Interesting Article. Has Real Networks Violated the DMCA for reverse engineering other company's file formats for Real Player 10?

Caught Peeking At The Centerfolds? The 9th Circuit (ironically, SPN's least favorite court) has allowed Playboy to continue its suit against Netscape for the keywords "playboy" and "playmate." Netscape, who no doubt wants to argue that they were just reading the articles, may have infringed on Playboy's famous marks. This trademark infringement case has profound implications for the online advertising and search engine industries, and by extension, on a core question of digital piracy.

531 reasons not to infringe. The RIAA announced copyright infringement lawsuits today against 532 individuals accused of swapping songs online. Like the biblical story, we assume that 1 innocent person can be found in the lot of them. In any case, as we have said before, we support the RIAA enforcement of artists' intellectual property rights, and we regret that an industry has found itself forced to sue its own customers.

91% of Broadband Users Have Spyware on their Computers. A study last year by the National Cyber Security Alliance was not encouraging, particularly for small publishers seeing their revenues decimated by the growing spyware scourge. See page 32. www.staysafeonline.info/press/060403.pdf (requires PDF reader).

ISP's uncooperative with the RIAA. http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3300211.

ID Theft Link. If you think you're a victim of identity theft, you'll want to visit the Federal Trade Commission's Webpage on ID Theft, which contains useful information plus an ID Theft Affidavit to notify creditors.

Donations Made, Thanks to You. Stop Piracy Now, Inc. is pleased to announce that donations have been made to the Center for Democracy & Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Though we often disagree with positions taken by these recipients, we feel that the work of both the CDT and the EFF have advanced the dialog over piracy-related matters. Public awareness of the issues is vital to SPN's mission, and we recognize what these organizations have done to advance the debate.

How does SPN earn funds to donate? SPN's founders received the disgorgement of certain travel-related Internet domains as a result of copyright infringement lawsuits filed against their owners. SPN donates a portion of the profits from these sites' travel sales to piracy-related causes. Links to these sites can be found at Allhotelsin.com. We thank you for your support.

Anyone Remember Junk Faxes? In light of the deluge of 100's of e-mail spam we all receive everyday, it seems almost quaint to remember the good ol' days when getting 10 junk faxes was a big deal. Those faxes, however, were annoying enough for Congress to pass the TCPA in 1991 restricting them, and after many years a very prolific faxer is finally facing the music.

The FCC announced today that it is levying a $5.38 million dollar fine against Fax.com, Inc., who took advantage of digital technology to take faxing to a new level of calculated efficiency. SPN applauds the decision because unwanted faxes are simply another form of piracy -- one where the sender of the fax essentially seizes the resources of the fax receipient. Let's hope it doesn't take as many years for the government, armed with its new CAN-SPAM Act, to levy its first multimillion dollar fine against junk faxing's offspring, the big-time spammers.

A free market defeating piracy? Back on September 4th, we wrote about how the Universal Music Group had reduced the price of an average CD to $12.98, in effect recognizing the need to combat eroding market size due to P2P pirates. Alas, piracy seemed to be getting the upper hand and we lamented that the ends did not justify the means -- piracy was not an acceptable method to counter a broken market.

Now, thankfully, it looks like market forces may finally be starting to turn the tide. In a little-noticed ruling this past week, the Department of (sometimes) Justice decided to drop an antitrust investigation against the music industry-controlled Pressplay and Musicnet services. The DOJ's original concern was that the licensing of music by the major labels to their own joint ventures was anti-competitive. Not so, apparently. At long last, the free market seems to have reached the record industry. Services like iPod/iTunes have forever changed the competitive landscape. The DOJ thus concludes that "consumers can now download individual songs from a growing number of competing digital music suppliers, each of which offers songs from... all five of the major record labels."

SPN predicts that prices for music will continue to drop (even as transaction volume rises), and music pirates everywhere will lose their tired, threadbare excuse that they are being charged too much. It's about time.

What Happens When U Infringe on a Trademark. In a small victory for anti-piracy efforts, WhenU, the operator of a service commonly known as spyware, was slapped with an injunction this week by New York District Judge Deborah A. Batts. Unfortunately, Judge Batts failed to recognize the copyright aspect of the case, limiting the impact of the ruling.

A previous case in which WhenU fared better, securing their right to pop up ads over U-Haul's website, is currently being appealed. SPN will keep you posted of developments as we hear them, and we're grateful to Judge Batts for being one of the first jurists to recognize that spyware's business model is not only ethically troubling, but actionable.