Introduced in May and sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, bill S. 978 has been the talk of the tech blogs lately. The bill seeks to change the rules regarding criminal copyright enforcement, adjusting which types of infringement constitute a felony with significant jail time. Reactions to the bill have displayed a good deal of alarm. We’re here to sort fact from fiction as best as we can: no, you probably won’t go to jail for watching True Blood on a bootleg website. But yes, this bill does have some prickly bits, and there’s definitely stuff here that warrants some concern.

In yet another turn in our ongoing coverage of the North Face counterfeiting case, The Public Interest Registry is no longer being held in contempt for resolving domains associated with the counterfeiters' websites. The Judge agreed with the PIR's analysis regarding the court's authority to hold in contempt a nonparty for which there was no in personam jurisdiction:

I recently wrote a post about a string of counterfeit clothing websites, and how a New York District judge held the Public Interest Registry in contempt for failing to remove the counterfeit domains from its database. Just a heads-up: as of June 24th, 2011 at 9:44 AM EST, the counterfeit domain names (such as cheapnorthface.org) no longer resolve. I assume this means that PIR took action to remove the domain names from its registry, as per the judge’s stay order.

<

p class="msonormaltable">Try entering “CHEAPNORTHFACECLOTHING.COM” into your browser and see what pops up. Should be nothing. The domain was one of many to be permanently shut down, due to an injunction granted by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in the Southern District of New York. The domain, if you didn’t guess by the name, led to a site that sold cheap clothes claiming to be North Face, and was part of a network of counterfeit clothing websites mimicking everything from Polo Ralph Lauren to Nike. In all, the list of literally thousands of seized domains represented the largest counterfeiting ring ever discovered in internet history. OK, now try typing in “CHEAPNORTHFACE.ORG.” As of time of writing, that address leads to an active site.

The technology site ars technica recently posted a feature story by Peter Hanna asking if 3D printing is, in the words of the headline, “The next Napster?”  While it is encouraging to see more people wrestling with the question of how intellectual property law and policy relate to the emerging technology of 3D printing, the article is full of some unwarranted assumptions that could skew the debate going forward. 

In the comments in a recent blog post about 3D printing and intellectual property that focused on the board game Settlers of Catan the comments of someone named Neil caught my eye. 

The original post was about how limited the intellectual property protection for board games was, and ultimately concluded that printing a new 3D board was not an infringement.  It then went on to invite discussion about what this lack of protection should mean going forward.

As the Net Neutrality debate brews, PK and others continue push for strengthening the proposal. Our three points of concern are ensuring protections for wireless access to the Internet, preventing paid prioritization, and simplifying the definition of “broadband Internet access service” (to avoid potential loopholes). Senator Al Franken sent a letter to the FCC Friday emphasizing the importance of “significantly strengthen[ing]” the proposal. Also, PK’s head of government relations responded to the mythical the meme that “300 Members of Congress are opposed to Net Neutrality”.