copyright

In its effort to calculate direct loss from piracy taking into account economic multipliers AFACT approached for help to Oxford Economics and Ipsos MediaCT.

Thus, the results of the study released by AFACT (the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft), the multipliers mean that piracy sucks $A1.37 billion out of the Australian economy.

Direct effects made up $A575 million, the study claims, including $A225 million attributed to “secondary piracy”, in which an individual either “views or borrows” pirated material.

On Monday the US lawmakers proposed a legislation that, if adopted, would give the Justice Department the power to seek U.S. court orders against piracy websites anywhere in the world, and shut them down through the sites’ domain registration. The bill supported by both parties will be known as the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. For a long time the recording industry and movie studios have been calling for such kind of regulatory system.

Hollywood is getting more optimistic about its future revenues after a period of losses suffered due to copyright infringement and pirated content downloaded by the so-called Napster generation. The optimism comes from the new trends set by a younger community of users who show willingness to pay for digital content.

On Monday this week the US Librarian of Congress provided a ruling that consumers who circumvent digital protections on smartphones to install unapproved applications--a practice often colloquially known as "jailbreaking"--for noninfringing reasons should be exempted from prosecution under the anti-circumvention section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

On Thursday Microsoft Corp filed a lawsuit against a British video game accessory maker Datel Design and Development Ltd claiming that the company infringes its patens by copying the game console controllers.

Microsoft says that Datel's "TurboFire" and "WildFire" wireless controllers -- which resemble Xbox controllers and sell for up to $50 on the Internet -- infringe a number of Microsoft patents.

Yahoo lost a patent infringement case filed against it by Acacia Research Corporation. The company will have to pay $12.4 million to Acacia’s subsidiary Creative Internet Advertising Corporation under the final judgment brought by the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

In the final judgment signed on February 1st, 2010, the court awarded enhanced damages for willful infringement of $4.5 million. Besides, the District Court also awarded prejudgment interest of $1.1 million as well as supplemental damages bringing thus the total award to about $12.4.

According to a report by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative China imposed a great number of trade restrictions in 2009, more than in other years. The Celestial Empire failed to comply with its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization in many areas including intellectual property rights, industrial policies, trading rights and distribution services, agriculture and services.

 Fox Filmed Entertainment on Monday called upon the US to join France in blocking the access to the Internet for the violators who illegally download media files online as it substantially harms the industry especially the owners of independent films.

The Fox CEO Jim Gianopulos said that the Internet piracy is the single biggest threat to the film industry with the challenge posed by the fact that the cyber space allows people to conceal their identity.

 After a double downtime and a wrongly served DMCA notice the Pirate Bay returned to Google and online again. Last week the site was removed from Google’s search results as the search engine was responding to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice.