Settlement Rumored To Be Close in Google, Publisher Lawsuit - Library Journal, 10/10/08

Settlement Rumored To Be Close in Google, Publisher Lawsuit:

"Google, meanwhile, faces a content industry that is running out of patience with companies that launch products using copyrighted content in hopes of negotiating deals later. Recent months have seen innovative services like Red Lasso and popular upstarts like Scrabble knock-off Scrabulous removed from the Internet. And, of course, Google is currently facing a massive billion-dollar infringement suit from Viacom over its YouTube service...

The Google Book Search Library Project now numbers over 30 partners worldwide, and has scanned over one million books at the University of Michigan alone. The suit, however, has affected how aggressively Google’s library scan plan has been implemented, with most new library partners scanning only public domain materials, and with most new deals not providing for “a library copy” of the scanned work, a contentious provision in Google’s early deals."
http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA6603957

Judge temporarily halts sales of RealDVD in wake of lawsuit - ars technica, 10/5/08

Judge temporarily halts sales of RealDVD in wake of lawsuit:

"Real has been ordered to temporarily suspend distribution of its new DVD ripping and archiving product, RealDVD, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the MPAA claiming that it facilitates copyright infringement...

From the moment Real first announced RealDVD, the company was aware that there would be legal questions about the product, but seemed to think that everything would be fine since the company said it had "licensed the DVD technology for a legal right to play back DVD content."...

"RealNetworks' RealDVD should be called StealDVD," MPAA executive vice president and general counsel Greg Goeckner remarked about the product."
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081005-judge-temporarily-halts-sale-of-realdvd-in-wake-of-lawsuit.html

Hollywood aims to block RealNetworks' DVD software - Washington Post, 9/30/08

Hollywood aims to block RealNetworks' DVD software:
"Hollywood's six major movie studios on Tuesday sued RealNetworks Inc. to prevent it from distributing DVD copying software that they said would allow consumers to "rent, rip and return" movies or even copy friends' DVD collections outright...
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, alleges RealNetworks' RealDVD program, which launched Tuesday, illegally bypasses the copyright protection built into DVDs...
The software locks the copy to the hard drive where it is copied and to the program it was copied with, Kimball said, and he asserted that copying one's personal collection of DVDs amounts to "fair use" allowed by law. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093001308.html?sub=AR

Scud Stud Arthur Kent settles copyright infringing movie lawsuit - Brattleboro Reformer, 9/19/08

Scud Stud Arthur Kent settles movie lawsuit:
"The NBC reporter who became known as the Scud Stud during the first Gulf War has settled a lawsuit against the makers of "Charlie Wilson's War" over footage used in the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts movie.
Arthur Kent, whose live reports on Iraq's Scud missile attacks on Saudia Arabia made him a celebrity, claimed in a lawsuit filed last April that Universal Studios and other violated his intellectual property rights by using without his consent segments of a 1986 news program he made about the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PEOPLE_ARTHUR_KENT?SITE=VTBRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT