"It's completely unethical for doctors to force their patients to sign away their rights in order to get medical care." Ars Technica dissects doctor "privacy" agreements that seek to limit patients' ability to post online reviews by making them sign the copyright of any future reviews over to the doctor, in exchange for vague (and possibly illusory) extra privacy protection. Doctored Reviews offers info and tools for fighting "anti-review contracts," whose language comes primarily from an "anti-defamation protection program" sold by a company called Medical Justice. Sources quoted in the article express doubts that this kind of "privacy blackmail" would hold up in court, with some wondering if Medical Justice is actively deceiving doctors by selling them a product that won't work as advertised. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on May 24, 2011 - 30 comments

“Watching the video I thought that it was wise of Major League Baseball to combine this sort of sentimental moment with mass speculative litigation. It kept brand values strong. I felt strangely grateful that I could have a moment to remember that afternoon. Surprised by the evidence of both copyright violation and father-daughter affection.” —Paul Ford, “Nanolaw with Daughter” [more inside]
posted by kipmanley on May 15, 2011 - 26 comments

The Canadian Pirate Party is official, registered, and running 10-12 candidates in the current federal election. The recent debate over usage-based billing convinced at least one of its candidates of its potential appeal to voters. They are unabashedly an issue-based party, whose platform deals with intellectual property, privacy, net neutrality, and government access/openness. [more inside]
posted by kevinsp8 on Apr 20, 2011 - 13 comments

Thousands of broadband customers in the UK have had their personal details uploaded to web, complete with the names of pornographic movies they are alleged to have downloaded. [more inside]
posted by afx237vi on Sep 28, 2010 - 70 comments

Changes to Orphan Works copyright legislation in the US began to crumble in 2008 when the NPPA and a grassroots initiative finally gained momentum. Still, the ASMP has a FAQ outlining their position on the 2008 Orphan Works bill stating that it is inevitable legislation and they should take advantage of a favourable congress to retain as positive a position for photographers as possible.

It seems that new laws are close to coming into effect in the UK government seemingly nationalising orphan works and in a separate action (same article) banning non-consentual photography making street photography essentially impossible. [via]

Previously
posted by michswiss on Feb 25, 2010 - 18 comments

Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column..."Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick on Sep 12, 2002 - 22 comments

So a few days ago, I went off on some resume sites going out and pilfering my resume off my personal site. Well, I opted out of passportaccess.com, and here is their response. My favorite part: "Once you post your resume or any sort of material on the internet it becomes public information and therefore, can be spread from site to site very quickly." Uh, excuse me? Since when did "public information" equal "copyright-free and we can do anything we want with it?"
posted by mathowie on Feb 10, 2000 - 5 comments