You probably remember the online outrage over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) copyright enforcement proposal. Last week, the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force released a report on digital copyright policy that endorsed one piece of the controversial proposal: making the streaming of copyrighted works a felony. As it stands now, streaming a copyrighted work over the Internet is considered a violation of the public performance right. The violation is only punishable as a misdemeanor, rather than the […]

A UN agency is trying to calm fears that the internet could be damaged by a conference it is hosting. Government regulators from 193 countries are in Dubai to revise a wide-ranging communications treaty. Google has warned the event threatened the “open internet”, while the EU said the current system worked, adding: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But the agency said action was needed to ensure investment in infrastructure to help more people access the […]