copyright infringement and irony

Interesting article in Wired about a lawsuit against Scribd, the document hosting service. The nub:

The novel lawsuit, filed by a children’s author in Texas last Friday, maintains that Scribd unlawfully copies the text of books and other publications to compare new uploads against the copyrighted work and to block those files from its server.

Without getting too much into the details, Scribd’s defence is that they are using the source materials in question to ensure that its services are not used to infringe copyright in those source materials.

Details aside, Camara speculated that Scribd is likely to license its filtering technology that includes an undisclosed number of digital fingerprinted works. That such filters are good for copyright owners is beside the point, he said.

“In a couple of years of developing this, Scribd might turn around and license it,” he said. “The profits generated from that should be shared.”

Illustrates, somewhat ironically, the dangers fraught with attempting to police infringement, rather than taking a more passive approach. Not that that is without risk either.

A copy of the claim can be found on Scribd.

canadian hacker puts judge in prison

Odd where you find stuff and don’t find stuff. Noticed this story in The Inquirer. The nub:

The case was all started when a Canadian hacker Brad Willman broke into the judge’s Irvine home computer and discovered sexually explicit images of young boys and a diary that revealed Kline’s fantasies involving young boys. A subsequent police search of the Judge’s court computer revealed more images and more dodgy Web sites.

Kline is the judge in question. In Orange County. Apart from the irony of the situation I thought it was somewhat interesting that it didn’t (apparently) see much coverage in Canada, notwithstanding the origins of the hacker in question.