Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Bill Introduced to Re-Legalize Cellphone Unlocking

Ina Fried in Mobile on March 7 at 10:45 am PT

Senators on both sides of the aisle have introduced a bill that would support the right of cellphone owners to unlock their devices.

Backer of Cellphone Unlocking Petition Sets Sights on Modifying Copyright Act

Ina Fried in Mobile on March 4 at 10:51 am PT

The man behind the petition to re-legalize unlocking of cellphones now has a broader target: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act itself.

Voices

“Innocence of Muslims” Actress Registers for Copyright, Refiles Suit

Alexandra Cheney, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on September 27, 2012 at 3:24 pm PT

Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress in the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims” refiled her case in federal court Wednesday after an unsuccessful attempt last week to convince a California state judge to order YouTube to remove the movie.

Viacom and Google Pick Up the Gloves, Again

Peter Kafka in Media on October 18, 2011 at 3:00 am PT

The YouTube copyright case — now more than four years old — won’t go away. In the real world, though, most media companies have made their peace with the world’s biggest video site.

Why the MP3Tunes Case Is a Big Deal You Won’t Notice

Peter Kafka in Media on August 23, 2011 at 7:26 am PT

Had it gone the other way, EMI’s lawsuit against Michael Robertson and his music locker could have been a problem for Google and Amazon. And maybe YouTube and Tumblr and lots of other Web services. But since it didn’t …

Turntable.fm Pulls a Pandora by Booting International Users

Peter Kafka in Media on June 27, 2011 at 5:53 am PT

The red-hot music service is only a few months old, but it’s already growing up: It’s ditching non-U.S. users in order to give itself a fighting chance of surviving in the U.S.

Turntable.fm Really Is Awesome. Is It Legal?

Peter Kafka in Media on June 21, 2011 at 4:00 am PT

How did a start-up finally convince the music labels to let people share music with each other for free? Turntable didn’t. This could be interesting.

Here's Your iTunes in the Cloud, for Your iPhone–But From mSpot, Not Apple

Peter Kafka in Media on December 15, 2010 at 6:00 am PT

Google and Apple both want to move your music to the cloud, then back to your phone, but they haven’t done it yet. But little mSpot has, at least for now.

Apple on Jailbreak Ruling: Go Ahead and Brick Your iPhone. See If We Care.

John Paczkowski in Mobile on July 27, 2010 at 8:45 am PT

Sure, jailbreaking your iPhone no longer violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but that doesn’t mean Apple supports it. So if you want to modify your iPhone to run unauthorized software, you’re welcome to do so, but not without risk or consequence. As Apple reminds us today, jailbreaking voids the iPhone’s warranty, which could prove problematic if your tinkering bricks it.

News Byte

An Emancipation Proclamation for the iPhone

Voices in News on July 26, 2010 at 9:44 am PT

With a single pen stroke, it looks like the federal government may have blown the closed Apple iPhone ecosystem wide open (at least for the tinkering crowd). In their periodic updating of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibitions again circumventing copyright protections, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office today ruled that it is lawful for mobile phone users to “jailbreak” their devices in order to use apps not approved by the manufacturer and to unlock their phones in order to change carriers (though there are barriers other than the DMCA to both practices). More on this to come as we await comment from Apple, which had maintained that jailbreaking was illegal, although it has never pressed the issue in court.