News surrounding the free software world.

News

August 2009

August 3

Reasons Why Copyright On Art And Music Could Be Deemed Unconstitutional

I've often discussed the original constitutional reasoning behind patents and copyright law, specifically the phrase we all know in Article 1, Section 8: The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; From this, I still believe it's quite clear that if copyright or patents are used in a way that does not "promote the progress" of those things, then it is unconstitutional to use copyright or patent law in that way. Full Story

Tenenbaum Dinged $22,500 Per Song; $675,000 Total

After admitting flat out yesterday that he downloaded and distributed songs using file sharing software, and that he lied about it, there wasn't a question of whether or not Joel Tenenbaum would be found guilty. In fact, the judge even said that the question wasn't even at issue. The only thing the jury had to work out was how much the damages would be, and they didn't take long at all, awarding $22,500 per song, or a total of $675,000. While a lot less than what the Jammie Thomas jury awarded, it's still a hefty chunk of change. Full Story