Copyright - or Wrong

(Newser) - The latest music copyright battle has pitted Warner Music against Nokia. Warner refuses to sell its tunes through the new Nokia Music Store website, on grounds that another Nokia service, the file-sharing site Mosh, enables swapping of copyrighted material, the Wall Street Journal reports. Music from Universal, Sony BMG, and EMI is available on Nokia Music Store. More »

(Newser) - Baby's got moves. And now he's got a lawyer, too. A YouTube video of an 18-month-old rocking out to the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" has ignited a legal fight involving the music industry, a ticked-off mom and Prince himself. The lawsuit—prompted when YouTube pulled the video at the request of music honchos—could help define copyright laws, says ABC News. More »

(Newser) - Comcast is deliberately preventing its customers from using file-sharing services like BitTorrent, eDonkey, and Gnutella, the AP reports. Thecountry's second-largest Internet service provider claims that it does not block "access" to P2P apps; that may be technically true. Tests by the AP showed that while downloads were unaffected, attempts to upload files using P2P were blocked—and those services depend on 2-way traffic. More »

(Newser) - In an unusual truce, eight media and Internet companies are banding together to combat the explosion of copyrighted material posted on the web, the Wall Street Journal reports. The group, led by Disney and Microsoft, has framed a set of guidelines; copyright holders in the group agree not to pursue Internet companies for infringement if they're followed. There’s one wrinkle: Google, YouTube’s parent, is conspicuously absent. More »

(Newser) - A single mom recently hit with a $220,000 penalty for P2P file-sharing of copyrighted music online is asking for a new trial, or a reduction of damages to between$0 and $150. News.com reports that attorneys for Jammie Thomas, the first person ever brought to trial for file-sharing, plan to argue that damages awarded to the recording industry are excessive. More »

(Newser) - The fortunes of Snocap, the follow-up project of Napster founder Shawn Fanning, continue to wane: the company has laid off 60 percent of its workforce and appears to be for sale. A spokeswoman for the online music-licensing company says that Snocap "has received interest from several companies and is pursuing that," CNET reports. More »

(Newser) - Ordered to pay $9,250 for each of 24 illegally shared songs, a 30-year-old Native American single mother has decided to appeal the judgment against her in a copyright infringement case, her lawyer announced in a CNN interview. A jury determined last week that she owed a total of $222,000 to the music labels they believed were damaged by her use of the Kazaa file-sharing network. More »

(Newser) - A Minnesota woman was found guilty of copyright infringement today in the first file-sharing case to go before a US jury, Wired reports. Jammie Thomas, a single mother, was ordered to pay $222,000 in fines, or $9,250 for each of the 24 shared songs that were the subject of the suit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America. More »

(Newser) - Apparently YouTube forgot to make a deal for the music and lyrics played on its website, or so claims a music publishers’ association that has joined a growing copyright lawsuit aimed at Google, the site's owner, ars technica reports. YouTube, which did agree to share ad revenue with four major music labels, continues to remove copyright-violating videos when asked and plans to install a new filtering system by fall. More »

(Newser) - The titles are unintentionally hilarious— Harry Potter and the Big Funnel, Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain Doll —but China's thriving piracy industry is no laughing matter. The Times looks at the phenomenon of "Harry" knockoffs, a prob