular news search feature violates copyright laws.
U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said Tuesday that she was not prepared to rule on Google’s request to dismiss the case, and instead granted both sides more time [...]
Bush Blocked Eavesdropping Program Probe
From the Washington Post:
President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the anti-terror eavesdropping program that intercepts Americans’ international calls and e-mails, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday.
Bush refused to grant security clearances for department investigators who were looking into the role Justice lawyers played in crafting the program, under which the National Security [...]
The Bush Administration’s Adversarial Relationship with Congress
From FindLaw.com:
This summer, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held hearings on President Bush’s uses and abuses of signing statements. Technically, these are statements by the President accompanying his signing of legislation. In this Administration, however, signing statements have been used as a dodgy practice of telling the Congress to go to hell. . .
. . [...]