The Google/Oracle decision was bad for copyright and bad for software; Ars Technica, 6/2/16

Peter Bright, Ars Technica; The Google/Oracle decision was bad for copyright and bad for software:

"Oracle's long-running lawsuit against Google has raised two contentious questions. The first is whether application programming interfaces (APIs) should be copyrightable at all. The second is whether, if they are copyrightable, repurposing portions of those APIs can be done without a license in the name of "fair use.""

Open-access journal eLife gets £25-million boost; Nature, 6/1/16

Ewen Callaway, Nature; Open-access journal eLife gets £25-million boost:

"When three of the world’s biggest private biomedical funders launched the journal eLife in 2012, they wanted to shake up the way in which scientists published their top papers. The new journal would be unashamedly elitist, competing with biology’s traditional ‘big three’, Nature, Science and Cell, to publish the best work. But unlike these, eLife would use working scientists as editors, and it would be open access. And with backers providing £18 million (US$26 million) over five years, authors wouldn’t need to pay anything to publish there.

Four years and more than 1,800 publications later, eLife’s funders — the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the Wellcome Trust in London and the Max Planck Society in Berlin — announced on 1 June that they will continue their support. They will back the non-profit eLife organization with a further £25 million between 2017 and 2022 (see ‘eLife by the numbers’)."

Madonna prevails in copyright lawsuit over 'Vogue' song; Reuters, 6/2/16

Dan Levine, Reuters; Madonna prevails in copyright lawsuit over 'Vogue' song:

"In a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, California ruled that a general audience would not recognize the 0.23-second snippet in "Vogue" as originating from the song "Love Break."

Shep Pettibone, a producer of "Vogue," also recorded "Love Break" in the early 1980's, according to the court ruling.

The plaintiff, VMG Salsoul LLC, owns the copyright to "Love Break" and alleged Pettibone sampled the "horn hit" from the earlier work and added it to "Vogue."...

The dissenting judge, Barry Silverman, said even a small sample of music, used without a license, should be a copyright violation. "In any other context, this would be called theft," Silverman wrote.

Robert Besser, a lawyer for VMG Salsoul, said in a phone interview: "I agree with the dissent because it should be an infringement for copying any piece of any sound recording." He said his client would review its legal options."

Game of Thrones is taking action against Pornhub for breach of copyright; BBC News, 6/1/16

BBC News; Game of Thrones is taking action against Pornhub for breach of copyright:

"The makers of Game of Thrones are taking action against Pornhub over breach of copyright.

HBO says it's because some scenes from the show have appeared on the site.

Some other videos even include parodies of porn stars pretending to be characters such as Cersei Lannister and Lord Varys from Game of Thrones."

Music World Bands Together Against YouTube, Seeking Change to Law; New York Times, 5/31/16

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Music World Bands Together Against YouTube, Seeking Change to Law:

"The fight over the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has touched a nerve. The music industry is bracing for what may be a high-wattage lobbying battle reminiscent of the one over the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that was abandoned in 2012 after opposition from technology activists and Internet giants like Google and Wikipedia.

The copyright law gives “safe harbor” to Internet service providers that host third-party material. While music groups criticize the law, some legal scholars and policy specialists say any change to it would need to be considered carefully, particularly to preserve protections like fair use.

“Anything that rewrites the D.M.C.A. isn’t just going to affect YouTube,” said James Grimmelmann, a law professor at the University of Maryland. “It is going to affect blogs. It is going to affect fan sites. It is going to affect places for game creators and documentarians and all kinds of others.”

In December, the United States Copyright Office asked for comments about D.M.C.A. as part of a review of the law, and filings by record companies show how laborious copyright policing can be."

Reprint of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Tests German Law; New York Times, 6/1/16

Melissa Eddy, New York Times; Reprint of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ Tests German Law:

"A German publisher of right-wing books has begun selling a reprint of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” originally issued in 1943 by the Nazi party’s central publishing house, a move that risks violating Germany’s law against the distribution of Nazi propaganda.

A copyright on “Mein Kampf” that was held by the Bavarian government expired on Dec. 31, and an annotated scholarly edition was published this year with government permission.

Now, state prosecutors in the German city of Leipzig, where the publisher, Der Schelm, is based, are investigating whether they can press charges . Last week, prosecutors in Bamberg opened a separate investigation after a bookseller, who was not identified, advertised Der Schelm’s edition.

Although Hitler’s two-volume treatise, written from 1924 to 1927 and laying out his ideas on race and violence, is widely available on the internet, the annotated version is the only one that is legal in Germany. The 3,500 comments accompanying the text provide context for the work, and they are aimed, in part, at trying to prevent a new generation from taking up Nazi ideologies.

“Promoting an edition without annotations is considered a criminal offense,” Christopher Rosenbusch, a spokesman for prosecutors in Bamberg, said on Wednesday."

Donald Trump's 'playbooks' offer a glimpse into his ruthless business practices; Guardian, 6/1/16

Rupert Neate and Lauren Gambino, Guardian; Donald Trump's 'playbooks' offer a glimpse into his ruthless business practices:

"US district court judge Gonzalo Curiel on Tuesday made public more than 400 pages of Trump University “playbooks” describing how Trump staff should target prospective students’ weaknesses to encourage them to sign up for a $34,995 Gold Elite three-day package.

Trump University staff were instructed to get people to pile on credit card debt and to target their financial weaknesses in an attempt to sell them the high-priced real estate courses.

The documents contained an undated “personal message” from Trump to new enrollees at the school: “Only doers get rich. I know that in these three packed days, you will learn everything to make a million dollars within the next 12 months.”...

New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman, who has also sued Trump University, renewed his attacks on Trump on Tuesday. “You are not allowed to protect the trade secrets of a three-card Monte game,” Schneiderman said ahead of the document’s release."