Viacom Fraudulently Claims Ownership Of Indie Filmmakers' YouTube Clips

Viacom is sending bogus copyright ownership claims and illegal posting notices to independent filmmakers posting their own movies on YouTube. These films contain not one iota of Viacom content. Take, for instance, this lovely short animation, "Juxtaposer," made by Joanna Davidovich for her senior project. It's completely her original creation. She has copyrighted it and says that she "only entered into distribution agreements that were nonexclusive." Yet, the media corporation saw fit to have YouTube tell Joanna, "Viacom has claimed some or all audio and visual content in your video." [Consumerist]

Open source blogger takes on Google

CNET blogger and supposed open-source expert Matt Asay tragically misreads Google's terms of service for Google Apps. An admittedly scary patch of legalese suggests, to Asay, that Google will take all of your private data, take over its copyright, and make it public. But in fact, it just says that if you use Google to host, say, a word-processing document or spreadsheet, and you want said document to be publicly available on the Web, you must agree to let Google, you know, make it public. Why Asay is resorting to scare tactics over this is beyond me. Is he pursuing an anti-Google agenda? Or is he just sloppy? I'm voting for just sloppy.

Google, Yahoo join children's copyright crusade

Backed by Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group, is targeting everyone from Hollywood to book publishers in its Defend Fair Use crusade. The CCIA is trying to drum up popular support for its allegations, submitted to the Federal Trade Commission earlier this month, that corporations are misleading consumers about copyright law. Copyright holders may not condone certain uses of its material, but that doesn't necessarily mean those uses are illegal. Fair use, an abstruse area of copyright law meant to encourage scholarship and journalism, is widely misunderstood. It's certainly a curious standard for CCIA's supporters to bear, since Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all implement fair-use-defying digital-rights-management software, and comply with "takedown" requests from copyright holders without considering fair use.

Google seeks to squelch comment on its site

Google wants to make you aware of its corporate trademark policy: Don't use it unless we tell you to — never mind the details of the actual law. Blogoscoped reader Frank Fuchs created a simple Web-based guide to getting businesses listed on search engines. For spot images, he pulled company logos. For his trouble, Google's ill-informed lawyers sent a legally questionable cease-and-desist notice, quoted after the jump. More »

Burning Man's copyright Nazis

PAUL BOUTIN — Burning Man, the Bay Area's annual alt.credibility event for geeks, has gone from "radical self-expression" to self-litigation. Founders Larry Harvey and Michael Mikel each want sole ownership of the name. Third founder John Law, who split a decade ago, has sued both to free the Burning Man name into the public domain. Law wants to "keep anyone from having an exclusive right to capitalize on these brands." More »

Times captures Stern, Stewart moments before prison camp internment

Anyone can report that YouTube deleted loads of clips from Comedy Central, including South Park and the Daily Show. More »

Google Doodle Watch: Where'd Miró go?

Google this morning: More »