Barney Barney

Thanks to BNA for putting me on the trail of the new US court action by a website operator (supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation) against the owners of the trade marks and copyright related to Barney the dinosaur (big, pink, very popular for those of you who you don't have kids).

Concerned at complaints of infringement made in respect of websites parodying Barney, the EEF has supported this action, which relates to a non commercial website. The court papers also recite a number of other instances in which it is alleged the IP owners have behaved improperly and made threats. A declaration of non infringement is sought, on the basis of consitutional rights to freedom of expression and the fair use doctrine.

Will be interesting to see how this one progresses. As seen in Eldred, when the EEF are involved, the balance of power is at least restored. Where is the line with parody? What is the impact of free expression? What is the scope of fair use here - what do human rights arguments add? Other than the Wind Done Gone, most of the cases have been fairly pro IP owner - time for a change?

Ignorance of the law??

Thanks to the Guardian for this comment on public access to a database of legislation. Essentially, this is being seen as a value added product, for which a charge will be made. The article says it all. This reliance upon Crown copyright does seem to shut down basic information, removing essential material from the public domain. Rights to information, education, property affected? A Magill type challenge??

Whither Apple?

Greetings from the Festival City where the weird is presently commonplace - rather mundane, in context, was my colleague Andres' sighting of Sherlock Holmes in the quad.

Although IP, competition and human rights questions seem mainly to be continuing to have a well earned break - objections to "Rebus MacTaggart" and "to google" aside - the fate of Apple and iTunes remains uncertain (thanks to BNA for the link to this summary). A nice little mix of copyright, corporate envy and (apparent) fundamental rights.

I do have a hint of sympathy for Apple - spotting a market gap with the Napster sagas, it did develop a means of downloading music which did not enrage copyright owners - subject of course to payment of a small fee....After the sales came rolling in, they meet the fate of many successful businesses and enthusiastic consumers - the backlash. And with the legislative battles in France to some extent at an end, Scandanavia is making it clear that European consumers and their advocates will not now lie down.

World Computer Law Conference Edinburgh September 2006

A quick reminder/advert for this most excellent conference being organised by Lilian Edwards and Andres Guadamuz. Particularly exciting should be the inaugural GikII event - the narrative on the site describes this so much better than I ever could, and the list of papers MUST be seen to be believed. I look forward to joining you all on the digital omnibus in September.

New appointment

Apologies for lack of recent postings... combination of heat - in Edinburgh, almost unheard of - and a lack of developments at the juncture of at least two of our fields can be blamed.

Also, an announcement that co-blogger Abbe Brown has been appointed Lecturer in Information Technology Law at the University of Edinburgh with effect from 1 August 2006 (and very much looking forward to it).